The Bronze.

She attempted to recall the number of reasons she had given herself when she’d decided to come here tonight. She felt misplaced and cold; her skin terribly aware of the heat compressing the bodies of others around her. The music was intolerably loud, but strangely no more so than every other time she had come to this place with the intention of burning off some non-slayage steam. It was as though her ears were hearing for the first time.

There were so many things about vampirism that she didn’t understand. Spike liked loud music. She didn’t. Spike could breathe without it hurting; she was getting there. They both liked warm blood. Little things like that—things that were so obvious now—were things she had never associated with lacking a heartbeat. Being raped of the ability to walk in sunlight.

And now with the steady drumming of so many heartbeats, the promise of warm blood with every body that surrounded her, racing pulses and the deafening cadence of life—life that she lacked. Warmth that she lacked. Her fangs were piercing her gums with the need to drink. And she was here because she wanted to see if she could take it.

She couldn’t.

Especially when she saw her friends at a table beneath the eagle view of the balcony. Her friends that were miles away from her. They were laughing about something Xander had said. Tara and Willow were sharing a plate of chicken wings that Anya kept trying to eat off of. Riley was there, too; the only one not laughing. Not having a good time. As though he wanted to be elsewhere.

She thought she would’ve been angry to see her friends so carefree while she was in pain, but she wasn’t. Rather, it was nice knowing that they weren’t burdened by what had happened to her. Perhaps Giles had told them about his meeting with Spike. Perhaps they had understood. It wasn’t a matter of them having fun without her; they were having fun. It didn’t mean she was forgotten.

The demon inside was screaming. She wanted blood. And she wanted a lot of it.

She wanted it warm. And she wanted it now.

A trembling gasp escaped her throat and she willed her eyes closed, hands enclosing around the railing that guarded the upper gallery. It had been a mistake coming here, but she needed to know. She’d needed to feel it for herself. And now she was here, she was feeling it, and she was alone. She hadn’t even told Spike she was leaving; she was alone.

This was something she needed to do herself. But she’d gone too soon.

Then his scent washed over her, and the angered, hungry demon cooed to a soothing obedience. A sigh of relief rolled off her shoulders, and she allowed her body to relax.

Oh thank God.

“I wouldn’t’ve argued ‘f you’d said you needed to do this by yourself, sweets,” Spike mused thoughtfully, wrapping his arms around her middle. Her back was suddenly against the comforting fortitude of his chest. “I would’ve worried until I heard from you, or more likely, followed you from a distance, but I wouldn’t’ve argued.”

“I’m so glad you’re here.”

“I can tell,” he replied, his mouth finding her throat. Her legs about buckled at the softness of his kisses. There was no way she had lived without this voluntarily; those first few years of her life had to have been under a glamour that kept her from him. The spell Willow had placed them under a year before had been a hint from the PTB that this was the way things needed to be between them. Spike with his arms around her, his mouth worshipping her throat, his erection pressing into the curve of her ass. “Know how?”

“H-how what?”

He chuckled against her. “How I can tell you’re glad that I’m here.”

“How?”

“You haven’t thrown me over the balcony yet.”

“Those days are so over.”

“Hmmm, almost disappointin’. You’re so hot when you’re feisty.” His arms tightened around her, and she moaned slightly in complaint when his kisses ceased. “You know,” he said, hooking his chin over her shoulder, “you can go down there an’ see them, if you want.”

“I don’t.”

“Really?”

There was a pause. “Well…no, I don’t. I came here to see if I could…come here, and I can’t.” She sighed. “I’ve been wishing you were with me since the minute I stepped out of the crypt.”

“’m here now.”

“How’d you know where to find me?”

Spike grinned against her. “Same way you knew I was here before I said anythin’. An’ I felt it the minute you shimmied away from me this evenin’.”

“I didn’t shimmy away. There was no shimmying.”

He laughed shortly. “Pity.”

“Spike—”

“You sure you don’ wanna say anythin’ to your mates?”

“I’m sure.” Buffy released a sigh. “I’m not ready yet. I don’t want to see them when I’m not ready.” She shook her head, trembling. “I want to feed. The second I came in here, I wanted to bite everyone around me.”

“I know, sweetheart.”

“That and I don’t want them to…I’m afraid they’d come after you. If what you told me about your talk with Giles…they’d come after you.” She shuddered. “And I’m afraid of what I’d do to them if they came after you.”

Spike froze. “You’d…they’re your friends, sweetheart—”

“Yeah, and I went to you. If they’re really my friends, they’ll understand that. But they won’t. Will, Tara, and Anya…yeah. Xander and Riley?” She shook her head again. “There’s no way they’d understand.”

Then, for no reason whatsoever—other than it was infuriating to have him with this invisible barrier between them—Buffy twisted in his arms, linked her hands behind his neck, and crushed her mouth to his. Spike was motionless for half a second out of surprise, then he rumbled a growl into her and pulled her tightly against him. It was liberating, kissing him here in front of everyone. Feeling his lips moving against her, his tongue invading her mouth, growling into her. If her friends glanced up, they would be in plain view, but Buffy didn’t care. She wanted Spike. She was tired of denying herself the one person guaranteed to give her peace. She wanted Spike, and for the way he was grinding his erection into her, his hand cupping her ass and pulling her against him, he wanted her, too. She was wet and he knew it. There was a familiar burn searing her insides, warming her where she was cold. Spike was kissing her and that was everything.

“Mmmm,” he mewled, pulling away from her lips as his kisses detonated into an exploration of every inch of her that he could reach without breaking any standing decency laws. “God, Buffy…”

Her mouth found the soft skin at his throat and began nibbling slightly.

“Christ!” he gasped. Then froze. “Slayer…” he growled warningly. “You do what you’re aimin’ to do, an’ your friends are gonna know we’re here right quick.”

His voice broke through the haze clouding her lust-filled mind. “What?”

“You’re hungry,” he said, edging her mouth away from his throat. “An’ you haven’t fed. An’ you’re about three seconds from sinkin’ your fangs into my throat. Somethin’ I’m not above explorin’ when we’re home…but it’s too bloody dangerous here.” His eyes dropped to her lips, and he kissed her again. “Havin’ said that, wanna go home?”

Buffy smiled shyly and glanced down. “Home?”

“Well, my home.”

“I kinda think of it as home, too.”

