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| Full Circle - Part One | | | | - - - abc | | | 
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Full Circle
Part One
Buffy wearily let herself into the apartment. Tossing her keys onto the small table, she peeled off her jacket and pitched it over the back of a nearby chair before she slumped back against the door.
The silent television and lack of squabbling told her that Dawn and Andrew must still be out at the clubs. A glance at the clock told her that they would be out for some time yet.
Intent on a relaxing soak in a hot tub, she headed straight for the winding marble steps that led to the second level of the villa. The red light on the answering machine in the living room flashed insistently at her as she rounded the curve in the staircase, but she ignored it. Very few people had her number and she didn’t feel like talking to any of them right now.
Once she reached her room, Buffy peeled off her clothes and shrugged into a short terrycloth robe. She was on her way to the bathroom to fill the tub when she noticed that someone had left her television on. The sound was turned down and the snowy screen flickered and popped.
A soft sound of disgust escaped her. She knew that Dawn relished her own privacy too much now to invade her sister’s inner sanctum, so Andrew was the likely culprit. A pair of smelly Argyll socks and a crumpled Cheetos bag was all the proof she needed. If that androgynous little perv had been watching porn in her bedroom again his death would be slow, painful, and bloody.
Flicking off the television, she then reached down and hit the eject button on the VCR. The tape popped out into her hand and as she stared at the title, every bit of air left her body with a strangled whoosh.
The room tilted alarmingly around her and she staggered backwards on trembling legs to collapse on the edge of her bed, the rectangle of black plastic clenched between suddenly cold fingers. The title, written in Andrew’s cramped and scratchy handwriting, blurred as hot tears filled her eyes.
Buffy – A Slayer of Vampyres by Andrew Wells.
She’d had no clue. Not the faintest inkling that this tape had survived the fall of the Hellmouth. Had completely forgotten it existed until this moment, in fact. But just the sight of it brought the memories of those last days in Sunnydale back on a crushing wave of pain.
Feeling lightheaded and curiously detached from her body, Buffy watched as her hand slid the tape back into the slot and picked up the remote control for the set. Some inner voice was screaming inside her head to stop this; to turn it off and walk away. She simply sat there, frozen, as the images came to life on the screen.
“Come with me now, if you will, gentle viewers. Join me on a new voyage of the mind, a little tale I like to call Buffy, A Slayer of the Vampyres.”
A watery giggle escaped her as Andrew droned on and on in his very best Masterpiece Theatre voice. He really could be such a twit sometimes.
Silent tears flowed as one by one, gone but not forgotten warriors for the light rolled across the screen. There was Anya flirting shamelessly with the camera. She idly wondered if Xander knew of the tape’s existence; if he would even want to know. His guilt and pain had driven him to the darkest reaches of Africa, while in her case--
A harsh sob escaped her as he swaggered into view, following behind her as always. Her ever-present shadow of black leather and bad attitude. She gasped as those blue eyes lifted to look into the camera while he mouthed off something about the house being like a girl’s dorm and lit up a cigarette. Buffy leaned forward, fingers trembling as she trailed them over the illusion of his face. When the camera moved back to Andrew again she wilted back, the half-healed fissure in her heart gaping wide and throbbing once more.
She sat through the rest of it, laughing softly through her tears at his strutting and ‘Big Bad’ posturing for Andrew in the basement. There wasn’t much more left- a few more shots of Dawn and various Potentials and Andrew’s final words from the bathroom before it faded to black. With a ragged sigh, Buffy was just about to eject the tape when the picture flared to life once more.
The picture was very dark, but she recognized the blurred image of Angel stalking down a dimly lit hallway. When he disappeared from sight, the camera- obviously being carried by someone- moved from its hiding place and bounced drunkenly in the opposite direction from the vampire.
The camera moved quickly down the hallway of what Buffy realized must be in some kind of medical facility. It stopped outside a closed door while whoever was carrying the cam took a few moments to catch their breath. The asthmatic wheezing sounded suspiciously like her resident tweedy watcher-wannabe.
The door was nudged open slowly to reveal a smallish room filled with all sorts of medical paraphernalia. One small bedside lamp cast a faint blue glow over the platinum hair of the bed’s occupant.
“What d’you want, Andrew?”
In spite of its weary, defeated tone, the accent was unmistakable and heartbreakingly familiar. Her earlier surprise over finding the tape was nothing when compared to the way she was feeling right this second.
She was looking at a ghost.
And she was pissed.
~@~@~
The camera- obviously tucked under Andrew’s arm- moved closer to the bed, giving her a perfect view of the figure tucked up under the crisp white sheet. Buffy wondered if the little twerp had had any idea it was turned on.
Spike had yet to turn his head to acknowledge the boy’s presence. He laid there, eerily quiet with his heavily bandaged arms resting limply at his sides, shadowed eyes staring unseeingly up at the ceiling, a study in quiet defeat.
“Asked what you wanted, nerd-boy,” he drawled tiredly. “In case you haven’t noticed, ’m not up to another one of our stimulating chats.”
“She did all that?” Andrew’s voice was shaky with nerves and Buffy could hear the fascination in his tone.
