Within about five minutes, Spike knew without a doubt that he was thoroughly, completely buggered.

There was no way that he was going to be able to obey the Slayer’s merciless, utterly unreasonable command, her knew – not with the expert actions of her hot, wet mouth working him closer and closer to the edge of sweet oblivion.

Did she even know what she was *doing* to him?

*Of course she does, mate,* he reminded himself. *That’s why she’s doing it. And she calls *you* evil!*

“You know, pet…” he gasped out, around a strangled moan of pleasure as the Slayer employed her teeth, gently but firmly, on the underside of his erection, “…some things – are bloody well – out of a bloke’s hands, love…I’ve only got…*gah!*…so much control, B-*Buffy*! Bloody hell!” He moaned, hardly able to maintain a coherent thought, let alone get it out properly, under her expert ministrations.

Much to his dismay, however, as soon as he *did*, the soft heat of the Slayer’s mouth immediately left his member, intensely more desperate now than it had been before she started. The cool air of the room felt frigid against his hard, quivering manhood, and he immediately longed for her to touch him again.

“Well, maybe you’d better get *more* control, Spikey,” Buffy suggested in a light, mocking tone of wicked amusement, and in the next moment, he felt her fingertips lightly stroking over the sensitive underside of his balls.

His back arched and his body thrust involuntarily upward toward nothing, as he drew in a sharp breath at the unexpected powerful touch – just before she withdrew her hand completely. “*Please!*” he gasped. “Buffy, *please*!”

“Maybe I shouldn’t,” she mused playfully. “I mean – if you can’t take it and still do as I say…” There was a false concern in her voice, as he heard it move as she stood up from where she had been, on her knees between his legs, to a spot nearer to his head. Her voice was soft and wickedly enticing as she added, “I’d hate to have to punish you.”

He stifled the groan of mingled desire and frustration that rose up in him at her words, the reaction that would have made it even more obvious to her just how well her little torture act, refusing to grant him the satisfaction that he craved, was working.

*Yeah – like she can’t tell by the ‘you moaning her name and begging for more’ bit!*

“You know you’re bloody eviler than I am, right?” he gasped, his voice breaking slightly, as he struggled to regain his breath. It was easier than before, because of the fact that she was currently *not* touching him…

Though that was certainly not a fact he was pleased with in any way.

“You know,” Buffy said thoughtfully, and he could imagine the pensive little frown that would be crinkling her flawless brow, the adorable little wrinkle of her nose as she considered before speaking, a hard note to her calm, quiet voice, “I’m fairly certain I told you *no* talking!”

*Adorable my arse! Soddin’ bint’s a bloody sadist!*

“Buffy, love,” he objected softly, his tone pleading and apologetic, aware that any attempt at salvaging his pride in this particular situation would be useless. “I didn’t mean to, pet…please…I swear, pet, I’m gonna dust if you don’t touch me…”

He was handcuffed, naked on the Slayer’s bed, with an erection to end all erections that he was currently refusing to touch because he had failed to go along with her unreasonable demands.

Pride lost all meaning when a bloke was in a position like that.

However, his humble pleading did not have quite the effect he wanted on the impassive Slayer, who merely moved around the bed behind him, leaning across it so that her head was near his shoulder, not saying a word – yet.

“Please, Buffy,” he babbled breathlessly, as the Slayer began to kiss his throat, his shoulder, his chest, moving down his body in a slow, leisurely way. The feel of her soft, silken hair against his bare skin as she moved only served to drive him to a greater level of need, without her ever touching his mercilessly teased and now cruelly neglected cock.

“I won’t talk, I won’t move, won’t do a bloody thing unless you want me to! Please, I’ll be quiet…please, Buffy…”

The Slayer raised her mouth from its torturously mild attentions at those words.

“And yet,” she murmured softly, with a faint note of amusement. “you’re still talking.”

He felt her soft, warm hand reach down to rest on his side, just above his hip, her fingertips sliding upward in a slow, sensuous, feather-light touch that sent deliciously pleasurable little shivers up his spine, and a jolt of sensation straight to his aching, desperate manhood.

“Wonder what the problem is?” Buffy whispered in his ear, in a low, suggestive tone, lightly scratching up his ribcage with her fingernails, smiling against his neck when she felt the shudder that went through him at her touch.

She brought her other hand to his other side, wrapping her arms around him from behind, employing both hands to drive him made with soft, enticing touches, moving slowly from his sides to his chest, as she lowered her mouth again to kiss her way from his shoulder to his throat, pausing for a moment over the faded but still present, century-old scar from his sire’s bite.