A look of pure adoration flooded into his gaze, and he cupped her cheeks reverently, brushing his lips against hers. “’S yours, sweetling,” he promised. “As bloody long as you want it to be. As long as you wanna be with me, you have a place. ‘S jus’ a hole in the ground, so—”

“It’s more than a hole in the ground, Spike. It’s…” Buffy tore her eyes away from his when the intensity with which he regarded her became too strong. “It’s…I forget it’s a crypt most of the time. You know how you walk into a place, and it’s all new…and you don’t know where anything is, and it’s new and strange? Does that make sense?”

“More so than you’d think.”

“Well…you know then how after time passes, the place that you thought of in one way becomes another? You know the place so it looks different?”

He nodded.

“The crypt’s like that. I’ve been there so much that it’s like…I don’t remember thinking of it as the other thing. It’s like home.”

“What about your real home, luv? The one with your mum?”

She glanced up. “It seems so far away. I know it’s there, and you’re right…she will love me no matter what. I just…the girl that lived there isn’t around anymore. I’ve changed…and not just in body temperature. I can’t live in the house. I can’t go to school. I can’t…well, I can’t really do anything. Except patrol.”

“You wanna patrol?”

“Violence is one of the three things, right?”

“Yeh. One of the three.” His eyes flashed. “We better go before your friends see one of the other two.”

Buffy grinned cheekily. “Yeah? Which one?”

A devilish smirk crossed his face. “Well now,” he said. “That’d be tellin’.” His gaze wandered over the railing. “Better go, yeh? Your pals are about to embarrass themselves on the dance floor. Wouldn’t want them seein’ anything you don’ want them to see.”

“Like what?”

Passion stormed his eyes, and he placed her hand over his erection. “Use your imagination.”

Buffy flushed but flicked her brows challengingly, squeezing his denim-clad cock before releasing him with an affectionate pat. His gaze widened in surprise before dissolving into desire, a long whimper tumbling through his lips. “I can imagine a few things,” she replied softly.

“Bleedin’ fuck,” Spike gasped, shaking his head and enclosing a hand around her wrist. “Takin’ you outta here now.”

They left through the back entrance. Away from her friends. Away from the people. Away from warm blood. Away from walking temptation.

The vampire at her side took her hand as they walked, as though claiming her as his for anyone who happened across them.

“Thank you,” she whispered after a few minutes of silence.

He glanced to her quizzically. “For what, pet?”

“For coming after me. I…I was losing it before you showed up.”

Spike smiled softly, grazing his thumb over knuckles with tender adulation. “’m not so easy to get rid of,” he replied. “’Specially when it comes to those I care about.”

Buffy wet her lips. “You care about me?”

“Pet, ‘f that’s not painstakingly obvious by now, we gotta work on our communication skills.”

“No…I know. It’s just…it’s a different thing to hear it.”

He nodded. “I know.”

A beat. She drew in a deep breath.

“I care about you, too.”

Spike’s eyes twinkled as he turned to her, brushing a kiss against her temple. “I know, kitten,” he murmured lovingly. “I know.”

*~*~*

She was so close to him, and he couldn’t take his eyes off her.

For the days he’d spent curled in her scent, he expected one night to awake and find her gone. A figment of his imagination. The calling of a distant dream, alerting him to what he would never have. Now they were lying side by side on top of the blankets, and all he could do was stare at her.

It was a terrible sensation, dueling with his guilt at having failed her. At having her cursed with his existence when she was made for the sun. But he would be lying to himself if he tried to believe these past few days hadn’t been the best of his life. If her tragic twist of fate hadn’t been his saving grace. He loved her so much, and what had happened to her had consequentially brought her to him. Given him a chance of what he would never have obtained with the Buffy she had left behind. The Buffy that Dracula had killed. The wiser woman in his arms represented everything he had begrudgingly admired in her in their years as adversaries, but aged with that cynicism, that knowledge, which only true death could provide.

This thing that was happening between them was more than he’d ever hoped to touch. And every second with her burned him so good; he couldn’t help but come back for more. Like he was spiraling out of control and chaos had never tasted sweeter. He’d known this sort of bedlam before. Loving Drusilla had eaten away at his insides; consumed him wholly until he was only a shady version himself. Buffy had given him back everything that he once thought lost. And amazingly, she’d done so without being any the wiser.

His previous personal commandment to let her go when she no longer needed him had all but vanished. The thought of letting her go made him ache.

But if she wanted to go, he would not stop her. He loved her too much to deny her happiness, in whatever form she found it in.

Spike released a trembling breath, a hand sliding up her arm, brushing her hair out of her face. His lips grazed her bare shoulder. She was in the habit of dressing for bed in the negligee that Dracula had given her; something he found both irritating and strangely uplifting. In his trip to her house, he’d been sure to pack her several pairs of pajamas. Pajamas that sadly concealed more than they showed off. Buffy had opted to show off every night she spent with him.

He simply was too cautious to say it was for his sake rather than hers. Perhaps the negligee provided a subconscious link with her sire, and helped her deal with his death even more.

The thought of her trying to make peace with another man had him seething with jealousy, but he was too old to question the link between sires and their childer. If she needed peace, he would conquer nations to give it to her. If sleeping in her sire’s gift provided what he could not, that would be his problem. He would never deny her anything.

“Mmmm…” Buffy moaned, shifting in her sleep. And he was suddenly awash in the rich aroma of her arousal. “Spiiiiike.”

His eyes widened. “Sweetheart?”

She whimpered again, her eyes welded shut. “Gawwwd, Spike.”

Oh fuck.

She was dreaming of him. She was dreaming of him. Like that. And he was drowning in her heavenly scent. His cock was painfully hard, rubbing subconsciously against the curve of her ass. God, he needed her. He needed her so much.

“Buffy…bleedin’ hell, you’re killing me.”

She mewled but did not awaken. Instead, her hand snaked down her own body, hiking up the hem of her negligee. “Spike. Need…uhhh…”

He willed his eyes closed. Gotta…wake her…

Buffy whimpered again and twisted in his arms. Her mouth was suddenly achingly close to his. He knew how sweet that mouth tasted. Knew the flavor of her kisses. He knew how wet she became when she was aroused. Knew from that first morning how delicious she was.

Goddamn…

He slithered a hand between them and freed his cock from his jeans. “Jesus…” he gasped, stroking his shaft in time with her whimpers. Somewhere in the back of his head, he knew that wanking off to her wet dream was wrong. “I can’t take much more of this,” he told her, even if she couldn’t hear him. “Jus’ so you know. I want you so much.”