“Right mess that one is. What’ll become of her?”
“Dana isn’t your problem anymore, but you can rest assured that once she’s safe in the bosom of the new Watcher’s Council, she’ll be well taken care of,” he rattled off, his voice as stuffy and pompous as Giles at his British best.
Spike laughed bitterly. “Oh right, because they’ve done such a bang-up job with everything else up ‘til now.”
“It’s different now that Giles is in charge,” muttered Andrew defensively.
That earned him a sardonic lift of a scarred eyebrow. “Yeah. You keep thinkin’ that.” Spike sighed with irritation. “Fine. You’ve done your mini-watcher spiel. I’m sure I enjoyed it as much as Peaches did. Now, get out.”
The camera bobbed around and Buffy could practically feel Andrew squirming beneath the vampire’s unrelenting glare.
“A-about Buffy…”
His whiney voice trailed off with a squeak as Spike struggled to push himself up with his useless arms, snarling in frustration as he fell back.
Andrew rushed on. “I-I know you said not to tell her… that you would take care of it, but I don’t think-.”
“No, Andrew. You DON’T bloody think. That’s your problem,” Spike snapped.
“But the two of you belong together! You have a history,” he insisted. “Beauty and the Beast…slayer and vampyre. Han and Leia!”
Spike gave him a look that was both incredulous and annoyed. “D’ you even listen to the shit that falls out of your mouth?”
“I know when I’m right.” The disembodied voice firmed resolutely. “You can’t fool me, Spike. I saw how the two of you looked at each other when you thought the other couldn’t see. There was heat and passion a-and… and a lot of other really cool stuff between you!”
The faintest of smiles touched the hard lines of Spike’s mouth, softening the vestiges of pain that lingered there. He shook his head sadly. “Never said there wasn’t, but what we had just wasn’t enough.”
He laughed, a soft, pained sound in the quiet room. “All I ever wanted was for her to be truly happy. Sure, I hoped it would be with me...” He stubbornly refused to face his visitor, rapidly blinking away the suspicious brightness in his eyes. He cleared his throat loudly to hide the slight tremor in his whiskey-rough voice and went on, “But, no. No. She’s moved on by now. Best that I just stay away and let her get on with it.”
Andrew seemed to hover indecisively for a few more minutes. While he stood there, the low battery warning began to flash in the upper right corner of the screen. His hand came into view and laid a small slip of paper on the sheet by Spike’s hip.
“This is our address and number. You can always change your mind, right?” His tearful sniffles were plainly audible.
Ignoring the paper, Spike rolled over, the sight of his broad back peeking through the slit in the hospital gown effectively ending the conversation.
“Spike?”
“Sod off, Andrew.”
The image suddenly went black.
~@~@~
Andrew let himself into the darkened apartment, whistling tunelessly as he hung his jacket away ad turned to head for the kitchen for a snack.
“Sit down, Andrew.”
The voice from the black depths of the living room sent icy chills down his spine.
“Buffy?” he asked, voice quavering nervously as he took a few hesitant steps into the room.
“Yeah, it’s me. Sit down. Now.”
“Um…is everything okay. You sound a little…”
“Irate? Pissed? This close to snapping your deceitful, scrawny little neck? Pick one,” she snarled.
“Whoa.” He fought the suddenly overwhelming urge to soil his pants. This was a side of Buffy that he hadn’t seen since his days with the Trio. Pure slayer and it was focused entirely on him.
He finally picked out her slight shape from the shadows. He couldn’t see her face, but her eyes seemed to glow with a feral light of their own. She waited until he was perched on the very edge of a chair before she spoke again.
“You left some things in my room tonight.” First the dirty socks smacked him in the face, and then the wadded up Cheetos bag hit him in the chest, jerking a short, shrill cry from him. He clutched at the crinkling bag, completely freaked by her attitude.
“I-I’m really sorry, Buffy. Dawn told me not to use your television, but yours has a better picture than mine. I’m sorry I invaded your space. It’ll never--”
She cut him off. “Oh, we’ll get to that later. You can be sure of that. But there was one other thing you forgot, Andrew. Can you guess what it was?”
He looked utterly confused. Did she think he might have gone through her underwear or something? “Err… No?”
Buffy snatched up the remote and pointed it at the television. One click of the button and Spike’s image was plastered across the screen.
They watched it together in complete silence and when it was done, Buffy was struggling for control while Andrew squirmed, unable to meet her eyes.
“Do we need to watch it again? I’m sure you’ve seen it lots of times but I’m still having a problem accepting the fact that yet another person I thought I could trust has been lying to me.”
“It wasn’t lying, per se,” Andrew muttered defensively. “It wa-”
“Do you WANT to find out how fast I can punch a hole through your head?” Buffy threatened. She took only one step in his direction before he cracked.
Andrew sang like a canary.
“…but he asked me not to say anything and I… And whoo boy, you’re really pissed, huh?” Sliding out of his chair, he began backing nervously away from her. “Please don’t hurt me,” he whimpered.
Buffy’s smile turned his blood to ice.
TBC~
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| Full Circle - Part Two | | | | - - - abc | | |
Banner by Karyn!
