He had a hand braced against the shower wall, cool water cascading over his head and running down his body. He had a mouthful of her taste, and his lips hadn’t stopped tingling. In the many years he’d spent wandering the earth, he’d never thought that a simple kiss could make his insides melt.
God. He was such a wanker, and as tonight had so painfully exploited, he’d been without sex too long. Dru’s illness hadn’t allowed them to enjoy any play in the bedroom even before Angelus, and unlike many others of his kind, Spike was a one-woman-vamp. If he couldn’t have Dru, he didn’t want anyone. She was his reason for living, after all. She was his salvation. She was his everything.
That didn’t explain why he currently had his left hand wrapped around his cock, or why the Slayer’s name was on his lips. It didn’t explain why his mind was haunted with the image of her on her knees before him, that perfect mouth of hers sucking him into oblivion.
A long whimper tore through his throat. He was sick. He was bloody certifiable.
He was coming hard.
“Fuck,” he gasped, banging his head against the wall, his hips jerking forward violently. “Buffy.”
Buffy. Buffy. When had she become Buffy to him?
It wasn’t right. None of what had happened tonight was right. He’d gone to her in protest. He’d gone to her as a last bloody resort. He hadn’t gone to see her to have her press her succulent little body against his and kiss him in ways that made him wonder if his lips had been neglected for the past century.
Tonight was about getting his life back on track. About bringing Angelus down. About getting the wanker out of the picture so that Dru would come to her senses and remember who had been there for her without fault.
Spike trembled and shut off the shower.
Buffy.
Buffy had gotten in the way. Buffy and her luscious little mouth. He’d never considered himself the sort of bloke that got so bloody turned on because of a simple kiss; then again, nothing about that kiss had been simple. That kiss had been the sort that would inspire men to storm kingdoms just to win a second taste.
That didn’t change things. A kiss, in the end, was still just a kiss. Buffy’s lips might be delicious, but he’d never know how the rest of her tasted. Never. Tonight had been a mistake. A faux pas. A pathetic stunt played by two miserable excuses for spooks. It changed nothing. Had he been in his right mind, his mouth would never have gotten so close.
Spike frowned. Well, no, that wasn’t right. He still intended to rip her throat out, and that required mouth-on-Buffy action. But in an entirely different context. That was a step necessary to ensure that he got to lick her blood off his fingers. It didn’t mean he wanted to pound his cock into her tight little pussy.
He groaned as his disobedient cock hardened again.
Serves you right for thinking of slayer pussy.
“Spike?”
His head shot up, Drusilla’s scent flooding his nostrils. He was standing starkers in the middle of the room.
Standing, as in not in his wheelchair.
Bleeding fuck. He should have thought before he jumped in the shower. He’d just needed to wash Buffy off his skin as soon as possible.
Pity it didn’t work.
It took only a second to sprint across the room. Spike snatched his jeans from where he’d tossed them on the bed, wrestled with his t-shirt, and threw his duster over his shoulders, only to crash haphazardly into the wheelchair with a gasp as Dru’s head poked into the room.
Spike blinked at her, panting. His hair was wet. His skin smelled like soap. Had Drusilla possessed any of her faculties, she would have known something was up immediately.
He was fortunate, then, that the love of his unlife was uninhibitedly insane.
“Spike, my sweet,” she cooed, twirling as she entered the room. “Daddy has a surprise for you.”
His stomach lurched and his heart sank. So tonight was going to be one of the few nights that Angelus paid attention to him. There was no way this could be good; it merely meant that he’d grown bored with fucking Drusilla in front of the help and wanted to up Spike’s torment by making him watch as another bloke tasted his girl’s quim.
“Is that right?” he drawled, wincing as his hands gripped the wheels of the chair. After this was over, he was going to burn the sodding thing. “What’s that, pet?”
“He says you’ve been a bad doggie.”
At that, Spike froze.