“Spike…”

He didn’t really know how it happened. The next minute her bumpies had shifted forward, the gorgeous visage of her demon, and her fangs slid into his throat.

Spike roared and came. Like a schoolboy on his first date, only worse. Now her eyes were open. Now she was awake. And he was holding his cock, his hand full of his spendings. He didn’t know whether to be sorry or humiliated, or to call her on this mating ritual she’d been teasing him with, whether intentional or not. He wanted her, and he knew she wanted him.

One look at her face, though, halted anything he was about to say. Her eyes were awash in mortification, trained on the marks in his throat. “Oh God,” she cried. “Oh my God. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…I—”

Spike’s eyes went wide.

“Not sorry,” he replied hoarsely, and seized her lips before she could say another word. “You’re amazin’. Never felt anythin’ like that.”

“Felt?”

“Mmmm…” He was hard again, his erection wandering disobediently between her legs. “You drive me outta my mind.”

“Spike…”

His fingers skimmed her inner thigh. “Want you so much,” he rasped. “You smell so sweet.”

“I…Spike…I…”

“Wanna bury myself inside you. Make love with you till nightfall.” He nuzzled her throat. “Taste every inch of you. Christ, Buffy…”

“I…”

She wanted it, too. He could see it. Her eyes shone with uncertainty, but she wanted him in every way he wanted her. The hesitation, though, lent him pause. With as much as he craved to lose himself inside her, he wanted absolutely no doubt between them. Wanted nothing but that promise of the future they could have together. Not the reservations of a world that gave its blessings as readily as it took.

“I won’ do anythin’ you don’t want me to do,” he promised.

“Spike…” Her eyes filled with tears that broke his heart. “I do. I want you so much. I’ve never wanted anyone as much as I want you. I’m just…I don’t know why I’m…God, I’m just…”

He shook his head and brushed his lips against her cheek. “Don’t cry, sweetness,” he murmured. “When it happens, I don’ want you doubtin’ anything. Least of all me.” His gaze dropped to her mouth and he kissed her again. “But God, lemme taste you. Touch you. God, anythin’. Please. Your scent is drivin’ me outta my bloody head.”

“T-t-taste?”

He frowned and studied her a moment, then his gaze went wide. “Oh, you’re bloody kiddin’ me.”

“I don’t—”

“Don’ worry.” Spike sat up and pushed her gently back to the mattress, kicking his jeans off his legs. Her eyes bulged at the sight of him fully nude, and he couldn’t help the dose of male pride that spread through his body at her silent appraisal. “Gonna take care of you.”

Buffy was studying him intently, burdened with both intrigue and desire, and the combination was heavenly.

He flashed a reassuring smile and fisted the material of her negligee. “You like this?” he asked.

“Not really.”

“Why wear it?”

“It’s sexy. I…” He swore her pale cheeks flushed bright, but that could be easily accredited to his overactive imagination. “I don’t have…you didn’t…I want to be sexy for you. It’s the only thing I had…you didn’t bring…my other stuff.”

Ardor stormed his eyes. “Oh Buffy.”

A quick tear and her sire’s gift was no more. And his eyes drank her in. Buffy lying before him. Her gorgeous body bare to him. There was not an inch of her that he did not adore. That he would fail to taste. Everything. She was his. If not before, certainly now. He was never letting her go after this. Not after tonight.

“Buffy.” Her name came out a choked sob. “God, you’re so gorgeous.”

She arched beneath his perusal. “Spike, please.”

He nodded, grateful for the invitation. Had he forced himself to keep his hands off her another second, he was sure he would know death all over again. He palmed a breast reverently as his mouth dipped to sample the other. He laved a wet path around her nipple before drawing her bud into his mouth. “Mmm,” he hummed against her skin. “So sweet.”

“Guhh…”

His other hand spread her thighs. “Gonna taste you now,” he told her. “God, I need to taste you so bloody badly.” Before she could open her mouth, he slid unceremoniously down her body and nuzzled his face into her sex.

Buffy arched off the bed. “Spike!”

“Screamin’ my name already,” he mused, nibbling on her folds. She was already panting. Her eyes wide with awe. It amazed him that for all the tossers she’d been with, not one of them had done this for her. Not even his own wanker of a grandsire, who’d not only had her love, but had robbed her of her virginity. Torn into her body without…his eyes clouded with rage. None in her past had been worthy of this. Lying between her thighs, gazing up her body, feasting on her pussy. No. If they didn’t know how to properly worship a goddess, they weren’t fit to share a room, much less her bed.

“Oh God,” she gasped. “Oh my God.”

He sank two fingers within her. “You’re so wet,” he moaned. “So bloody tight.”

“Uhhh…”

“Feel good?” he asked tentatively, pulling his digits out and driving them back in. Her response drowned out in a long, encouraging mewl. His tongue lapped at her eagerly, watching her face through hooded eyes. Watching as she writhed at his touch. It was unlike anything he had ever seen. Buffy whimpering for his touch. Buffy shaking in hard sobs of pleasure. Her eyes shining with light and desire. For him. All for him.

Fuck, he would never tire of this.

“Spike…oh god…please.”

“I know what you need, sweetling,” he murmured. He smiled into her and drew her clit into his mouth. His tongue swirled around the needy bundle as his fingers thrust deeper into her. He was swimming in her. Losing himself a thousand times over. Everything on overload. Her scent. Her responses. That lost look in her eyes. He couldn’t get enough of her. If leaving this glorious creature behind was in his making, he wanted no part of it. She had his blood in her body now. He had her taste rolled on his tongue. His fingers were inside her, stroking her to perfection. His cock drove madly against the mattress, demanding attention that he refused to turn to himself. She was crying out for him, and the air had never known a sweeter sound. His Buffy on his bed. His Buffy that slept in his arms. She thrust her hips against his face, incoherent babbles spilling through her perfect lips.

“You taste like wine,” he told her, withdrawing his fingers from her passage.

“Spike!”

“Gonna take care of you, baby,” he promised. “Gonna drink you till you can’t come anymore.”

His hand settled over her pubic bone, fingers dipping into her again. Finding her abandoned clit and massaging her in speedy, tortuous circles as his tongue plunged into her pussy.