Full Circle
Part Two
A few months later...
“Uhh, Spike, is Angel crying?” Andrew asked with a frown.
“No!” Spike looked doubtful. Angel’s remark about the Immortal eating cookies had brought a surge of gorge to his throat that no vampire should be forced to suffer. “Well, not yet.”
Andrew cautiously approached the dark-haired vampire. “Easy there, big fella,” he murmured, patting Angel’s broad shoulder. “The point is, she's moving on. You guys do the same, and you might catch her one day. One of you, anyway.”
Spike was startled when Andrew made a strange face at him behind Angel’s back. What was the little git up to? Andrew made the face again and gestured with his head towards the other room.
“But you keep running in place, you're gonna find she's long gone. Buffy loves both of you, but she's gotta live her life. People change.”
All through this little commentary, Andrew kept making with the constipated faces in an obvious attempt to convey a point that Spike was too distraught to decipher. All he wanted to do was get Peaches back on the bloody plane and get back to LA where he could crawl into a bottle and forget all about a certain petite blonde and her faithless ways.
With a frustrated sigh, Andrew ran a hand over his carefully coiffed hair and straightened his jacket. “You guys should try it sometime—”
Impatient tapping on the door interrupted him. He hurried to answer, gushing in fluent Italian at the two incredibly beautiful women that stood there preening for him. Looking back to the two vampires, he made an attempt to hide his glee behind a mature and sophisticated façade. “Caio!”
After the door closed, Spike turned to Angel. “Maybe it’s time we…” His voice trailed off dejectedly, his shoulders slumping in defeat as he finally admitted to himself that the dream was gone.
“Yeah.” Angel nodded and led the way to the door.
A tiny, dark-eyed waif with a mop of black curls barred the way, an impish smile curving her full red mouth. She was a pretty little thing. Spike stifled a snort. Italian birds must not be too choosey about their men if Andrew saw this much action.
“Sorry, luv. If you’re lookin’ for Andrew he just left with…” His voice trailed off when the little sprite hefted a lethal looking gun and pointed it at the both of them. “Okay, maybe not lookin’ for Andrew…”
“Trancs,” Angel had time to mutter before she squeezed the trigger twice--once for him and once for the blonde menace behind him. In seconds, both vampires fell in a graceful heap of unconsciousness.
Buffy walked up behind the girl and laid a hand on her shoulder. “Great job, Allesandra!” she praised. “Bring in the others, now.”
At Allesandra’s shrill whistle, slayers began popping up out of the shrubbery and from behind buildings and ran forward to gather around their leader.
Kneeling by Angel’s side, Buffy ran a gentle hand over his wide forehead. “Goodbye, Angel,” she murmured. Standing, she gestured towards his motionless form. “This one goes to the air field. Just ask for Wolfram and Hart’s hanger. And make it fast; it’ll be dawn soon.”
She watched impassively as the larger vamp was carted off and stuffed into a black van before turning back to the rest. She stared down at Spike’s unconscious face. Even in repose he looked drawn and tired. Quashing a surge of pity, she waved her hand, motioning for the remaining slayers to pick him up.
“Down the stairs to the basement, ladies. And for God’s sake, don’t hit his head on any doorways!” she instructed. The same serpentine smile that had made Andrew shake in his shoes earlier was back in full force. “Trust me, he’s gonna need all his wits about him when he wakes up.”
~@~@~
Spike slowly became aware of several things as he struggled to regain consciousness. One was the set of manacles that were clamped around his wrists and ankles, leaving him to dangle with his toes barely brushing the floor. The other was the mouthwatering scent of slayer that wafted to his sensitive nose.
Wafted wasn’t the word for it. Assaulted was more like it. As in the scent of many, many slayers, with one unique signature rising above the rest.
Buffy.
He opened his eyes slowly, groaning when confronted with an insanely bright smile that brought back discomfiting images of the Buffybot.
“There he is. Hi, honey! I’m home!” she offered perkily.
“Bloody hell.”
She laughed; a gently mocking sound, and came to stand in front of him. She stared at him, her eyes unreadable and her head tilted to one side as she considered him.
“Beginning to think you’d sleep the night away,” she commented softly.
Spike pulled experimentally on his bonds, not caring for the feeling of déjà vu this scene was dredging up. “Slayer?”
Buffy held up one beautifully manicured finger. “Hold that thought, okay?” She turned to the wall of slayers standing behind her. “Alright girls, you all wanted to meet William the Bloody, but show-n-tell is over. Need a little alone time with my fella, here. I appreciate your help, especially you, Alessandra.”
They filed out, some casting longing looks over their shoulders while others caressed the stakes they held in a way that made Spike more than a little nervous. Alessandra was the last one out. The petite brunette rattled off something in Italian to Buffy, winking at Spike and cheekily blowing him a kiss when he scowled at her.
“Yeah? You can shove that dart right up your little…”
“Spike!” Buffy clapped a hand over his mouth to stifle the rest of his insult.
He promptly nipped the soft flesh of her palm, giving it a quick lick before she could snatch her hand back. She stifled her initial reaction to his little bite, but the look in her eyes promised retribution once the formalities were out of the way.
