At seventeen, Buffy had experienced a fair share of kisses. While she wasn’t as experienced in the realm of tonsil hockey as, oh say, Cordelia, she was a girl of former popularity and one or two slapdash pre-Angel boyfriends who had enjoyed sticking their tongues down her throat. She’d also shared a couple quick kisses with Owen, the poetry enthusiast that she’d crushed on hard the year before. Yes, as far as first-date kisses went, she was quite the Guru.
Then Angel had come along, and her past of sloppy, slobbery kisses had been erased with lips made of sin. He’d kiss her, and her world spiraled out of control. Her skin hummed, her pulse raced, and her heart about exploded. When he kissed her, she felt like dying.
The lips that were caressing hers now were most certainly not Angel’s. If Angel’s lips were made of sin, these were made of redemption.
She felt like she’d stepped into a dream or a painting—something perfect but intangible. Something that she’d spent her life reaching for; something she only touched when her eyes were closed. Cool hands cupped her face as a foreign tongue explored her mouth. He was whimpering against her, murmuring sweet little nothings into her mouth, stroking her skin with his fingertips. It was the most sensual moment of her life, and she didn’t even know his name.
Pretty much because she had yet to open her eyes. She was too afraid of ruining the illusion. Undoubtedly, she was at home in bed, enjoying a nice, naughty wet-dream. Or she’d blacked out while dancing at the Bronze…and ew. Some guy just randomly comes by and makes with the kissage? That was just wigsome.
Only not so, because she was buttery goo and that was always a good thing. So if she had blacked out at the Bronze and was being taken advantage of by creepy-guy, she’d let it slide. Anyone connected to these lips couldn’t be that bad. These lips were lips of good. Good, good lips. She’d happily marry the body attached to these lips, if only to stake her earthbound ownership on their magic touch.
“Mmm…”
Then she opened her eyes, and the world around her crashed.
Spike must have sensed it the second that she did, for his eyes flew open and she found herself suddenly drowning in a crystal ocean. No man’s eyes should ever be that blue. Especially if said man was the proprietor of the Lips of Good.
Okay, Buffy, prioritize.
“SPIKE?!”
Those totally illegal eyes of his flashed with an intoxicating mixture of arousal and confusion. Then he stepped back, shoving her away from him as his face contorted in disgust. The same disgust that she was surely mirroring back at him…that was, if she’d managed to pick her jaw up off the floor and roll her tongue back inside her mouth.
Spike? Spike owned the Lips of Good?
And why the hell had he been kissing her?
It didn’t take long to remember; thankfully, recollection spilled inward before she could open her mouth and level some humiliating accusation his way. Something along the lines of: “How dare you sneak in here and kiss me?” when he was obviously as bewildered and shaken as she was.
The disgust, though, was a bit much. Her ego was fragile enough as it was. She didn’t need to know that kissing her equaled gross for men; even if he was her mortal enemy. Come on. Some allowances ought to be made.
“Ghosts,” she blurted, suddenly desperate to cover her tracks. Maybe Spike didn’t know about the school being possessed. Maybe he just thought she wanted him real bad. And maybe she should stop shaking and staring at his Lips of Good and get back to what she’d come here to do. “The school is possessed by ghosts…and hey, why are you out of your chair?”
Spike blinked at her, his mouth somewhat agape, his chest heaving deep, needless pants.
And then it came back to her. Everything. The pained conversation between Grace and James. Shooting Spike in the chest. Watching him fall over the railing. Watching him fall, and being swallowed in despair. Going back to the music room and turning on the record. And then she’d put the gun to her head, and she would have fired if Spike hadn’t been there to stop her.
No. That wasn’t quite right.
Grace. It was Grace.
“We heal,” he said suddenly.
Buffy shook her head and met his eyes reluctantly, ashamed to discover that she’d been staring at his mouth again. It was really unfair. It was completely unfair. Why, out of all the men in the world—all the living, breathing, non-vampire men—did he get those lips?
Furthermore, she’d been so transfixed on that beautiful mouth of his that she completely missed out on what he’d said. And knowing her luck, it was probably important. “What?”
“Vamps. We heal. Bloody lot faster than humans, too.”
“Oh.” Oh. Right. The chair—or rather, the lack of the chair. Spike was standing in front of her on two healed legs, and he’d just saved her life. He’d saved her from blowing her brains out and given her a kiss to end all kisses on top of that.
Or maybe the kiss had been Grace, too. Maybe Spike kissed like a girl.
The thought inspired a nervous, high-pitched titter.
“Slayer?”
“You kissed me.”
Ugh. Verbal diarrhea much?
Why oh why did the floor not open up and swallow her? Why? It was the Hellmouth; one would think that the floor would be more with the random opening and swallowing of red-faced slayers during seconds of blind stupidity.