“Oh God!” she screamed, arching off the bed again. Her fingers tunneled through his hair and held him to her. Her legs settled over his shoulder and drew him into her, sobbing her pleasure in the form of his name again and again. And he lapped at everything she gave him. Explored the extent of her body’s secrets, rejoicing in the honey that rewarded his tongue. With every second, he lost himself a bit more. He would gladly wait out the trials of eternity here if only to hear his name screamed in her voice. Watch as the pleasure he gave her engulfed her face. Taste her nectar as she came. She was purity lost in darkness, and she gave him all her light.

When she came, it was a bloody revelation. He was overwhelmed with her taste, lost in the sobbing contours of her body. Holding her as she trembled and cried his name, his mouth not leaving her until the tremors subsided. Until she fell back against the mattress, panting deep breaths that no longer hurt. Her gaze was clouded with tears again, but there was such joy embedded in her eyes that he did not question her. Merely licked her flavor off his lips, suckled his Buffy-drenched fingers into his mouth, and rested with her as she came down. His arms curled around her and rested his cheek against her stomach, a lazy hand toying with her breast. Waiting for his goddess to return to him.

Sharing this with her was unlike anything else in his existence. God, if he hadn’t known before a thousand times over, he bloody well knew now.

Fuck, I love her so much.

“Spike…”

He met her eyes slowly and melted at what he saw. The peace in her eyes was contagious, settled there with pure adoration that he had never before been given. He felt loved. Warm. There in her arms, her scent flooding him wholly. Her smile. Her peace. Her love.

The words weren’t there, but he felt it.

“You’re so…” He stopped shortly, and then shook his head. There was nothing he could say. Nothing that would summarize the wealth of what he felt.

Instead, he prowled up her body and kissed her. Poured everything he was into the union of their lips. Let her taste herself, spiced with the taste of him. Her arms came around him. Body to body. Holding each other in the aftermath. Holding each other in the embrace of day, with the promise of something new.

He had helped her reach penance.

Now they would try for fire.

 

 

She awoke curled in warmth.

Strange. As a vampire, warmth was not supposed to exist. And yet, for everything, the comfort of Spike’s embrace provided something she had never touched in life. More so at this waking than all the others she had shared with him. The blessed few days she had spent with him.

He was breaking her barriers, one by one. Everything she had thought of vampires for so long had been replaced with the more startling reality of her nature. She knew that most of her kind were soulless monsters. That most would just as soon kill her as look at her, whether or not she was one of them now. The title of Slayer deified the Chosen in the ways of fear and hatred. She was a symbol of reverence and terror, and she always would be. Buffy, the Immortalized Slayer. Buffy, the girl that was Chosen in the last of the twentieth century, and fell in love with two vampires before being sired by the most famous vampire of popular culture.

Spike’s head was pillowed at her breast, his right arm curved over her abdomen. His cock was hard against her leg, and a blissful look of serenity graced his sleeping face. No one had ever made her feel the way he did. Not only for what he did to her, how effortlessly he aroused her with his touch, but for everything else. The small things. The way he looked at her when he thought she wasn’t looking. The way he would brush kisses against her forehead or her hand when she was distressed. The way he shared her pain without losing his fortitude.

She was in love with him. She had known it the night before and still hadn’t surpassed that idyllic euphoria that came with realization. It was a slow coming love. Slow because it was the first time she had had ever truly felt it. Warmth that came without fear or doubt. Kindliness that wasn’t clouded with misguidance or riddled with angst that had dominated her previous relationships. Real love wasn’t like that. She had been a fool to ever think it was. That losing Angel had been the worst pain she could endure. That he was her pinnacle of love, when in the face of actual despair, he was the last person she could ever turn to.

Spike was curled around her. He had reintroduced her to magic the night before; magic she had thought she was too jaded to feel anymore. He had given her love when she had thought the concept something distant, if not wholly made-up. Had given color to a heart worn with blacks and grays. God, yes, she loved him. In just a few days, she had come to love him so much.

The future terrified her, but she felt she could bear it if he was with her.

If that was what he wanted.

Buffy released a sigh and ran her fingers through his peroxide locks, surprised at the softness that greeted her touch. He moaned a bit, his eyes fluttering open. It took a few seconds, but he found her gaze with sleepy adoration, the light that flickered across his face sending warm tremors through her body.

“Mornin’ baby,” he purred, tweaking her nipple.

“Morning,” she replied, arching slightly beneath him.

“Sleep well?”

“Very.”

He smiled. “Good.” He brushed his lips across her forehead, mouth dipping to her throat. “Never thought I’d wake up like this…with you,” he murmured, peppering kisses across her collarbone, then further south until his mouth engulfed her breast, suckling at her sweetly. “You’re so gorgeous like this.”

“Panting and moaning?”

Spike flashed a wicked grin. “Well, I was talkin’ about naked, but I’ll take pantin’ an’ moanin’.”

“Are you ever not horny?”

His eyes flickered dangerously. “Around you?”

She grinned shyly and glanced away. “I never thought…I dunno, I just never thought I’d wake up like this, either.”

“Like this?” he retorted challengingly, licking her nipple again. “Or…” Her eyes went wide at the suddenness of his invasion, two fingers sliding effortlessly into her sodden passage. “This?”

She released a trembling sigh and clutched him tighter. “Either or both.”

“You’re so wet.”

“Mmm…well…what can I say?” Buffy wheedled a hand between them and took hold of his wrist, easing his touch out of her. A confused, hurt look flashed over his face—brief, but she decided in that split second that she never wanted to see it again. That sort of wounded countenance that gave her the impression that he felt he wasn’t good enough for her.

Time to put that fear to rest.

Her legs wound around his waist and she flipped them over in half a second, pinning him to the mattress with a wicked smile. “You bring it out in me,” she concluded, enjoying the smoldering look that flashed across his face. Her eyes flashed teasingly, her mouth dropping to his chest. Spike’s gaze widened in surprise and he threw his head back, a low, tangled moan erupting from his lips.

“Buffy—”

“Turnabout,” she retorted with a cheeky shrug, teeth scraping delicately at one of his nipples. He whimpered and thrust his hips into hers. “And all that.”

“You’re so bloody amazing,” he growled, eyes glazed over with passion. “Christ, Slayer…I want you so fucking much.”