He held his breath when he realized what had caught her attention, wondering what she would do. He was desperately craving an intensity that she was at the moment deliberately withholding from him, teasing him with playful, suggestive moves which served only to *increase* his desire, without doing a bloody thing to satisfy it.

But now – her attention was focused on the scars on his throat – and the intensity seemed to have returned to the equation for the Slayer, as he heard her heartbeat quicken slightly, and her hands stilled for a moment on his chest.

But then, just as quickly, Buffy recovered – at least outwardly – and her hands resumed their slow, sensuous tour of his body, coming to rest on his chest, her fingertips tracing light, tingling little circles around his sensitive nipples as she leaned in to whisper in his ear in a low, almost dangerous voice,

“I thought you said you were all mine.”

The unmistakably possessive note to her voice, in combination with her sensual, intimate touch, nearly brought about the climax he was desperately fighting not to achieve – not yet.

“I am,” he whispered in a low, husky voice of deep emotion, the words coming out without his really thinking about them. “I *am* yours, Buffy – completely.”

She froze again, and he suddenly felt a little sick feeling begin in the pit of his stomach, the beginnings of a sensation he had felt many times, over and over throughout the time he had spent with Buffy these past few months.

He had done it again.

He had said precisely the wrong thing, something too intimate and intense to allow her to continue to pretend that there was nothing between them but physical lust – and any moment now, she would be standing up and hurrying out, fleeing the depth of feeling that always seemed to terrify her so, and send her running from his arms.

He only hoped that she remembered to take the handcuffs off first.

The fact that this time, they were in *her* house did not even occur to him.

But Buffy surprised him again, when instead of immediately moving away from him, she only raised one of her hands from his chest to cover his mouth, whispering in his ear with playful, mock severity, “*Shhh*!” She took him by surprise when her other hand, still playing idly over his chest, rose to pinch his nipple sharply.

She pressed her hand more firmly over his mouth, muffling the little cry that rose in his throat, as she whispered against his ear, “What does it take to shut that mouth of yours up, Baby?”

The playfully threatening tone of her voice, demanding his silence – the increased sensation of being out of control due to her hot little hand *enforcing* his silence – and the slight twinge of pain mingled with pleasure that came from her touch on his body sent him hurtling dangerously closer to the edge at breakneck speed.

He gasped for breath as her fingertips gently soothed the spot she had pinched, pressing hard enough against the sensitive flesh to stimulate him further as she did so.

Her light, gentle kisses moving up his throat again sent a fresh tremor of desire all through him that was only intensified when she moved her hand from his mouth to his forehead, pressing his head back and baring his throat to her attentions.

Her voice was low, lusty, and possessive as she whispered, “You better *believe* you’re mine!”

He didn’t know which shocked him more – the throaty, desirous words that thrilled him to his very core at hearing them – or what she did next. He was still processing the fact of what she had said, when she lowered her mouth directly over the scar on his throat and bit him – gently, not hard enough to break the skin.

Honestly, Buffy had no idea what sort of effect it would have on the vampire. For a Slayer, she was painfully clueless about things such as vampires’ sexual habits, bonds such as that between a sire and a childe, claiming and such.

She was actually quite lucky, all things considered, that she had not accidentally broken his skin, because whether or not she meant it, she would have gotten herself in far deeper than she meant to go right then.

The simple truth was, she was curious – but she was doing more than just playing.

Some part of her had not known what to expect, wanting to see what sort of a reaction she could get out of the vampire. But she instinctively knew, somehow, that it was not exactly the appropriate or accepted thing to do, to bite him on his sire’s mark – and she found herself actually hoping that her presumption would anger him.

But anger was the farthest thing from the reaction that she got.

Even such a light, gentle bite, a mystically powerless parody of his sire’s bite, had an incredibly powerful effect on the vampire she had beitten.

Maybe it was the reminder of the intense, existence-altering experience that she was playfully re-enacting, bringing to mind the first time in William’s existence that he had felt desired, wanted, like something beautiful and capable of inspiring love and devotion – anything besides repulsion – in a beautiful woman.

Or maybe it was the fact that he wanted to badly to *be* Buffy’s, to have her claim him – not necessarily in the traditional vampire sense, with the biting and bloodletting and all that went along with it – because that was more than he ever dared expect from the Slayer.