Spike stared at her. “No, you kissed me,” he retorted, perfecting an impression of a three-year-old.
“You were all with the lunging and the grabby!”
“Oh, don’t bloody flatter yourself!”
“Flatter? You think I want vamp slobber all over my shirt?” She forced a grimace and began wiping at her top with forced vehemence. Truth be told, she couldn’t stop shaking. She flexed her hands into fists, her eyes taking a quick survey of the room, searching for something to hold onto to prevent herself from lunging into his arms. It had been so long since anyone had held her like he had just seconds ago. Since she’d been kissed like that—since she’d felt alive.
And it was fake. Every second. Every blissful touch was pure fabrication.
“Well,” Spike snapped, “of the two of us, you are bloody more likely to snog the enemy. Why don’t you tell me?”
He would throw that in her face.
Buffy waited for the perfect retort to come to her, and her shoulders slumped when it missed its cue. “This is pointless,” she decided.
“You’re telling me,” he snarled. “Gonna take a biblical flood of alcohol to get the slayer taste outta my mouth. Don’t know how your precious Angel could stomach it.” He made a face and wiped his mouth with the back of his duster sleeve, and though Buffy was convinced that much was designed only to add insult to injury, his barb hit its mark with a vengeance. “Look, you daft bint, I was only coming here to see if you would…”
The air between them fell eerily silent. She waited. His face contorted into a scowl, and he did not continue.
“You’re out of your chair,” she repeated, flexing her hands again. Her lips were still tingling—even the intrusion of Spike’s snide remarks and all the reality they bore with them couldn’t stop her insane want to leap back into what the spirits had started. The past few weeks had taken a disastrous toll on her heart. She hadn’t known how starved she was for contact. How much she missed the simple pleasure of a loving embrace. And while Spike would sooner saw off his foot than play the part of the strong male arms to rock her to sleep at night, right now, with the taste of him in her mouth, her mind was fogged and she could see no one else.
Not that Buffy needed those strong male arms; it was just comforting. It made her feel less alone when she knew, ultimately, that she was all she had. It provided a sweet lie—a lie she’d been all too willing to live without the intrusion of reality. And even so, Angel had never really offered to play the role of her male lead and take up the task of holding her at night. The implication was always there, sure, but he’d turn around and vanish just when things became interesting. Until the end. Until the one time he did hold her in his arms…until he bolted from bed and left her to his soulless counterpart.
Buffy blinked. Spike was staring at her.
“What?”
“You were off,” he said slowly, his tone belittling. She suddenly felt like an unruly child that had just broken the same rule fifteen times in a row.
“Off?”
“You mentioned the chair again, an’ then you went off.”
“You’re not in your chair.”
Spike nodded, the incredulous look on his face never waning. “A fact, I believe, we’ve more than established.”
“Why haven’t you tried to kill me?”
At that, he balked, and it pleased her that she’d finally caught him off guard. “Well,” he replied, blinking, “why haven’t you tried to kill me?”
Because my lips are still numb from kissage, and it’s gone to my brain.
“I asked you first.”
He sneered and rocked on his heels. “I asked you second,” he retorted.
Buffy frowned. “You can’t do that. It’s cheating.”
The look on his face fell from disbelieving to amused, and the change enchanted her. She’d never seen Spike amused—not genuinely amused, anyway. There had been that sadistic smirk when he’d thought she and Angel were about to burn at the hand of the Judge, and the proud little grin when he’d first stepped out of the shadows at the Bronze. But nothing that suggested that he was honest-to-God humored.
It was disconcerting. Seeing Spike look at her like a human, particularly after he’d kissed her lips off, threw her for a loop. She wanted him evil and threatening. She wanted some of her own back.
She wanted to stop shaking, dammit. It was just Spike. Spike, whose ass should have been well and truly handed to him by now.
Damn that mouth of his.
“I didn’t come here to fight. I came here because…I wanted…” He paused again, his brow furrowing and his eyes going somewhere that she could not follow. Then, before she could blink, he pivoted on his heel, shaking his head as though to free himself of a wayward thought. “You know what, Slayer? Forget it. Call it a fleeting bout of insanity, yeah? It was bound to happen sometime with the company I keep.”
She was tempted to agree, but curiosity—and a strange want to keep things civil, if not tense and awkward—stopped her. “But you—”
“Forget it.”
“You came here to—”
“An’ now I’m leaving.”
Without even trying to kill me?
That was so…not Spike.
“Jus’ bloody forget it,” he yelled over his shoulder. “An’ don’t get too cozy, Slayer. Next time I see you, it’ll be my fangs in your throat.”
The haunted tone in his voice remained with her the rest of the night.
TBC