She hummed her approval and nipped at his skin, sliding upward to suckle at his throat over the mark her fangs had given him the night before. Spike mewled again, wandering hands palming her breasts reverently. She was startled at the shards of rapture that shot through her own body—elation like nothing else she had ever experienced. With every sweep of her tongue over her mark, she felt her insides tremble and a slow burn of orgasmic bliss seared through her skin.

It was a bite mark, nothing more. Her bite marks had been a source of pleasure, yes, but nothing like this. And if a bite mark could elicit such euphoria from her, the gasps erupting from his mouth gave her preludes to ecstasy she had only read about.

“God.” His hips surged forward again, his cock sliding against her sopping pussy, eliciting a shared moan between them. “You’re doin’ this to torture me, right?”

“Uh huh.” Her voice didn’t sound controlled so much as needy, but she was still the one on top. And if Spike noticed, he didn’t reveal it. As alluring as it was, exploring the many venues of vampire eroticism, there was so much more of him that she wanted to taste. Her own sexual curiosity was breaking through after two years of being sexually active but similarly repressed. There were things she knew that two people could do together that she had never had the courage to try. Never with Angel, certainly not with Parker, and she had never felt close enough to Riley to do more than the basic ‘insert, withdraw, and repeat as needed.’ She had never had the nerve to take command in bed. To follow what she wanted more than what her bedmate thought she wanted.

With Spike, those fears were nonexistent. And her comfort with him only served to fuel the new, very real love that warmed her cold blood. She could only be like this with someone she loved. She had never known love before him. Love that didn’t feel like this wasn’t love at all.

Furthermore, vampiric intimacy still intimidated her. She wanted to know more about her demon’s nature before she pursued anything else with her fangs.

Buffy leaned back and grasped his wrists, drawing his hands away from her breasts. He whimpered at that, his eyes wide and imploring. She merely smiled reassuringly, then began sliding down the length of him, enjoying the growing tautness of his body until she was face-to-face with his erection. The head of his need was beaded with drops of precum, his skin tremulous with promised anticipation. Spike panted a loud mewl and caught her chin with his fingers.

“B-Buffy, you don’ have to—”

She tugged herself free defiantly, indulging a long lap of his cock. “I want to.”

“Oh Jesus.” He fell against the mattress in surrender and welded his eyes shut. “Bleedin’ fuck.”

“I’ve never done this, just so you know.”

A tense beat rattled through his body. “Buffy…”

She cupped his balls reverently, suckling at the underside of his length. Her thumbs massaged circles into his sensitive skin. “Tell me if I do something wrong,” she murmured heatedly, tongue trailing his cock again until his belled head bobbed against her lips, and she drew him into the inferno of her mouth.

“Oh my God.” Spike flexed and thrust forward involuntarily. Forcing himself deeper into her throat. Then he froze. “S-sorry. I can’t…you feel so good. Feels so fucking good. I’ll try to…not do that.”

Personally, Buffy was impressed he was able to get a sentence out. She was so turned on at his eagerness that she doubted she would be equally successful. The view of him panting and writhing at her touch was one of the most empowering sights she had ever beheld.

She nodded and he moaned again, his fingers tunneling through her hair, lovingly massaging her scalp. “Nothin’ wrong,” he said heatedly. “There’s no way you could do anythin’ wrong.”

Buffy smiled around him, earning another whimper. Then she drew her mouth back to his tip, tongue swirling around his sensitive head. Her hand gave his sac a final squeeze before curling around the base of his erection, pumping him with rhythm natural to her body. As though she had opened a door to a world of new things she was already knowledged in. Her teeth scraped his skin just slightly, and she left his cock to the feel of her explorative fingers, placing a kiss against him before trailing her lips southward. Her hand continued a path back and forth, kneading him in time with his moans and half-coherent praises and vows of adoration.

“Jesus,” he mewled. “Feels so good. Feel so bloody good. God, you’re so perfect. My hot li’l Slayer.”

Her tongue enveloped his sac, suckling him into her mouth.

“Oh God!”

She drew her mouth away at the harshness behind his tone. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Did that hurt? I didn’t—”

Heated tenderness stormed his gaze. “No. God, no. You’re perfect, baby. You hear me? Like satin. Like milk an’ honey. Fuck…” Lust veiled his eyes when she lowered her head once more, capturing his length in her mouth and suckling delicately. Then her hands cupped him again, and she drew him into her until his head brushed against the back of her throat.

Then she began swallowing around him.

“Buffy…I can’t…” His hips thrust forward desperately.

“Mmm?”

“I’m going to…’m…”

She nodded her understanding around him. And her compliance was all he needed. She didn’t rob him of her touch. Didn’t pull away, didn’t leave him to reach orgasm in the cold of the room. Her mouth remained on him, suckling him intently, welcoming his climax into her throat.

“Oh fuck.”

The impact of his taste overwhelmed her. Anya had described the earnings of blowjobs before with an air of aversion, and while Buffy couldn’t say it was the best thing she’d ever had in her mouth, she suspected she found him delicious because of the feelings she harbored for him. In the end, the taste itself didn’t matter. It was that she had made him do that. His pleasure was hers, and his thunderous roar of release sent tingles of anticipation through her body. He was panting as though he needed air. As though a hundred plus years of conditioning could be eradicated with a few minutes of euphoric intimacy.

His cock slid from her mouth with a wet plop, and she placed a kiss across the head with a tender purr that surprised her. In her life, she had never purred. Not once. Now she was, and she had a distant feeling that her newfound vampirism had very little to do with it.

Perhaps it was the happiness. She rested her cheek against his abdomen and wrapped her arms around his waist, waiting for him to come down. Happiness. Happiness as a vampire that she had never achieved as a human.

Buffy was no stranger to having one part of her life going well while everything else was falling apart. The wailing of her demon for the death of her sire hadn’t bothered her for two days now. It ached still, sometimes sent sharp shards of pain through her body, but hadn’t really bothered her.

She no longer felt broken. And it had happened so fast, she didn’t know how to catch up with herself. Spike had pieced her back together when she wasn’t looking. Had given her something that she didn’t know she needed. Had given her reason to smile once more when she thought all reason had died along with her body.

But she wasn’t dead. For the first time, she understood that. Her body was dead; she wasn’t. She had never felt more alive than she did now. Not once in the long line of her weary existence had she begun to touch life as she had since Spike molded her into a new line of understanding from that shady form of herself that could have been her undoing. He had given her blood and made her realize it was okay to drink. If blood was what she needed, it was okay to drink. It was okay to be a vampire without being a demon. It was okay to love her savior. It was okay to love him even if he wasn’t.