“Have you, my sweet prince? Have you been a bad doggie?” Drusilla smirked and sauntered forward, her hands running a tantalizing trail down her hips and up again until she was pulling at her own nipples through the thin fabric of her top. “Waiting till it burns. The fiddle won’t be played until the city’s on fire. You want it. Daddy says so.”
He swallowed hard and forced a smile. “I always want it, ducks,” he murmured, his eyes falling to her breasts. He knew how they tasted. He knew how every inch of Drusilla tasted. And he loved her taste.
But looking at her, watching her, he couldn’t help but yearn for something hot to offset the cold. She was cold. She’d been cold from the beginning. He’d never known any touch that wasn’t cold.
From where Buffy had held his face earlier tonight, he was still sizzling with warmth. His lips had yet to stop burning.
And the burn was so fucking good, he could barely stand it.
“You want to play in sunshine.”
Spike’s eyes jerked upward and his throat ran dry. “Dru—”
His protest died the second before Angelus’s intrusive scent hit the air. It was over then. He knew, meeting his grandsire’s eyes, that it was over. Everything was over. The plan he’d carefully stitched together had been betrayed, likely by the aroma of slayer musk. Or perhaps Angelus had spied him in his dazed and hasty retreat of the Sunnydale campus. Perhaps. In the state he’d been in, Spike wouldn’t have noticed a ticker tape parade, much less a giant vampire with more forehead than face. Even if said giant vampire just happened to be his least favorite relative.
“Spike,” Angelus said quietly, nodding.
That much told him everything. Angelus knew.
Well bollocks.
Spike met his grandsire’s dark eyes and nodded stoically. “We gonna dance around this, mate?” he asked, arching a brow. “’Cause, truth be told, there are only so many clichés I can handle at a time.”
“There is nothing to dance around, as far as I’m concerned,” Angelus replied, offering little more than an apathetic shrug. “You can walk.”
“Yes. I can also talk,” Spike agreed. “I’ve been told that I have a lovely singing voice.”
“And yet you’re still in that chair.”
“Well, we’ve gotten to know each other so well over the past few months.” He rolled his eyes, his countenance not betraying how fast his mind was racing. “Can’t blame me if you’ve been distracted, mate. What with playing practical jokes on the Slayer’s friends an’ tattlin’ to her mum about popping her cherry, it’s a bloody wonder that you’ve noticed anything else.” His tossed a meaningful, however wasted glance to Dru. “Much as I can recall, it’s none of your bloody business what I can do. I don’t ask for progress reports on your numerous injuries. As it is, the Slayer has landed you quite a few.”
“Sarcasm will get you nowhere, William.”
He shook his head. “That’s such a shame.”
“What I can’t understand is…what were you trying to pull? Kill Buffy and show me for sticking it to your woman? Hmm?” Angelus stalked forward, a dangerous shadow crossing his face. “Have I truly underestimated your ego that much?”
He snickered. “There are great many things you’ve underestimated,” he drawled. “Mate.”
There was a moment of silent contemplation. Angelus simply stared at him.
Then the wanker’s leg shot out and the wheel chair vanished, throwing Spike to the ground and smashing noisily into the wall behind him. “No need for dramatics, then,” the elder vampire sneered. “I never figured you the security-blanket type. And yeah, I might be a little off my game, but time hasn’t changed you much. I know you.”
Spike pressed his palms to the floor and shoved himself to his feet. Know him? Angelus knew him? What a bloody joke. Angelus had never known him. Never. The great git had attempted to mold him into something that he wasn’t. He had an idea of what Spike was. Of who Spike was. He’d never bothered to get to know him. Not once. He knew his habits, perhaps, and that he treasured Dru above all others. But that wasn’t knowing him. That was knowing about him, and there was a bloody big difference.
“You didn’t plan to kill her, then,” Angelus mused, crossing his arms, his brows perking. “And I say that only because you’re here and not dust.”
