| Shades Of Heaven by Holly |
| Chapter #1 - Once In A Lullaby |
 Author: Holly (holly.hangingavarice@gmail.com) Rating: NC-17 (For language and sexual situations) Timeline: Post Chosen. Summary: A vampire given a new life, a Slayer given a second chance, and the passionate fury in which they come together. Disclaimer: The characters herein are the property of Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. They are being used for entertainment purposes out of respect and admiration, and not for the sake of profit. No copyright infringement is intended. Once In A Lullaby It was quite a sensation, feeling the world slow to a standstill. Feeling the weight beneath her feet stop moving. She had never known the earth’s orbit was something people could feel, and yet when it no longer churned beneath her, she definitely felt that she and the rest of civilization had come to an irreparable breech in time and space. She didn’t know, however, if that was due to physics or the fact that Spike was standing just a few feet away from her. The shadow of their recent trade swarmed around her. She was outside, her hair was mussed, her heart was racing, and Spike was just a few feet from her. “What’s the matter?” she had spat. “Dru dump you again?” A look of hurt had flashed across his face. “Maybe I dumped her,” he had growled. And then it had happened. Something had seized her, and she saw him. Spike. The amazing thing was, he saw her, too. And the next minute, she had lunged into his arms, a sob tearing through her throat. Her body wracking in tremors that threatened to consume her whole, and the cruel twist of fate that had brought this on trembled in turn with the potency of her agony. This wasn’t fair. She had spent too many nights dreaming of him. Wrapped her arms around too many pillows and sobbed out her despair. Had endured too many talks with Willow and assurances from Xander that she would get over it, but she hadn’t. She couldn’t. Her longing had finally manifested into an all-out dementia, and now he was around her. His arms were around her, his mouth pressing eager, ardent kisses into her skin and thrusting her against the side of the building. “Oh God, Buffy.” She quivered into him, cupping his face and commanding his lips with hers. Spike moaned and melted into her, plunging his tongue into her mouth and stealing her away in the mysticism of his sinful kisses. Her legs wound around his waist and she began pulling instinctively on his clothes. There was too much between them. Too much separating her skin from his. She wanted to make the most of this, if this was all she was to have. Too many dreams. Too many wasted nights. “Bloody dream come true,” he murmured into her, sending shivers across her flesh. His hands were hiking up her skirt as his mouth made wicked play against her throat. “My gorgeous Slayer.” An angry throat cleared behind them, but neither bothered to turn around. The world didn’t exist if not for this feeling. “Ummm, hello!” a vaguely familiar voice snapped. “I’m standing right here!” Buffy finally managed to wheedle a hand between them and popped open the clasp of his jeans, jerking his fly down. His erection sprang into her waiting grasp, and a long moan rumbled through his body. “Fuck.” She raised her eyes to his, another shudder wracking her body as she began to pump his flesh rhythmically. In that steady way that she knew he loved. In the way she knew drove him crazy. His eyes went wild with need, and he thrust against her hand ferociously, snarling his approval and dipping his head to nibble again at her skin. A lifetime ago against a very different wall. A lifetime ago, she had done this. A lifetime ago, she could not have imagined whispering how much she loved him into his ear, or feeling relief spread through her at the feel of his touch. Relief that did not come with the added burden of guilt or shame. There was nothing but simple bliss at being held by him. For however long, before it ended and she awoke in her cold, lonely bedroom again. Before she awoke in a world where Spike no longer existed. There were tears scalding down his cheeks. She had never dreamt of those before. “Buffy…” His hand had wheedled inside her panties, skilled fingers gliding over her moist flesh and running lovingly through her thin curls. “So wet.” “Uhhh…” “Ready for me, baby? Ready? I don’ think I can bloody stand it.” “Spike!” “I need you.” His other hand wedged between them and wrapped around her wrist, coaxing her hand away from his cock. Then she felt him between her legs, bunching her panties to the side. The head of his need brushing her intimately, gliding over her folds until he was positioned at her opening. “I need to be inside you. Need you squeezin’ me into bloody oblivion. God, I love you so much.” “Uhhhh!” She nodded frantically, unable to think up a coherent sentence, much less scream her similar need. Reality was closing in on her. Soon it would all be over, and she would be left with the bittersweet memory of a half experienced dream. It just felt so real. “Buffy—” “I…” “Please.” He had never asked her permission before. Never in their sordid affair had he once needed her word before plunging himself inside her. She remembered vaguely that he would growl that he needed her, explore her pussy with his fingers to make sure she was ready, but the words of consent never escaped her lips. They’d never needed to. Except that night. That one night. The night that had changed everything. And then another. Another night—the one she had lived on for the past few months. The one that