She loved Spike, and she had never loved anyone before him. And he had shown her that. Yes, she loved her mother and her friends and her Watcher, but there was a major difference between the love of family and the love of lovers. For so long, she had mistaken the love of family for the love of lovers. Spike provided a ground-shattering both. He was her family, but he was her lover, too. He was her friend and her equal. And she loved him wholly from all aspects.

He made her not afraid, but similarly let her know that fear was natural. To not fear was to be truly inhuman. She was touching humanity for the first time, and it was because of him.

“Buffy.” Spike tugged her back up his body until she was sitting in his lap. His cock was hard again and aligned temptingly with her pussy, but he made no move to enter her. Instead, he kissed her with tenderness no man had ever treated her with. As though every touch from her was a gift from Heaven itself. “You’re so amazin’.”

She smiled gently and brushed her lips against his. “That was okay?”

Spike gaped at her in amazement. “Kitten,” he whispered furiously, drawing her in for another heartfelt kiss. He plundered her mouth with his tongue, pouring the full of his feeling into the union of their lips. “You’ve blown the cap off my bloody world. That was…I’ve never felt anythin’ like that.”

“I find that rather doubtful.”

His eyes narrowed. “You callin’ me a liar?” he asked, fingers trailing along her abdomen, dipping between them. “Saucy li’l minx.”

“I’m just saying, my zero experience next to the tons of experience by, oh say…” Buffy drew in a sharp gasp, her eyes squeezing shut. Spike’s thumb settled over her clit, rubbing her in slow, tortuous circles, two fingers exploring her tight passage. “Cheater.”

“’m cheatin’?”

She nodded, moving over him, welcoming the gentle thrust of his hand. “Uh huh.”

“Jus’ thought you might listen to me ‘f I was doin’ this.” His mouth fell to her throat. “Plus the smell of you was makin’ my mouth water.”

“Ohh…”

“Yeh, oh.” He suckled gently on her bite mark. The one given to her by her sire. The one he intended to erase with his own fangs before long. “You’re amazing. You make me burn. You make me feel things I’ve never felt before. Things I…” He shook his head and raised his eyes to hers, his thumb massaging her sensitive button rapidly now, his fingers thrusting into her as though he needed her release as desperately as she did. “An’ when I say I’ve never felt anythin’ like that before, that no one’s ever done to me what you do, I bloody well mean it. This mornin’…your smell…your taste…everythin’ I’ve…this is beyond for me, what you might think it is. It means more to me than…anything. You hear me?”

The sincerity in his eyes won her over, and she nodded with a sob of pleasure as he pushed her over the edge. Her insides rattled. Sharp shards of rapture spread through her body, and she touched the light of paradise before plummeting back to earth. Quivering in his arms as he held her through the delicious afterglow of her orgasm. As she tumbled from wonder back to reality, her cheek resting against his shoulder, soft sighs of completion escaping her lips. He held her, his words softening her fall, and she believed him.

“Never,” he whispered again.

Buffy didn’t say anything. She pressed her brow to his, quivering in his arms, but not of fear or uncertainty. Of something else altogether.

She knew then. Without the words, she knew.

He loved her. He’d just told her without saying it at all. And she didn’t know why. She didn’t know how. She had no idea how they had gotten here. All she knew was that he loved her, and somehow, she had known it all along.

You know why, Buffy. You know why.

She did. She’d known it that night, and she knew it now. Spike loved her.

And for that, she felt perhaps there was no true reason to scream her pain again. She was in the arms of the one she loved, and she was loved in return. The words had yet to be said, but they weren’t needed now. There was a time for such confessions. Now was not it.

But soon. Right now she knew.

And that was all she needed.

Just for now.

*~*~*

“You don’t miss her, do you?”

Spike handed her a glass of warmed blood from his newly purchased microwave. It had taken about an hour to set it up; eventually, they settled for hooking it up via extension plugs to the same outlet that powered his television set. It was a cheap microwave, but an effective one. Buffy felt strangely like the new girlfriend furnishing her man’s bachelor pad into a place where a woman could live.

“Who?”

Her eyes narrowed. “You know who,” she retorted, sipping at her blood.

Definitely better when warm.

“Drusilla.”

She did her best to ignore the sharp pang of jealousy seized her stomach. “Yeah. I just…with what you said…before…” His gaze turned passionate and she glanced shyly to the ground. “I mean…you were so into her for such a long time. It’s just…I guess it’s hard for me to believe that you really…say Drusilla showed up and was over her Chaos Demon and wanted you back.”

“Dru would be outta luck.”

“Spike—”

“I don’t want Dru. She’s my sire, yeh, but that’s about that.” He shook his head. “I got over Dru. Don’ know when, but I’m over her. An’ I’ve been over her for a long time.”

“Long time?”

Spike smiled softly. “Well, maybe not so long. A few months after a sodding century together…I thought she was it. But she wasn’t.” He reached for her then, guiding her chin upward so that she could see the sincerity burning his eyes. “She wasn’t,” he said again. “She was my firs’…well, pretty much everything, but that doesn’ mean she was it. She wasn’.”

“How…I…”

A trembling sigh escaped his lips. “She never loved me. I was a toy to her. Someone who’d give her whatever she wanted, whenever she wanted it. Someone who loved her unconditionally an’ din’t rightly care if he was loved back. Someone who wasn’ smart enough to note when somethin’ wasn’t what he thought it was. An’ yeah, I did. I loved her. I loved her because she gave me freedom. She brought me this far. She also used me. She was never mine, an’ she was fine with that so long as I took care of her an’ pleased her, an’ it din’t matter what she gave back to me because a look from her was more than I deserved. That’s not love, Buffy. Not the kind’ve love that lasts as long as I thought Dru an’ I were s’posed to last. That’s…it was infatuation. I woke up one night an’ I was a vampire. She was my sire. That feelin’ you felt for Drac? I din’t know how to tell the difference between that an’ love, because I don’ have what you have.”

A small grin crossed her face. “You?”

He smiled softly. “A soul. Dru gave me somethin’ I never got in life, an’ I was fool enough to mistake that for actual affection. It wasn’t. An’ to be fair, she never tried to make me think otherwise. I jus’ kept seein’ what I wanted to see an’ justifyin’ all else. Angelus would shag her right in front of me, make her come screamin’ his name, an’ I’d forgive her. She’d beg him the chance to suck him off, an’ I’d forgive her. An’ it wasn’ jus’ Angelus. It was any vampire or demon or randy son of a bitch that thought she was as enchantin’ as I did. It wasn’ love. She toyed with me to toy with me, an’ she never gave me any reason to think she felt the way I did. She din’t love me.”

A still beat settled between them. And suddenly, the barriers she had placed between them and the sacred words evaporated. Spike was standing there right before her, recounting something terrible in his past even if he wasn’t aware of it. She wanted something she was hesitant to name, even with her own love for him burning from within. She wanted to tell him that she loved him, but she bit her tongue for uncertainty she knew was foolish but needed anyway. She knew he loved her, too. He had not said the words, but he loved her. A man couldn’t look at any woman the way he looked at her without love being the driving factor.

“And she wouldn’t complete the claim because of it,” she said, reaching out to cup his cheek. Bringing him back to her. “Is it bad that I’m not sorry?”

His smile returned. “No, sweetling,” he replied, dropping a kiss across her palm. “Believe me; I’m not sorry, either. It needs to be real above all else, right? If I’d been mated to her, I wouldn’t be here. I’d be tied to eternity to someone who doesn’ love me. Someone I don’…no, I’m not sorry.”

“You don’t miss her?”

“I did for a long time. Then somethin’ happened.”

“What?”

Spike caught her eyes and held. “I moved on. I became wiser somewhere, though how that happened is anyone’s best bloody guess. I learned the difference between the sire connection an’ love.”

She swallowed hard. “Oh?”

“Yeh.” His gaze warmed with knowledge. That look that read he had all but told her and knew that she knew, but the words themselves remained out of reach. Unspoken. Dangling there between them. Palpable. A manifestation of feeling waiting to be expressed.

Buffy cleared her throat and tore her eyes away. “How…ummm…to get mated to…someone, how does that work?”

An odd grin stretched Spike’s lips. “’S simple, really. You wouldn’t think one of the most powerful, permanent bonds on the bloody planet could come outta somethin’ so simple.”

“How?”

“Why are you so curious?”

She looked anywhere but him. “I-I…if I’m going to be a vampire, I need to…obey the three rules, right? And…say I do…meet someone. Someone that I want to…and I’m guessing the matey thing goes with…sex, and—”

The room rumbled with a hard growl, and he grasped her wrist, yanking her to him. “No,” he barked.

“No? It doesn’t deal with sex?”

“No, there will be no sex.”

Confidence was slowly leaking back. Buffy met his eyes teasingly. “At all?”

“With anyone who’s not in this room, holdin’ you right now.”

“Why, Mr. The Bloody,” she retorted cheekily. “Are you trying to tell me something?”

“Told you enough last night.”

“Did you?”

“’F you don’ know what my mouth was sayin’…” He growled again and yanked her fully into his arms, their respective glasses of blood shattering on the floor. “Then I’ll jus’ have to say it over again. Slower this time.”

“Spike!”

He deposited her on the sofa without ceremony, tearing her slacks down her legs. “You should really go back to wearin’ those skimpy li’l skirts,” he observed. “Think I might’ve grabbed one or two when I got your stuff.”

“Uhhh…”

Her panties joined her slacks. Spike knelt beside the sofa and yanked her to his mouth, positioning her legs over his shoulders. “An’ as much as I love tastin’ your unmentionables, this…” He buried his face in her pussy, “is what makes my mouth water.”

“Spike…I was…uhhh…trying to…ask you a question.”

“Blood exchange,” he replied, suckling her clit into his mouth. “An’ words.”

“What…oh, God!”

Spike grinned up at her, sinking his fingers deeper inside her passage. “‘Mine,’” he replied. “That an’ the blood swap. ’S easy. See what I mean?”

“That’s it?”

“The full it. Now be quiet. I’m eatin’.” He licked up her slit. “Christ, you taste so good.”

It was a while before they left the crypt that night.

*~*~*

They were making the normal rounds tonight. And while there was nothing Buffy would have liked more than to curl up in Spike's arms and forget the outside world was there, there were several truths to be reckoned with. Eventually, with or without the warning Giles had been issued, her friends would come for her. Soon she was going to have to face her friends and the harsh realities of the life she had left behind. Soon she would have to make decisions as to the laying out the path of her future.

A future she didn't want without the vampire at her side. And that was something her friends would not understand.

Something some of them would never accept. But she couldn't think about that now. Tonight she was patrolling. Spike was beside her, squeezing her hand every few steps. Offering her everything he had before, even with the intimacy they had shared. That was something she'd never had. Not even with Riley, who had been filling the role of her boyfriend for the past few months. There was always ingrained awkwardness in every thing after anything sexual. And granted, while she and Spike had yet to make love in the most rudimentary sense, that gracelessness was nowhere to be seen.

He had done things to her in just the past twelve hours that easily surpassed her most stimulating sexual experience.

Now they were left for the night. For patrol. For finding the evil things and killing them. And it was because she needed it, not because it was her job. Not because some old Watchers in England decided that patrolling was what she should do, or Giles thought there was a big demon rising that night and she was the only one who could stop it. No, she was patrolling now because she loved the hunt. She was a vampire as well as a slayer, and vampires loved the hunt. Now that she was no longer bound to her former duties, she had discovered her long-missing admiration for the night.

“Looks like another slow night, pet,” Spike said with a sigh. “Sorry. Know you've been itchin' for a fight.”

She shrugged. “It's not so bad.”

“I really thought we'd've run into your mates by now.”

“Well, there's every chance that they took your conversation with Giles seriously.” She threw up her hands at the look that comment earned. “I'm just saying. Anything's possible.”

“The day the bloody Scoobies listen to me is the same day that...” He paused, frowning. “Well, no, that already happened.”

“What?”

He smirked at her.

Buffy flushed and jabbed him in the side. “Pig.”

“Oink bloody oink. There are worse things.” His eyes lit up, then slowly raked the length of her. “So good of you to have worn that skirt.”

“After, oh, twenty minutes of a certain peroxide Cockney telling me to 'wear tha bloody skirt,' I'd certainly hope so.”

He pouted. “Do not sound like that.”

“Right. I was being generous.”

“Oh, you're gonna get it, missy.” His wandering fingers tickled her sides mercilessly.