Spike snorted ineloquently. His grandsire’s lack of confidence in people other than his own over-inflated ego was not so much surprising as it was annoying. The fact remained that Angelus had not once been able to corner a slayer and snap her neck properly. Not once. Not even when he was snogging the stupid chit. And the great sod hated it that a vampire he considered as fumbling and incompetent as Spike had not once, but twice faced a slayer and walked away with another notch on his belt.
“Ye of li’l faith,” he said neutrally, enjoying the ire twist up a notch on Angelus’s face. The wanker just hated it when his audience refused to give him a reaction.
“Well, she’s still alive, too,” the elder continued, “but I figured that was a given.”
“My prince wants to play in sunshine,” Dru observed. “He’s tasted honey and he wants more. More of the pretty little drops of honey.”
Angelus perked a brow. “So that’s what that odor is.”
“Sod off.”
“You tried to get into her pants? What? Are you that desperate?”
Spike’s eyes darkened. “You’re the one who said I had to bloody love her to kill her, right? Though you haven’t been quite as quick to demonstrate that neat li’l tidbit as I’d think. After all, you had the bint’s grubby paws all over you for months an’ you still haven’t managed to do her in good an’ proper?”
Angelus was predictably unbothered by his criticism. “I have plans for the Slayer,” he replied, shrugging.
“Yeah. Sing me another one.”
“You doubt.”
“You’ve given me li’l reason to do anything else.” He nodded to Dru, ignoring the pang that struck his heart at the harsh apathy that danced behind her cold eyes. It wasn’t like he was used to seeing warmth when she looked at him. No, his dark princess had never regarded him with tenderness or affection. Even when she appeared touched at the things he did for her—the small and the very big—the spark of gratitude was always overshadowed by a larger presence of blatant indifference. She didn’t care for him. Not like a lover, at least. More like a favored pet. And while he’d known it for a while—for years, though he’d never wanted to admit it—there was something about seeing it now. Now that he’d tasted true warmth and purity. “’Sides,” he continued, “since you’ve taken mine, I figured I’d sneak a taste of yours. See if her pussy really is tight enough to chase a soul away.”
Just once he’d like to strike a nerve. He’d like Angelus’s cool countenance to fail him completely. He’d like to send the bastard into a jealous rage the likes of which made the ground tremble and the skies quiver. However, even knowing how possessive his grandsire was over what he considered to be his property, there was nothing but cruel humor in his elder’s eyes.
Spike knew that it was obvious to every vamp in proximity that his dick hadn’t gotten any action aside from his left hand all evening. Showers couldn’t wash off the scent of sex. Not for vamps. And perhaps that was why Angelus didn’t give a bugger about what had happened with Buffy tonight. Or why Angelus wasn’t worried that he might have gotten close enough to know what the girl’s silken lips tasted like.
Buffy.
He’d left her confused. Her eyes wide and expectant, her cheeks flushed and her lips swollen from his kisses. He’d left Buffy and he’d returned to his self-made hell. Where Dru looked at him with cold, uncaring eyes. Where he was consigned to the role of the family punch-line. Where there was nothing to do but waste away as the woman he’d devoted eternity to sold herself over and over to another man in the time between planning the apocalypse.
He’d left Buffy standing in that classroom because of what she’d done to him.
What had she done to him?
“Trust me, William,” Angelus said softly, snapping him back to the present. “Nothing there worth tasting.”
Spike blinked stupidly and fought the impulse to laugh. Nothing there worth tasting? Hadn’t this prat ever snogged the Slayer?
Hadn’t his world turned over when he had?
Spike turned his eyes to the ground. Buffy. He’d left her and returned home. And why? Because finding her tongue down his throat was a little surprising; his reaction to her even more so. In those precious few seconds, he’d experienced more, felt more, from a girl possessed by a couple of spooks than he ever had from Dru.
A ghost had given him more warmth than the woman he loved. And his skin was still burning.
No more. No sodding more. He would go back. He would go back to Buffy. He would try again.
He just hoped her lips didn’t get in the way.
And, knowing how sweet she tasted, that he could keep his hands to himself.
TBC