haunted her in her sleep, revisited her in dreams, and played out what should have been her defining revelation in the mockery that she had turned it into. That night before the last battle that she had spent in his arms. He had asked her permission then, and she had given it to him. And they had made love for the first time. “Please, Buffy…” His other hand slid under her top and cupped her breast, teasing her nipple through her bra. “I need you.” Words returned to her then. Just when she thought fate was being intentionally cruel. “Yes!” She nodded erratically. “Please. Need you.” A look of unbridled awe flashed across his face. She knew that look well. So well. Her heart constricted painfully, her pulse racing uncontrollably. Her fingers were digging into his leather-clad forearms, as though holding him to her would keep the outside world from dragging her away. From placing her back in her empty bed with nothing left but the pitiless silence of her room. If there was a place she wanted to be for the rest of eternity, it was here. Spike shuddered under her touch and gently brushed his lips against hers. Then his erection slipped inside her, and her body sang in pleasure. “Oh God.” Spike tossed his head back in astonishment. “So bleeding warm.” Buffy released a small whimper and arched against him. “I’ve missed you,” she whispered, brow resting against his. Her eyes fluttered shut as his lips kissed away her tears, his hips rocking gently against hers. The boundaries of reality and nirvana collided in a wave of ecstasy, and she lost all grasp of truth. “I’ve missed you so much.” Spike shuddered against her, moving within her in soft, agonizing strokes. Sliding sensually against her, his cock striking her at angles only he could touch. He pressed a kiss against her throat. “Missed you,” he agreed hoarsely. “Every moment.” Her chest tightened and she swept her lips against his cheek, reveling in the feel of him. His body was moving against hers, his cock sliding in and out of her slick passage, eliciting feelings she had thought were dead. Feelings that no dream could mimic. He cupped her ass to haul her into his thrusts, his mouth dropping to her throat, coating her skin with sweet, sensuous kisses. It was so real. She felt everything, and it was so real. “You’re jus’ like I remember,” Spike murmured against her lips, fingers slipping under the cup of her bra to pebble her nipple. “So warm. So perfect.” His thrusts intensified, slow and momentous still, but fused with want that had both their bodies burning. A burning need to beat out time. To reach their pinnacle together before they were whisked away. Never before in her dreams had Spike been equally frantic. In her dreams, Spike was tempered and seductive, always chiding her for her impatience. Coaxing her to a leisure lovemaking that never reached fruition. She always awoke before she could feel that bliss with him. Before she could wrap her arms around him when his body trembled around hers as she exploded, taking him with her. Feeling the warm rush of completion as he lost himself inside her, murmuring his love for her in her hair. That didn’t exist in dreams. Not in hers. Spike was moving madly against her now. Whimpers and moans clawed at his throat, and his kisses carried the taste of his tears. She knew that taste so well. “Spike…” His mouth was busy at her throat, his thrusts rocking her against the brick wall nearly to the point of pain. Her back slammed recklessly against the building behind her, her arms linked desperately around his neck. He was making delicious play with her breast, his other hand slipping between them, prying fingers finding her clit and stroking her into her next life. Oh God. Oh God. This was real. Buffy’s eyes went wide, only half-registering the encouraging mewls that tore through her body. He raised his mouth from her skin and pressed his brow against hers once more, capturing her eyes as his hips thrust frantically against her. Her muscles constricted around him, squeezing him tightly just to reaffirm his veracity. Another long whimper touched the air, painted in his voice. And she knew then. He was driving into her with impassioned force that couldn’t be dreamt. Spike was moving inside her, fondling her to oblivion, his azure gaze piercing her to her core. And it was all real. “Oh my God.” He nodded desperately against her. “Buffy…” Tears spilled down her face, and she attacked his mouth with hers. Drawing him into a fiery kiss that spoke for everything she could not. The emotion burning her system. The floodgates he had opened that she couldn’t handle. Her body was on fire but her mind was crashing. The reality she had lived in no longer existed. Spike was with her. His arms were around her, his lips against hers until he pulled away to sob into the crook of her neck. He knew it too, then. There at a moment shared. This was really happening. He was really with her. This moment existed, and they were really making love. It was all real. “Oh God.” His fingers massaged her clit speedily, his thrusts broaching the lines of need and collapsing into a realm they were still creating. “Come for me, Buffy,” he gasped, teeth scraping tenderly at the column of her throat. “Need to feel you come. Need to taste you. Need to lick you out.” “Oh God!” “I love you. I love you so much.” She nodded furiously. “Love you.” His eyes widened and stormed with passion. “Really?” And that was it. Her heart broke. Her face crumbled in devastation, and she collapsed against his shoulder, tightening her grasp around him. Her fault. She had waited too long to tell him. Had not recognized each time that the opportunity arose, each time she was given to explain. To tell him everything. To spill her love for him without worrying about everything that turned out to be so superficial. At the eleventh hour, holding his hand in a cave as the world fell around him as his skin began to burn with the effects of his martyrdom, of course he would not believe her. She had hoped that his response was out of a need to get her out of the cave. She had told herself his words were a blessing for her to go on with her life. She had hoped anything but the truth of his rebuttal’s simplicity. His belief that her love was some consolation prize for saving the world. Words easily said and just as easily forgotten. As though their relationship could be measured so reasonably. “Oh baby,” he murmured against her. “Don’t cry. Please don’t cry.” He was stroking her clit rapidly, and her body was consumed. “Don’t cry.” “I love you,” she sputtered desperately against him. “Please believe me.” “I believe you.” Then his fangs elongated and sliced into her throat, and she exploded around him. A hoarse cry tearing through her body, her muscles clamping around his cock as she rode out the waves of the most intense orgasm she had ever experienced. His incisors were embedded in her body, her blood spilling into his mouth, his thrusting hips demanding as much from her as she could give. “Mine,” he sighed against her as his fangs receded, his tongue lapping delicately at the mark he had given her. “You love me. You’re mine. Never lettin’ you go again, kitten. Never.” A claim. He was placing a claim on her. A vampire claim—an unbreakable bond that would seal them together forever. She knew about claims only from what she had read following his death. The books she had poured herself over in an attempt to find solace in his sacrifice. Not to cheapen what he had given her, but to understand him. She had wanted him back for so long. Careless days that turned into weeks, and finally months. And now he was against her, rumbling in release as his orgasm washed over her, and he slumped against her with a roar of completion. “Yes,” she agreed breathlessly. “Yours.” “Never lettin’ you go again.” “Never.” “God, Buffy…” He raised his eyes to hers, reeling his demon inward. “This is real, innit?” She nodded tentatively, daring fate to interfere again. To throw her haven in her face and draw her back to the world she had left behind. Spike was heaving needless pants, his wide, inquisitive eyes searching hers. “Buffy?” “Oh God.” It crashed over her again. Her legs were curled around his waist, his body was connected with hers, and his arms were around her. She breathed him in. Felt him rumble against her. Tasted the essence of him that was thoroughly Spike. The tobacco and whisky, the leather and blood. Everything that was thoroughly Spike. He was real. His skin was really beneath hers. His lips were really peppering sweet, heartfelt kisses across her face. The tears that had dried against his cheeks were real. “You died,” she sobbed, her head collapsing against his shoulder. “You left me.” “Shhh…’s okay, sweetheart. I’m here, now.” “Really?” Her arms tightened around him. “You’re real. You’re not leaving again.” “’m real.” “You didn’t believe me.” “Din’t want you to feel obligated.” “I don’t say things like that out of obligation.” Spike trembled around her and brushed a kiss across the mark in her throat. “Of course you don’, sweetling. You remember what I said about smokescreens? I jus’…I don’ know why I said it.” “You believe me now?” “Yeh.” A long tremble coursed through his body, and tears filled his eyes all over again. “I believe you.” Then his fingers were under her chin, tilting her into his kiss. His kiss that tasted her with tender veneration, his tongue imploring her mouth, whispering poetry into her body. He could move continents with the sinful strokes of his lips. Could make mountains bow before him with the power of his kisses. And she was no different. The lightest hint of his mouth against hers, and she lost coherency for the sweeter side of self-indulgence. Her body quivered beneath his fingers, her walls clenching around his cock in a silent reminder of their position. He moaned into her and withdrew tenderly before sinking into her warm depths again. “I love you,” she said again. “I know, sweetheart,” he whispered. “Love you, too. So much. An’ you’re mine now.” “Yes.” A slow, familiar smirk drew across his mouth as he pumped into her body steadily. “Such a sweet li’l puss.” Her skin was on fire. “Ohhh…” “Jus’ one question, pet.” His head reeled back, eyes exploring hers. “Have any idea where we are?” Buffy studied him for a long minute. “No.” “Well…” Spike hazarded a glance around them, his nostrils flaring. Other subtle hints were coming into play. Loud, albeit muffled music blared from somewhere close. She distinctly remembered seeing Harmony before losing herself in her lover’s embrace. She was wearing a shirt she hadn’t seen in over three years, and while Spike’s eyes were as aged as she last remembered, there was something youthful about him that she almost didn’t recognize. As though the time of abuse had been stripped away, and even as a vampire, he had been given back his lost years. “We might have a bit of a problem.” “Problem?” There couldn’t be a problem. She just had him back. She wouldn’t let anything take him away again. “Yeh.” His eyes found her again. “Thing is…I think we’re back in Kansas.” To be continued in Part Two: Bright Are The Stars That Shine… |