But just to have her claim him, in the sense of *not* treating him like a dark, dirty secret of which she was horribly ashamed – to have her kiss him casually, or even hold his hand, in public, with her friends – admitting what they had to the people who were close to her.

Acknowledging the gift he had already given her long ago – of himself – and openly accepting it, for all to see that he was hers – and she was his.

Or maybe, just maybe, it was all of the above, in combination with his desperate physical need of the moment, that drove him over the edge of ecstasy, consumed with pleasure he could no longer control, as he allowed the sensations he had been struggling to overcome to finally overcome *him* instead, allowing his release to engulf him completely, with a primal roar of passion as he came, hard.

“Buffy,” he gasped as the wave of sensation began to ebb, passing over him, and he began to regain control of such basic functions as speech. “Bloody hell, Buffy, what you do to me!”

The awe, the almost worshipping reverence of his voice, sent a little thrill through the Slayer’s heart, of pride, satisfaction – and a warm, gentle affection that was deeper than that – than mere affection – the one feeling in the whole mix that she desperately tried to ignore.

She frowned in frustration, trying to push all the other, more confusing emotions down. The bite had been intended to cross a line – to anger Spike, upset him, draw out of him the mistrust that she knew had to be buried somewhere within him, under the false feelings he *thought* he had for her.

She had been certain that when she had made the bold, presumptuous move of biting him as she had done, even *hinting* at obliterating the mark of his sire, the vampire he had loved for over a hundred years – it would make him furious.

She had imagined him bucking her off of him, calling her every filthy name he could think of, demanding that she free him, stalking off and, with any luck, never speaking to her again.

*With any bad, rotten, horrible luck…*

*No!* she corrected herself fiercely. *You *want* him to get over this! You want him to stop wanting you! You do! It’s for the best! You don’t love him – you *can’t* -- and he deserves someone who can…*

No, she had never imagined the surprising reaction that Spike actually had to her actions. The thought that her simple words of possessive desire, and a simple, play-acting sort of gesture, a bite that he must have hardly felt physically, could bring him enough pleasure to shove him over the edge into ecstasy, when he had been fighting it so hard, trying so hard to do as she had told him…

The idea that among all the physical pleasure she had been giving him, it was the idea of being *hers* -- of her acceptance and desire for him – that had brought him off…it was just…just…

*Disturbing,* she decided forcefully in her mind. *Upsetting. Weird…*

But the hard knot in her throat, the heavy feeling in her chest, the strange prickling sensation behind her eyes, spoke of very different emotions than those.

The slight frown that formed suddenly on the vampire’s face reminded her of his powerful sense of smell, intensified by his current lack of sight, that allowed him to smell even the faint scent of the salt of her unshed tears.

“Buffy?” he said in a soft, slightly worried voice, hoarse, barely recovered from the past few moments. “You all right, love?”

She was quiet for a moment, closing her eyes, squeezing back the tears, swallowing hard and making a concerted effort to fight back the softer -- *weak, selfish* -- emotions that were trying to take her over.

After just a moment’s hesitation, she forced a bright smile to her lips, knowing it would show in her voice, as she replied, “Just fine, Spike – wondering something, though…”

“What’s that, love?”

Damn it, that soft, gentle concerned sound was still in his voice.

Buffy did her best to ignore it.

She moved to stand beside the bed again, as the vampire was struggling unsuccessfully to pull himself up slightly on his bound arms. With a sudden, quick movement, she had seized a handful of his disheveled platinum hair, pulling his head back slightly in a dominative sort of gesture.

He relaxed his head, leaning it back into her hand, slow smile spreading across his face. It was quite obvious that she was not going to talk about what was bothering her at the moment. On the contrary, it appeared that the Slayer wanted to play – so he would go along with her little game.

As she had known that he would.

She leaned in close to his face, her free hand trailing across his chest and up to his throat, ghosting over the marks she had bitten and smiling at the shudder she had known she could get from him, before trailing her fingertips up to trace the line of his lips as she replied in a hard, dangerous voice.

“Why you’re still talking.”

She pulled his head closer to her by her fist at the back of his head, tangled in his hair, her lips descending aggressively on his and kissing him with an intensity that had him already becoming hard again. She pulled back long before he wanted her too, yet remaining so close that he could feel the movement of her lips into a wicked little smirk as she spoke softly, seductively – and yet with a hint of danger that sent a shiver down his spine.

“Looks like I’m gonna have to punish you.”