A long giggle tore through her lips and she immediately leapt to the defense.

It wasn’t long before the tickle attack transformed into something else entirely. In the graveyard, battling an age old vampire, she felt even more like herself. Back into the place she no longer wanted but could not completely desert. She had slaughtered a house of vampires only days before, had a few stragglers on patrol, but there was nothing like fighting Spike. Nothing like a challenge, even for she who was now beyond earthly challenges. Her strength was monumental, and quite frankly, terrifying. The possibility of what she could do now was beyond thought. Beyond all understanding. Slayer strength spliced with vampirism…Spike had told her sired slayers had never lasted. And she wondered if that was due to their own device, or because they hadn’t known the potency of their own strength.

She suspected the first. None of the sired slayers before her had what she had.

“Don’ hold back,” Spike panted, lunging for her again. “I won’t.”

“Never do,” she retorted, meeting him with a kick. “Just tell me if I get too rough.”

In all fairness, it was more what he saw that cost him, rather than the kick itself. But at that, Spike didn’t look too disappointed. “Naughty Slayer,” he drawled, wiping blood off his chin. “No knickers?”

She smirked. “What’s the point?”

“That’s my girl.”

There was absolutely nothing else like this. Nothing like letting loose in the midst of a cemetery. Answering the call of her demon with the man she loved. There was no one in the world she enjoyed fighting more than Spike. He knew her every move, but she knew his much better. His eyes gleamed with anticipation every time she rushed him, even if it resulted in another tumble to the ground. There was hunger there that hadn’t been there before. Hunger for something more than blood. More than sex. More than anything she had ever experienced. Fighting Spike arose a primal calling from the place she had only dared explore with him holding her hand.

Now they were in the heat of the moment, sparring in the middle of Sunnydale’s most visited cemetery, and the rules were different.

Very different.

Such to the fact that she didn’t recognize the heated growl that tore through her throat. Nor did the flash of surprise register as she tackled Spike to the ground.

She straddled him, her skirt riding up her thighs, her pussy grounding into his denim clad erection. The demon within roared again. There was something about this. Something she recognized. Something innate even if it was new. Something celebrated.

Spike’s eyes flashed ardently. “Buffy…”

She was too forgone to hear him. Bent on her instincts. Nothing could stop her now. Her fangs broke through her gums and she tugged him to her.

Then bit down. And drank.

 

It felt like a dream. And he was lost. Irrevocably lost. In dreams, rules didn’t apply. In dreams time, patience, and personal vows were thoroughly immaterial. All he knew was that Buffy’s fangs were in his throat; her pussy was pressed against his aching erection with only his jeans between them. And everything else was left to instinct.

His demon burst through before he could stop himself. He shoved her back to the ground and settled between her open thighs. Then his zipper was down, his cock in his hand, positioned at her opening, her scent filling his nostrils.

She was his. That was all he knew. She belonged to him. And now he would have her.

And he was swallowed by warmth. By the most blissful sensation he had ever experienced; watching her eyes go wide, her head snap backward with his blood dribbling down her chin. Her human face melting the demon away, and it was just Buffy again. Buffy looking at him with eyes shining of awe and distant shades of paradise. A strangled moan tore through his throat and his body rejoiced. He was inside her. Her body was around his body. His body set a furious tempo to appease his demon. Thrusting into her haven with a roar of triumph, feeling her tremble around him, feeling her ambrosia on his length. Her flesh molding his flesh. And it was the sweetest homecoming he had ever known. There was no place for him but this. For the past century and a half, he’d searched for something that had been out of reach until just days ago. He simply hadn’t known until she had come to him. He hadn’t known until fate brought them together. Until her nightmare became the answer to everything he’d never known he needed.

It was the explosion of pleasure that ripped through him first.

The second was the realization that his cock was buried inside Buffy, and she was beneath him. He was making love with Buffy. He was thrusting into her and she was moving beneath him. Her hips moving rhythmically to recapture him with every withdrawal. Not twenty four hours had passed since she told him she wasn’t ready for this, and now he had invaded her body. He had shoved himself inside her before he could even test her readiness, even if the rich scent of her arousal swam around him. Pleasure drowned out to guilt, and his demon faded with horror.

“Oh God!” he gasped, pressing his forehead to hers. Coming to a standstill within her. Searching her eyes desperately. “I’m so sorry. I…you…oh Jesus…”

She cupped his face and kissed him softly, her eyes shining. “No. God, don’t be sorry. Please. This is what I want, Spike,” she gasped, throwing her head back. He began moving again, watching her intently. Trying to grasp that it was real. “I want you.”

“Oh Christ.” He buried his head in her shoulder, panting into her. “You feel so wonderful.”

There had never been sensations like this. Never before in the long years of his existence had he known such sublime bliss. Never had he poured himself so thoroughly into feeling and have it reflect back, more potent with every second. She was molded around him. Her eyes were fixed on his, and she was smiling through tears. It was beyond him that he was actually with her. The slow glide of flesh from her warm paradise and back again, her vaginal walls squeezing the life from him, her lips moving over his…it was all more than he could take.

He had never thought to touch this. Not with her. Not even with everything they had shared. It had always seemed beyond him. Not only Buffy; he had never been with anyone that looked at him with love. There was love in her eyes, even if she didn’t realize it.

“Buffy…”

“You feel so good,” she mewled, fingers digging into his leather-clad arms. “Spike…oh God…”

He had never been with someone so warm before. She was a vampire; she wasn’t supposed to be warm anymore. None of the women that had shared his bed had been warm. Her eyes were a veil of emotion. There was awe buried within her gaze with every inward plunge. Her juices coated his length and teased. He was drowning in her and he could care less. Losing himself in her haven with no thought of finding his way back again.

“Never,” she panted. “Spiiike…please!”

“’ve never felt anythin’ like this,” he murmured against her lips, thrusts gaining momentum. His fingers slid under the hem of her top, palming her laced covered breasts, his face buried in her throat. He wished they were home. That he had had enough foresight to drag her back to his bed so that he could strip her of every barrier and explore her to his satisfaction. Massage and caress her as she deserved to be worshipped. Send her over the edge time and time again before taking her body with his.

He peppered kisses along her throat, fighting his demon’s urge to sink his fangs into her skin. If he tasted her blood, it would be over, and he didn’t want it to be over yet. He wanted to feel her quiver around him first. Feel her body tremble, her pussy choking him into another life. