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| In Omne Tempus - Sweet Dreams To Carry You Close To Me by Holly (0 Reviews) | | - - - abc |  | | | Chapter Eleven
Sweet Dreams To Carry You Close To Me
She knew where he was even when she could not see him. It was a frightening talent; one she had always associated with vampires, but never dreamt of experiencing while in the comfort of her own home. She felt every move that Spike made. Felt every unnecessary breath that rattled through his body. He was presently in the kitchen, making her a sandwich, and she could feel him.
It was so odd. There was a vampire in her home. There was a vampire in her home, and he was making her dinner as though they were a normal couple.
She changed into her favorite pajama bottoms and a form-fitting cami. It was her customary ‘bedtime’ attire, so she found it a little disconcerting when Spike gasped when she entered the kitchen.
“Bleedin’ hell.”
Buffy flushed self-consciously. “What?”
“You’re gorgeous.”
“I’m in my PJs.”
Spike’s brows perked. “You become less gorgeous in your jams, kitten?”
She wet her lips and shrugged with a small, nervous laugh. “I don’t…I don’t know. Ummm…listen, were you planning on staying long? I mean…I don’t mind you being here, but my mom—”
He tugged at the note her mother had left on the fridge. “’S outta town,” he said. “She left you all alone with all kinds of nasties runnin’ around town. Think it’s my duty to make sure nothin’ happens to you while she’s away.”
Buffy rolled her eyes. “Spike—”
“I don’ want to leave you,” he said heatedly. “I know I might not be welcome, but you’re my…you’re my priority, an’ while Angelus is out there, I don’ particularly fancy—”
“But he can’t come in, right?” she demanded, suddenly nervous. “He’s not some super vamp who can fly through the air faster than a speeding bullet or enter houses without me saying so. ‘Cause if he can, I can tell you, the Council better start looking for a new girl. I’ll give them my two weeks notice right the hell now.”
Spike smiled softly. “No, kitten, he can’t come in. But there’s no rule that says he can’t set the house on fire an’ force you to run outside.”
A shiver slid down her spine. “Okay…I never thought of it like that. I’m officially wigged.”
“Yeh, so you can see why I’m a li’l hesitant to leave you while my history-filler of a family is about town runnin’ amuck, an’ you’re at the top of their Most Wanted list.” He sighed. “Bleedin’ figures that Darla wouldn’t have let the death of her dear maker rest, even if she hadn’t seen him in two hundred sodding years.”
“The Master made Darla?”
“Your Watcher din’t tell you?” His eyes darkened. “Or was he too busy diggin’ up the colorful history of William the Bloody?”
“Well, excuse Giles for taking the vamp with the all-access pass to my house as the first priority.”
He sent her a narrow look. “You told him you invited me in?”
She flushed at that and glanced to the ground. “Well…not exactly. But when I told him about the glowy eyes thing, he did kinda wig.” She studied him for a minute, but he betrayed no reaction. “And yes, for your information, he mentioned that the Master was a part of this Order of…whatever. I just didn’t know that he was the one to personally step in and make with the siring of Darla.”
Spike looked at her for a minute, then sighed, as though letting go of a matter he wanted to discuss further. “In the 1600s, yeh. Then she made Angelus, who turned Dru wonky before he made her. Then Dru made me.”
“Dru’s…Dru’s the one that took me, isn’t she? When I was little?”
Spike nodded soberly. “Yeh, pet.”
“And you were with her then.”
“Yeh. Tonight’s the firs’ I’ve seen of her since…well, since the last time you saw anythin’ of her. Fuck, tonight’s the firs’ I’ve seen any of them since you came into my life.”
A pause. “Why?”
“’Cause her eyes din’t shine for me.”
“Bull, Spike, I didn’t fall off the turnip truck yesterday. Angelus…he…he called me your…” Suddenly, the vampire in her kitchen had gone rigidly still, and he was watching her with interest. “He called me your mate.”
Spike smiled as though the word gave him pleasure. “’S right.”
“Tie that in with what you told me last night…about waiting for me…about…well, everything. And your freakishly accurate knowledge of my bedroom layout and my personal habits…the fact that you knew where the plates were without having to be asked, or in which compartment we keep the cheese in the fridge.” She paused. “And with what happened…you losing control, my needing you to…well.” Another pause, this one warmed with a blush. Spike was the most distractive vampire she’d ever come across. The power he held simply in his eyes could throw even the most seasoned slayer off her guard. “I need to know what’s going on.”
The vampire studied her for a long minute, then took a step forward. “You’re not gonna like it,” he said. “You haven’t had fourteen years to get used to it like I have.”
“Get used to what?”
“Bein’ mated to you. Bein’ mated to a human who turned out to be a slayer.” He paused, then deadpanned, “An’ you bein’ mated to a vampire.”
The words had an unsettling effect on her. There was a voice, small but persistent, that doubled over in glee at the tone of possessiveness Spike executed where she was concerned. A voice that grew stronger, that needed his arms around her and his fangs in her throat. Needed him so desperately that the rest of her was too busy reeling from surprise to do much more than give into her temptation. But there were some serious things to consider here. Spike was very much a vampire and he was using words that, when sounded out together, seemed to come with the silent tag ‘till apocalypse do us part.’ As in the grand one with the war and famine and disease, piled in with the antichrist and topped with the second coming; not the stupid little apocalypses that seemed to dominate the scene at the hellmouth every other week. Spike’s words had the added burden of eternity.
“You’re not going to turn me, are you?”
He didn’t say anything at first; didn’t rebuke the notion, which disturbed her, but didn’t welcome it, which disturbed her more. Then she grew disturbed at herself for finding the more disturbing option less disturbing, and finally gave up as her word of choice began to sound funny in her head.
“I wouldn’t do anythin’ to you that you don’ ask me to,” he said carefully. “Sired slayers aren’t to be fucked with, pet. I don’ know what your Watcher has told you—”
She feigned a gasp. “You don’t? I thought you were the All Powerful Oz!”
He smirked. “Very funny. Can’t much lurk in the soddin’ library, can I? You’re a slayer; you’d sense that right off. Plus, daylight’s a pretty dangerous time for the man with the flammable hide.”
“I’m pretty sure skin is universally flammable.”
“Not combustible, though. Not a sodding clap-on-clap-off kinda thing.”
She grinned. “Okay, someone watched way too much TV in the 80s.”
“Other than watchin’ you, pet, there wasn’ much for a bloke to do.”
Buffy froze. Every cell in her body froze. Spike’s eyes fell shut as he caught his lapse, and he slammed his fist into the island before turning his gaze upward. “Couldn’t give me one soddin’ break, could you?”
“Y-you…you watched me…even then?”
An odd play of emotions stretched across the vampire’s face, but he settled with resignation, shoulders slumping a bit. “Slayer,” he said, “I’ve been watchin’ you since the day I brought you home.”
The Slayer exhaled deeply. Spike had a strange look on his face; as though he had spoken out of turn, regardless of the calm manner in which the words had left his lips. “You’ve been…watching me ever since…” A warm flush touched her cheeks. She didn’t know if it was more appropriate to be embarrassed or angry. “Why?”
He looked down, as though ashamed. “Sweetling,” he said softly, “since you came into my life, I’ve known nothin’ else. I couldn’t leave you, ‘cause once a vampire has found his mate, leavin’ isn’t an option. I couldn’t be near you, ‘cause you were so little…you were so young, an’ my demon din’t give a rip if you were four or forty. You’re mine, you see, an’ that’s all the demon cares about. So yeh…I’ve been around you for years. Waitin’ for you for years. Watchin’ you…watchin’ you snog boys that can’t possibly grasp how wonderful you are. Watchin’ others fumble with what’s mine. Watchin’ as some git tried to…”
A shadow fell over his eyes, and she was struck then with a horribly dark thought. “That was you, wasn’t it?” she asked. “That night…the night I went out with Tommy Randall, and he…someone stopped it, and I never saw Tommy again. That was you, wasn’t it?”
There was no reply. His silence was all the answer she needed.
“So you killed Tommy…did you do in Mrs. Krane, too?”
“Who?”
“My teacher. I was…god, I don’t even remember how old I was, but I know that I really hated her. She used to…” As if by mention alone, her arm began to hurt, and she rubbed her skin subconsciously. “But she disappeared, and then school was cancelled for three days. Mom wouldn’t tell me why. And she didn’t let me go back until the week after.”
Spike nodded absently, his gaze brightening as though attacked by a faded memory. “Yeh,” he said softly. “I killed Mrs. Krane. An’ I killed the boy. You askin’ me to apologize? To make amends? To fall to my knees an’ beg for forgiveness? You’re my mate, Buffy. To stand by an’ let that rot happen to you? ‘S against my nature, an’ I’m already givin’ up everythin’ else for you.”
A sigh of exasperation rushed through her body. “You keep saying that,” she said. “Angelus said it earlier. What the hell does being your mate mean? That you get to stalk me, kill people at your leisure that have a remote connection to—”
“Your eyes glowed for me.”
She was beginning to get irritated. Doesn’t matter how gorgeous he is, or how I wanna melt every time he looks at me. “Dammit, Spike, that just means that—”
“It means you’re my mate. Eat your sandwich.”