“Alone at last. And whatever shall I do with you? Gotta say, you look good for someone who’s supposed to be Hellmouth fodder.”
Spike sighed and rolled his head on his shoulders, clearly more agitated than he was letting on. “S’pose Andrew told you, then?”
“Not without a great deal of painful torture,” she quipped. His incredulous look had her casting her eyes at the ceiling. “Okay, I’m lying about the torture. He couldn’t squeal loud enough when I busted him out. He taped you on the sly when you were in the hospital in LA and forgot the tape in my room.”
“So, the secret’s out. Question is, why are you here and not out dancing the night away with your new sweetie-bear?” he asked, affecting a bored tone. No way was he going to let on how much that hurt. Trying to be the better man- err, vamp- was a bitch sometimes.
Buffy took a look at their surroundings and then came back to him, the teeniest of smiles quirking her lips.
“Bring back any fond memories for you?” She crossed her arms and began to pace in front of him, darting flirtatious glances over her shoulder. “Seems like so many of our better moments involve the use of restraints for one or both of us. Either that or some piece of really tacky jewelry.”
The illusion she had carefully recreated was suddenly and painfully clear to him. His next words unconsciously mirrored her own from so many years ago. “What’s going on?”
She whirled to face him. “Simple. I’m gonna prove something.” She moved in close, nearly overwhelming him with her scent as she gazed up at him with limpid hazel eyes.
“I love you. I…love you. You're all I think about. Dream about. You're in my gut... my throat... I'm drowning in you, Spike, I'm drowning in you.”
She leaned into him, her hands braced against his chest as she brought her lips to within a breath of his and continued. “Just give me something... a crumb... a barest smidgen...” Spike held himself tense as her mouth brushed his at each pause. “Tell me... maybe, someday, there's a chance.”
Spike blinked. Now he knew it for certain. Girl had gone completely carrot-top. Which, come to think of it, could explain her little Immortal dalliance. Still, he couldn't help but be impressed. He hadn't thought she'd been listening back then, what with her being just a little too eager to put his balls in a sling and fling 'em to the other side of the universe.
“If we play this by the script, luv, this is the part where I tell you that the only chance you ever had with me was when I was unconscious.” Spike hissed as the small hand drifting over his flat belly, reached his crotch and gave his obvious arousal a firm squeeze. “’Course we both know that would be a bloody lie,” he managed to grit out.
Buffy laughed softly, the sweet warmth of her breath puffing tantalizingly across his face. With one last lingering caress, her hand left his aching erection and joined the other in skimming back up his chest and out along his outstretched arms.
There was a burst of warmth when she linked the fingers of her left hand with his right. He half expected to look at their joined hands and see flames. There were none, of course, but the allusion was there none the less.
A soundless gasp escaped him as she stepped closer, molding her body to his from chest to groin. She smiled at his reaction, the heat of her body like a brand through the thin cotton of their t-shirts.
“Where’s… What’ve you done with Peaches?” he asked, desperate for some kind of distraction from his traitorous body’s response to her slight weight resting against him.
Buffy sighed deeply, making sure that the diamond-hard points of her nipples brushed his chest.
“I must be losing my touch if you can think of Angel at a time like this,” she snapped with mock irritation.
He stared at her and gave a snort of disbelief. “Have you lost all sensation to your lower parts, you crazy bint?” He emphasized his point with a demanding thrust of his hips. Thank God he’d worn his button-fly’s this trip, else he’d have a permanent imprint of a zipper on his dick. Talk about painful.
She grinned impishly and met his thrust with her own. It was almost time to up the tension factor for the manacled vampire.
“Angel is perfectly safe. Well, as safe as he can be with Allesandra escorting him back to sunny California. She’s quite the swooning fan-girl where he’s concerned.”
“Thought you were the president of that particular fan club, pet.” He cringed at his sarcasm. Oh yeah, Spike. Open mouth and insert ugly black boot.
Instead of the anticipated pop in the chops, she stunned him further by giggling and tossing back her hair in a heartbreakingly familiar gesture. God, she was so utterly gorgeous to him when she was like this, even more so because she was seldom this carefree with him. He appreciated it all the more when she was.
“I haven’t been a member for a long time now, let alone the president. Now, do you really want to talk about Angel? I know I don’t.” Another insistent nudge of her pelvis and her lips whispering across his throat. A nip and a nibble and then her teeth tugging at his earlobe.
Spike moaned softly and tugged at their still joined hands. “Turn me loose, sweetheart.”
“Mmm, I think not. Not yet,” she murmured. Giving his lobe one last flick of her tongue, she stepped back and looked at him thoughtfully. “No, you haven’t been punished nearly enough.”
“Punished?” His voice came out as a decidedly unmanly squeak. He cleared his throat before continuing. “Punished for what?”
“Oh, several things,” Buffy said airily. “Let’s start with your asinine excuses for not letting me know you were back among the living. Or not living in your case.”
“Thought they were pretty valid at the time, luv,” he muttered uneasily, refusing to meet those sparkling hazel eyes.
“And yet, here you are. Why is that, Spike?” One dainty sandaled foot tapped the concrete floor impatiently. “I expect the whole skulking in the shadows and spying on me bit from Angel, but you’ve always been pretty up front in your stalking.”
“Wasn’t stalkin’,” he pouted.
“You so were!” Buffy insisted. “How else would you know about…what did you call him? My ‘new sweetie-bear’?” Her upper lip curled delicately in distaste. “I know you think I’m totally clueless where men are concerned, but please give me a little credit for taste.”
“Taste?” Spike tried to hold it in. He really did, but as usual his traitorous tongue ran away with his good sense. “Well, let’s see… There’s Peaches, and then your little rebound fling with Joe-College boy.”
“Do you want a split lip?” she threatened.
“And don’t even get me started on Captain Cardboard,” he couldn’t help but add. Catching the heat in her pointed glare, he wisely clamped his teeth down on his bottom lip and shut up.
Buffy pressed her hands together in a prayerful pose, as if she were begging for patience, and brought her fingertips up to rest thoughtfully against her chin. “Spike?”
“What?” His splayed arms were aching almost as badly as his engorged cock. All that pacing and twirling she was doing had her scent floating all around him; the lemony tang of her arousal mixed with her powdery perfume had him practically drooling for a taste of her. Damn his heightened senses!
“Don’t try to distract me by dragging them into this,” she chided. “This is between you and me, and the fact that just like every other male in my life you made a decision ‘for my own good’.”
Being compared to those other wankers for the umpteenth time had him instantly pissed. He gritted his teeth, the muscles in his jaw working spastically as he fought with his frayed temper.
“So, once again, it’s all about Buffy,” he snarled, rolling his eyes with dramatic flare. “Kick up a fuss about your men making decisions for you, but roll over like a whipped bitch when your little friends snap the whip. Nothing ever changes with you, does it?”
He ignored her wide eyes and stricken expression and continued his rant. “Did you ever, for once in your life think that it might not be for your own good, but for mine? That it might be an act of self-bloody-preservation? Ahh, I can see by your reaction that the thought never crossed your narrow little mind, did it, Slayer?”
TBC~
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| Full Circle - Part Three | | | | - - - abc | | |
Banner by Karyn!
Full Circle
Part Three
His use of her title instead of her name had Buffy flinching back from him. She felt as if he’d slapped her with his hand instead of raining blows upon her with his words.
“After years of fuckin’ torment, I finally got my ‘crumb’. I got to hear those three magical little words. Of course you had to say them while the Hellmouth was spitting hell-fire and brimstone down on my bloody stupid head, but you said them and I knew I couldn’t bear it if you took them back. I figured as long as I stayed away from you, I could convince myself that you meant it.”
All the anger drained from him so suddenly that he sagged against his chains, his head bowed in a picture of perfect dejection. “The bleedin’ tragedy of it all is that I fall for it every stinkin’ time, even knowing that you crazy bints are lightning fast with your affections. Dru only wanted her ‘daddy’, and you showed me right enough how much you really cared by skipping off with that slimy Immortal wanker before my ashes even had a chance to cool.”
An endless time ago they had confronted each other across another basement, only that time she had been the one in chains. She knew now exactly how Spike had felt when she had flung his declaration of love back at his stunned face.
He was right. Of course he was. It had all been about her righteous indignation and hurt feelings. She hadn’t given much thought to her plans other than debunking his reasons for avoiding her. Had never considered that he might be unwilling to jump right back on the hormonal rollercoaster ride that was her love life.
Then, as now, her inability to express her feelings had led him round the wrong bend in the path. It had been the height of conceit for her to even begin to imagine that this time would be any different than any other time she had tried to tell him how she really felt. Her grand gesture of reenacting the scene from his crypt wasn’t to prove her love for him. It was to prove his love for her. Again.
But his love had never, ever been in doubt.
Fighting to swallow the achy knot of tears that stung her throat, she stepped forward. He lifted his head and watched her warily as she came near, but Buffy refused to meet those all-seeing eyes. Reaching into the pocket of her skirt, she pulled out a tiny silver key. Kneeling down, she released his legs first, and then moved up to his arms, careful not to touch him anywhere else. Once she had him freed, she backed away quickly, putting as much space between them as she could.
“I’m sorry.” Her voice was so faint that even he had to strain to hear it. “You’re right.”
Spike frowned and stuck his pinky in his ear and wiggled it around. “Care to repeat that?” His posturing earned him only the tiniest of smiles, and she still refused to look him in the eye.
“I said, you’re right. Well, not about the Immortal, but the stuff about me just assuming you should come running back to me?” The faint smile turned self-deprecating. “Pretty much dead on, as usual.”
“Buffy…”
“No, don’t,” she cut him off, her voice gaining strength. “It was…I had hoped that things could be different, that I’ve grown up at least a little, but I haven’t changed. I’m still taking you for granted and I still think it’s ‘all about me’. You deserve better than that. Better than me.” A quick glance up at the small window above her head told her that dusk was approaching.
“Allessandra’s trancs knocked you out for quite a while, so I’m pretty sure you’ve missed Wolfram and Hart’s plane. I’ll call Giles and have him send one of the Council’s jets for you. I’m sure you’ll be glad to get back…home,” she finished with a dismissive monotone.
Spike stared at her, eyes wild and mouth agape, completely gobsmacked by her swift change from flirty dominatrix to chastened little girl. “What the hell just happened here?” he demanded. “Oh, this is bleedin’ rich! Now you’re listening to me?”
She wrapped her arms around herself in the face of his irritation. “I-I thought that was what you wanted from me. For me to listen, I mean, a-and, well…now I have, and you can l-leave. You’re free to go.” Her eyes bore all the innocent good intentions of a small child as she finally braved a look at him, her bottom lip wobbling alarmingly.
“Fuck. That,” he snarled. He’d thought himself angry with her presumptuous actions earlier, but now he was royally pissed. He wanted nothing more than to drag her over his lap, throw that wispy, diaphanous little skirt over her head, and pound her backside till his hand bled. His eyes glowed yellow for an instant as he struggled for self-control in the face of her mind-numbing mood swings.
Before she knew what hit her, Buffy found herself scooped up and upended over a hard-muscled shoulder. “Spike! Oof!’ she squeaked indignantly. “What are you doing, you ass?”
“What I shoulda done a long time ago, your highness.” He wormed a hand under her skirt, ripping her fragile silk panties from her and squeezing her bottom roughly.
Buffy squealed and thrashed, kicking her legs and pounding her fists into his back. All resistance came to a screeching halt, though, when his fingers parted her folds and slid inside her, his thumb finding and fondling her clit with a familiar, unerring precision. She stiffened, arching with a sobbing gasp for air and then melted against him.
“Now, you’re getting’ it,” he chortled, adding an extra bounce to his step as he mounted the stairs. “We’re gonna go on up to your room and make up for lost time, and every time you open your pretty mouth to spout off anything besides ‘yes, Spike,’ or ‘more, Spike, more,’, I’m gonna stick something in your mouth to shut you up. I’ll leave that part up to your imagination, but be warned, I’m not the least bit picky.”
“Ungh!”
He smirked at her little grunt of pleasure and added a little twisting action to his thrusting fingers. “Knew you’d see it my way, luv.”
Finding her room presented no problem. He simply followed her scent up to the second floor and down the long hallway and kicked her door in with a flourish. The combined smells of her perfume and the faint waft of her arousal hit him in a rush. There was no hint of any masculine odors and a wicked smile curled his lips. Hmmm. Now that was a pretty picture, his slayer pleasuring herself, writhing in lonely, frustrated passion between sheets that had never known the sweat of another partner.
Until now.
“Ooh, baby’s been a bad girl, hasn’t she?” he purred. “Were you thinking of me while you diddled that pretty little pearl of yours, Slayer?”
“Oh, God.” If her face weren’t already red from all the blood rushing to it, it would be glowing by now. “Okay, the sniffy thing? CUT IT OUT!”
“Oh, but it smells so delicious.” He continued to torment her with both his words and his fingers until he reached the massive bed and then flipped her neatly back onto the silky red comforter. Her skirt flew up over her face and she didn’t even bounce one time before he’d sprawled between her splayed thighs and replaced his fingers with his voracious mouth.
Buffy screamed, her earlier humiliation forgotten beneath the force of his ardor. Her fingers tangled in his hair, pulling hard as she jack-knifed her body and curled around his head.
It had been far too long since achieving the pinnacle of pleasure hadn’t involved bullet-shaped, buzzy toys and batteries. God, she had missed this! No vibrator could ever reach the places he was able to with his talented tongue, and no mechanical whirr could ever mimic the hungry growls that ripped from him as he went at her like a man crazed.
Her first orgasm slammed into her, racing through her veins like wildfire and seizing every muscle in her body. The first was followed by seemingly unending waves of rapture, and he refused to let up until she was a twitching wreck beneath him.
A heartbeat later he was naked and looming over her, his body glowing a pale bluish-white in the twilight that leached through the lace at her windows. Her t-shirt was whipped over her head and flung away, but he merely made the concession of bunching her skirt around her waist as he snugged his hips into the trembling cradle of her thighs.
The rough thrust and conquer she was expecting after the way he had devoured her pussy never came. He slid in a few inches and then stopped, bracing himself above her, his midnight-blue eyes boring into hers. The only sound in the room was her ragged breathing as she stared back at him. His expression was hard and implacable and his voice was almost curt when he finally spoke.
“I’m bloody tired of always wrong-footing it with you. Up and down, hot and cold; it’s always got to be one or the other. Now is the time to make up your mind and tell me exactly what you want from me, or I’m getting up and walking right out that fucking door. Now, tell me.”
“You gonna believe me this time?” she retorted without rancor, her hands sliding up his arms to loop around his neck.
He snorted rudely. “Believed you last time, you barmy chit. Was just a little bit preoccupied with…oh, I dunno…saving the bloody world for you? In fact—”
Buffy’s fingers pinching his lips shut cut him off. “Spike?” Her voice was saccharine-sweet.
“Bwhut?” he garbled through his pinched lips.
“I need you. I love you. I’ve been completely lost without you. Is that clear enough for you?”
His reply was a quick, sinful glide of hard flesh that stretched and filled her to aching perfection. All the way in and then stilling once more. “Works for me,” he rasped as he swooped down for a scorching kiss.
Soft and tender had never been a part of their repertoire. Even that last night in the basement before going up against The First had been tinged with more than a hint of desperation. Now, for the first time ever, they were joining as equals, without anger or fear of discovery.
Buffy wound her arms around him and responded eagerly. At last! Her heart sang as she lost herself in the blissfully familiar taste and texture that was Spike’s mouth on hers once more. He relaxed his arms and settled over her, burying his face in the cove of her shoulder as his whiskey-rough voice whispered of every sinful delight he wanted to subject her body to. When she nudged her hips upwards in an attempt to entice him into picking up his pace, his diabolical chuckle told her he wasn’t about to be rushed. He kept his rhythm slow and deep, his hands slipping under her butt to lift her into each thrust while he ground his pelvic bone into her clit.
She lifted her legs to hug his ribs and slid her hands down the undulating muscles of his back to grip his ass, forcing him even deeper with a soft groan that was echoed by her lover. He kissed her again, biting gently at her mouth before nipping a path down the smooth column of her throat.
Spike lingered there, taunting her with a quick rake of fangs over her trembling flesh. Laughing softly, he lapped at the delicate ribbons of blood as her body quaked around him.
“Something you wanted, luv?” he teased her mercilessly. Lifting his head, he blew a stream of cool air over the scratches before his rough tongue flicking out to taste her once more.
“Evil…” she purred, arching against him as he found the sensitive place beneath her ear and laved it expertly. He knew her so well, knew exactly where and how to touch her so that the pleasure became blindingly intense. So necessary. So blessedly familiar, but never predictable. She couldn’t help but smile as his hand drifted over her hip, tracing the sharp thrust of her hipbone before delving lower to stroke her to a frenzy. “God, yesss!”
He leaned back, using his free hand to drag her with him as he settled smoothly back on his heels, heaving her up to straddle his lap without missing a stroke. He gripped her waist with bruising force, guiding her as she bounced eagerly on his thick, pulsing cock.
Buffy’s head fell back in ecstasy, grunting lustfully on each down stroke as his long fingers continued to pluck and twirl her swollen nub and slide down to caress where they were joined. Cool lips and a wicked tongue blazed a trail of fiery sensation down her neck to her chest. Beads of sweat sparkled like tiny diamonds between her bobbing breasts and he lapped at them, savoring it like the finest wine.
“Never again,” he muttered as he nuzzled his face against her satiny skin. “No one. Not your friends, not my brooding git of a grandsire, and especially not that prancing ninny that thinks he’s God’s bloody gift to women everywhere…no one is gonna come between us again, you got me?”
She could barely form a coherent sentence so settled instead for nodding her head wildly, her tangled hair whipping around her face. “No one,” she gasped. “God…missed you so much, Spike.”
The whimper of loss in her broken voice both wrenched his heart and increased his ardor. He strengthened his thrusts and doubled his efforts to bring her satisfaction before he himself breached the pinnacle. When he felt the first tremors of her release radiating from her hot core, he struck, sinking his fangs into the soft mound of flesh over her heart.
A kaleidoscope of colors whirled behind her eyes and a short, harsh scream clawed at her throat as the icy-hot burn of his bite sent her hurtling into oblivion. She wound her arms around his head, holding him tightly in place as she jerked against him. Spike lay back, dragging her with him as he nursed at the seeping wounds he’d left on her perfect skin.
Buffy collapsed against him in a daze. Biting had been discussed more than once during the long tenure of their affair, but she had never allowed him to penetrate her with anything but his cock. It wasn’t that she feared he might lose control as Angel had when he’d nearly drained her to cure himself. It was the level of intimacy that biting implied that had frightened her, the giving in, giving in and admitting that she might feel something more for him than animal lust.
Some might have attributed the sudden surge of euphoria she felt to blood loss, but Buffy knew better. Besides, Spike hadn’t taken more than a few mouthfuls before he contented himself with drawing arcane patterns through the trickling remains with his tongue.
The sudden burst of energy had her sitting up, a huge, crafty smile on her face as she tightened her pussy around his still-turgid cock and squeezed mercilessly, just the way he liked it.
Spike could swear he felt his eyes bug out and his eardrums pop. “Christ, woman, you’re gonna burn me up,” he sputtered, arching his head back into the pillows as he dug his fingers into the resilient flesh of her hips.
“Not a chance. I like you lusty, un-dusty, and amulet-free,” she grinned as she wrenched her pelvis in ever-tightening circles. She sneakily reached behind her and between his legs. His balls were drawn up tight against his body, and all it took was one firm squeeze to send him bucking and howling beneath her. Buffy clamped down and rode out his release, her shining eyes marveling at the euphoric expression on his face. She leaned down, giggling as she kissed his slack mouth and fluttering eyelids.
“Is it still there?” he mumbled.
“Is what still there, baby?” Buffy snickered.
“Top of m’ head. Swear I felt it blow off.”
She threaded her fingers through thoroughly mussed bed head. “Nope. It’s still there.”
Surprisingly alert blue eyes popped open. “Good.”
Before she knew it, she was flying over the side of the bed with a scream. She landed flat on her back on the thick carpet and barely had time to catch her breath before she was covered from neck to toes in a blanket of horny vampire. Her horny vampire.
“Someone is getting’ entirely too full of herself,” Spike commented almost too casually as he began to kiss his way down her chest to her quivering belly.
“You should punish her, then,” Buffy agreed with breathless anticipation.
~*~*~
Angel stretched and groaned as he sat up, cradling his groggy head in his hands. He felt the familiar gentle pitch and roll of Wolfram and Hart’s private jet beneath him and opened bleary eyes.
Velvety black eyes framed with thick, sooty lashes stared back at him and an adorable button nose was less than an inch from his. He flinched back with a startled yelp and fell with a complete lack of grace from the couch he’d been reclining on to land with an ignominious thump on the floor.
Her tinkling laughter grated on his nerves and he glowered up at her. Now he recognized her; the little sprite with the tranc gun. He tried not to be too obvious as he looked her over to see if she might still be packing her weapon, but he had the feeling that those fathomless dark eyes missed nothing. A sweet smile curved her rosebud of a mouth, revealing perfect white teeth and engaging dimples.
“I make you nervous, yes?” she greeted him cheerfully.
“A little, yeah,” Angel muttered, his movements slow and guarded as he levered himself back up onto the plush seat beside her.
“Ah. I don’t mean to.” She made an airy gesture with incredibly small hands. “Buffy assures me it is all part of the slayer package, this intimidazione.”
At the mention of his former lovers’ name, Angel perked up and began to look around. “Buffy? Is she here? Why did you shoot us? And where the hell is Spike?”
“Buffy is not here. She is in Roma. I shot you because she told me to, and Spike? He is with Buffy. Sono sicuro che stanno avendo sesso.”
“They’re what?” His voice rose to a decidedly unmanly squeak on the last word.
“Having sex?” She scrunched her forehead in deep thought then nodded with another bright smile. “Yes. Sex. Lots and lots of sex, I think.”
“Spike. That little…I knew he was up to something,” Angel muttered with a vicious snarl. When he made as if to lunge from the seat and head for the cockpit, he was stopped by a very sharp piece of wood pressed against his chest. He gawped up into eyes that had lost their velvety softness and now glowed like hot coals. “You’re a slayer?”
“Il mio padre ha detto che eravate un idiot. Indovino che era di destra.”
“Who the hell is your father and how would he know I’m an idiot?” Angel flinched as she laughed gaily at his choice of words. “I mean, how dare he call me an idiot?”
“Yes, I am a slayer, as are two of my younger sisters. We were called forth when the white witch worked her magic. And as for il mio padre…” She tossed her curly black hair out of her face. With a saucy smile, she stalked him across the seat and settled herself on his lap. “You met him quite some time ago, Signore Angel. You and Signore Spike ed i vampires graziosi della signora. He remembers you all quite fondly. You might remember him as Il Immortal.”
“Oh…hell,” Angel groaned and slumped back into his seat. Her scent…her heat grinding down onto his raging erection…her wicked little tongue tracing delicately around his ear…thank God his soul was anchored! “FUCK!”
“Precisely,” Alessandra purred before descending upon him.
~*~*~
“So he was really pissed when he found out that not just one, but three of his precious babies were potential slayers.”
Spike laughed so hard he dropped the bunch of grapes he was trying to feed Buffy.
“You know, you could be just a little bit magnanimous about this, Spike.” Buffy dug a squashed grape from under her butt and popped it into the snickering vampire’s mouth. “God, you can be such a child!” she shrieked in exasperation when he spat the squishy green blob back out in a fresh torrent of laughter.
“’M sorry, baby,” Spike snorted, wiping the dampness that his mirth had generated from his eyes. “But I can just picture the look on that fop’s face when he found out the happy news.”
“Not so happy as it turns out. Seems having three slayers in the family tree is very bad for business. They were either killing his clientele or staking his women. That’s the reason he’s been wining and dining and dancing me all over Rome. He’s been trying to convince me to have Willow reverse the spell. Not because he wanted to pry apart the Slayer’s dimpled knees,” she told him with a pointed glare. “He never had a chance. There’s only one vampire that has that privilege now.”
“Only one, eh?” He felt like a complete nance, but he couldn’t hold back the flare of hope that colored his voice.
“Only one.” Her eyes met his unflinchingly. “The One.”
Swamped with utter bliss, he pulled her down beside him and covered her eagerly seeking mouth with his, kissing her breathless. When he finally let her go she was flushed and panting. He cuddled her against his side and rumbled with satisfaction as she squirmed closer.
“Spike?”
“Pet?”
“Do you think we should call and make sure Angel is okay?”
Her guilty flush perked his interest, but Spike snorted. “I think Peaches can handle one little bitty Italian bird, Slayer.”
“Yeah, but three?” Buffy ventured nervously.
“Huh?”
“Triplets. Alessandra, Antonia, and Audrianna.”
“Bloody hell!”
THE END
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