“When are you going to stop being evasive with me?”
Spike sighed. “Sweetheart, you don’ wanna know this yet.”
“Yeah, well, I’m of the understanding that as a person, I don’t always get what I want.” She stepped forward. “So I figure we’ll call this a draw, since right now I’m asking you to tell me something that I’ll regret having heard. Deal it, Spike. I’m a big girl. I can handle it.”
A smile itched his lips. “Of that, I have no doubt.”
“Just tell me! Please!”
He rumbled a nearly feral growl and nodded. “Fine. Bloody chit, you want the full of it? You’re the mate of a vampire. Me. Basically means, you an’ me? We can’t have anybody but each other. Vampires are made with a mate out there—jus’ one. An’ once they find each other, they’re tied together for eternity. They feel everythin’ the other feels.” He paused and nodded in the unseen direction of the cemetery. “That’s what happened back there. When you threw your stake at Darla, Angelus din’t follow us ‘cause a vamp’s firs’ priority is always, always with his mate. When Holtz had Angelus an’ was torturin’ the unlife outta him, she almost went as wonky as Dru is, but not before she laid waste to the place. I wasn’ around then—a good hundred years before my time, but I have heard tale.” He paused. “When a vampire finds his mate, their eyes shine gold. That’s how you know. How you know you’ve found her.”
Buffy was barely aware she was breathing. The temperature in the room had both plummeted and soared in just seconds. The weight of what he was telling her seemed too heavy to grasp. The mate of a vampire? But she was the Slayer. There had to be some cosmic mistake.
Some seriously unfunny cosmic mistake.
As though sensing the thought, Spike held up a hand. “’ve never heard of it where a slayer was mated to a vamp, pet,” he said. “Never heard it where anythin’ but another vamp was mated to a vamp. ‘S why you were such a bleedin’ surprise. I thought Dru was it. For a hundred years, I waited for her eyes to shine for me. I watched. She’d fuck Angelus, fuck me, laugh at me for thinkin’ she was my everythin’, but always came crawlin’ back. An’ I always let her, ‘cause she was my sire an’ I jus’ bloody well knew she had to be my mate, too. Then she brought me you an’ everythin’ jus’…you’re it. There’s no mistakin’ it when it happens, pet. Since the moment I saw you, I knew.” He took a step forward. “For years, I thought I’d turn you when you turned eighteen. There couldn’t be any other explanation. The only thing that made sense to me was that you were destined to become a vampire, an’ the Powers were a li’l rusty, so your eyes glowed years in advance. But then you were Called, an’ that changed everythin’.”
Buffy was certain every vampire within a thousand mile radius could hear how hard her heart was pounding. “Y-you don’t want to turn me now?”
“Like I said, pet, you don’ fuck with sired slayers.” He paused. “Furthermore, I think I like you jus’ the way you are, an’…that bloody well terrifies me.”
Her veins rushed with a sudden wave of indignation. “Terrifies you? You come into my life, blow everything over, rescue me, leave me, attack me…make me feel…and now I’m your mate?”
His hands came up. “Hold on now, pet, you asked.”
“Well, thank you very much, Mr. Spock!” Damn overly-logical vampires. She cast her hands through her hair and nearly tugged down her ponytail in the process. “So there’s no getting out of this?”
“I could die,” he offered softly.
A sudden wave of agony crashed over her, and she had to reach out to the counter to keep her balance before grief could send her to the ground. “No,” she gasped. “Please.”
“See?” He took another step forward. “That’s exactly what I’ve been doin’ for fourteen years. When you’re cut, I bleed. When you’re sad, I cry. When you’re happy, I laugh.” It sounded like a mantra he’d recited to himself, and possibly to others, several times over the years. Even so, it worked. She felt her resolve melting. Spike had the uncanny ability to turn her into a big puddle of slayer-goo. “I’ve been watchin’ you, an’ when you get hurt, I can’t jus’ sit by an’ not do anythin’. So yeh. When Tommy Randal—” He spat the name out like a disease, “—decided that your goodies were his for the takin’, I took care of it. When Mrs. What’s-Her-Face hurt your arm, I took care of it. An’ it’s been a bloody bitch these last three years, watchin’ you fight an’ keepin’ myself away. Makin’ myself not interfere when you get in those li’l jams that I swear to the unholy maker only you could or would ever get into.” He shook his head. “Your wanker of a Watcher…the firs’ one, he told me to let you do your duty without the help of shadows so you’d know what you’re capable of. An’ I gotta tell you, sweetheart…of all the slayers I’ve seen…even the two that I did in…you’re the bleedin’ best. Not jus’ sayin’ it ‘cause you’re my mate, neither. You’re the best.”
Buffy suddenly felt very small. “You knew Merrick?”
“Only from that firs’ night. I followed you on your patrol, watched you stake your firs’ vamp, get outta your firs’ hairy situation…your Watcher knew I was there.” He expelled a deep breath. “I also killed Lothos, but that was more settlin’ a grudge.”
She glanced down again. “So, I have no choice?” she asked. “I don’t even know if what I’m feeling is real, or manufactured by the claim. And the reason that I haven’t been able to get near other boys…it’s because I saw you when I was little…and you…with…Dru—”
His eyes darkened once more. “I haven’t been with anyone since the night before I met you,” he growled. “Can’t bloody well now, can I? Once you’ve found your mate, takin’ pleasure in someone else jus’ isn’t in the sodding rule book anymore.”
Her stomach churned, though she honestly didn’t know if it was for the thought of Spike in the arms of another woman, or the contempt with which he made his comment. As though she had chosen this fate for him.
As though she was repellant as the alternative.
“Yeah, okay. Well, I’m sorry it’s been so inconvenient for you,” she retorted. “Trust me, if I had the choice, you could go get your rocks off with any vamp hoe-bag that caught your eye.”
Spike growled again. “You’re not listenin’ to me.”
“Oh no, I think I heard you loud and clear.” She held his eyes, refusing to waver. “And I think you’ve outlasted your invitation. After all, a girl’s got a lot to consider, right? I’ve just found out that, like it or not, I have to become a vampire’s mate because I didn’t have the luxury of not getting kidnapped as a child. Oh, and on top of that, even if I wanted to pass, I couldn’t be with anyone else without getting a massive case of the wiggins. And you have the nerve to act as though I chose this for you!” Her eyes flashed. “Get out of my house.”
Spike held her gaze a minute longer, his own flickering with sparks of fury. After a long, silent beat, he turned and grabbed his duster, stalking heatedly for the back door.
And then something snapped; something wild and desperate. Her tough resolve crumbled and suddenly she was a girl in place of the Slayer. Buffy didn’t know what surprised her more—the deep emptiness that stabbed her heart or the tears that sprang to her eyes. Either way, she was no good at covering either.
“Spike,” she cried, lurching forward, hands grabbing the counter.
She didn’t know what was wrong with her, only that watching the vampire turn to leave had caused a sickness through her body that she wasn’t strong enough to handle.
Then everything was all right again. Everything was okay. Spike had returned to her immediately. His arms were around her, his mouth was pressing ardent, reassuring kisses into her skin, and he was mumbling something about how it was all right, that he understood, and that he’d never leave.
It seemed that nothing else mattered as long as his arms were around her. Not the mate thing, which wigged her completely. Not the vampire thing, which should have repulsed her but didn’t. Not even the stalker-who-occasionally-killed-mean-people thing, which was honestly grounds for staking. She wasn’t herself, but she’d felt broken the minute he started to walk away from her. Like when she was a child, overwhelmed with emotions she was just now beginning to understand.
She’d mourned the loss of Spike for years without knowing any of this. Without knowing how his lips felt against her skin. How he kissed her tears away and murmured his adoration for her into her hair.
“Din’t mean a word of it,” he swore. “Christ, Buffy, don’ cry. Please don’ cry. You don’ know what your tears do to me.”
If anything, hearing him proclaim that much only inspired her to cry more.
“Buffy—”
“What’s happening to me?” she sobbed, burying her face in the crook of his throat. “I can’t…I don’t…”
“I know, baby.”
Then he was kissing her. Really kissing her. Not like the savage mauling of her lips against the door earlier; like it had been upstairs the night before. He was pouring himself into her. Plundering his tongue into her mouth and pulling her flush against him. Whispering lyrical words of artless poetry into her body. She was on top of the island before she knew it, her legs scissoring around his waist.
“Spike…”
“Please,” he murmured into her. “I din’t mean it. None of it. You don’ know what you do to me.” He was tugging at her sweats, and while her heart was thundering, her mind objecting, her body seemed perfectly content, even eager, to feel his touch between her thighs. She even spread her legs wider, small whimpers scratching at her throat that only seemed to calm when his hands were on her body. “Never could’ve touched anyone else,” he swore reverently, cupping her pussy through her cotton underwear once her pajama bottoms were nothing but an afterthought. “Not even if the sodding Powers gave me a break. This was more than worth waitin’ for. Fourteen years? Fuck, kitten, I’d’ve waited fourteen lifetimes for this.”
Her insides warmed, but she was more than half convinced he was swearing his adoration out of the heat of the moment and nothing else. The next thing she knew, her panties were a thing of the past and he was on his knees before her.
“What are you…ohh…oh my GOD!”
Spike murmured and delved his tongue deeper inside her, his hand splaying across her pelvis as his fingers found her swollen pearl and began to stroke her fiercely. He was murmuring into her, lapping at her insides, massaging the intimate parts of her that she had nearly convinced herself would never know this sort of raw sensationalism. She didn’t know what was more appropriate; to lose herself or die of embarrassment.
“Oh my…oh my…oh my god.”
He chuckled into her, and the vibrations sent sharp shards of pleasure across her skin. His thumb was caressing her clit harder now, his tongue delving deeper.
Then his mouth was gone, and she all but screamed in objection.
“You like that?” he rasped, his eyes dark with passion, swallowing her up as she moaned and writhed under his touch.
“What are you…ohh…Spike, oh my god…what are you…doing to me?” His fingers abandoned her clit the next minute, and her head flew back as her body tightened. “Please!”
“What do you want?” he asked her, his mouth dropping to her inner thigh, peppering her moist skin with biting kisses. “You want me, Buffy? Even after everythin’ that’s happened? Everythin’ I’ve told you? You still want me like this?”
She mewled and thrust her hips forward, nodding desperately. “Please!”
“Please what?”
“Gah…” Her cheeks flushed and her skin burned. “Touch me.”
“With what?”
Confidence was building. At the moment, she didn’t care if he laughed at her. If her inexperience was shining through. If he told the world how she fumbled herself at intimacy—mainly because she knew, somehow, he would never do any such thing. And she needed him. “Your hands.”
He growled a bit at that, sinking two fingers within her wet sheath. “Anythin’ else?”
Buffy bit her lip, riding his hand slowly; trusting that her body would not lead her astray. She wanted his mouth, but she felt strangely self-conscious asking…considering he’d just gotten her to beg to stick his fingers inside her.
Spike seemed to sense this. He blew a stream of cool air against her folds and nipped at her playfully. “You want my mouth, baby?” he asked. “Want to feel me nibblin’ at you?”
She nodded desperately, and the next thing she knew, his lips had wrapped around her clit and were suckling intently.
“Oh my god!”
“Mmm,” he hummed into her. “You taste so good.”
“I…I do?”
“Oh yeah…never tasted anythin’ like this. Like honey, only sweeter. You’re so…”
He didn’t finish the thought, but then he didn’t need to. An alien burning sensation pooled in her stomach, rising, rising, rising until she thought she couldn’t take it anymore. Whether or not it escalated by the cool feel of his fangs sliding into her inner thigh or not, Buffy exploded around him. She grasped his head and held her to him as her body shuddered. There had never been anything like this before. No feeling. No sensation. Not even the fantasies she had conjured in her girlish daydreams could compare to this, and she had always been certain that her daydreams would beat out reality. That she could never be the type of girl to feel this sort of passion. That she was somehow tainted, undeserving, by being what she was.
Spike was still suckling at her thigh when she came down. It was strange; the bite hadn’t hurt or even scared her too badly. Somehow, through the daze, the sensation of his fangs in her body felt too right to deny.
That thought scared her enough to not waste time worrying about the vampire’s bumpies.
She ran her fingers through his hair. “Spike?”
Her voice brought him back. Immediately, his fangs slid out of her, and he glanced up at her, his eyes wide with horror. “Buffy, I…God, I din’t mean to. Your blood, it was jus’…god, I needed you. Needed to taste you so bleedin’ badly.” As though his words alone spurned him on, his tongue led him back to the valley between her legs, and he reverently began lapping up the dampness against her skin. “I’ve waited…God, I’ve waited…but that doesn’ mean I should’ve…” To her astonishment and wonder, tears filled his eyes when he glanced up at her again. “’m so sorry.”
How could she tell him that it was all right? She wasn’t angry, but she was frightened. And not at his actions—at her own. Thus, for now, she opted to not say anything. Instead, she tugged him up and burrowed into his embrace. Spike released a deep breath, but the tension wasn’t gone.
“Thank you,” he murmured, startling her. “For letting me taste.”
His arms were around her, his erection pressed against her intimately, and he was nuzzling her hair with caution. And thanking her for allowing him to bring her pleasure she’d only read about, and had never thought to experience.
No, the tension wasn’t gone. If anything, it was more present than ever.
For now, though, it didn’t matter. They’d just shared something remarkable.
She wanted this peace with him before the world crashed down again.
To be continued in Chapter Twelve: For What’s Inside Awaking…
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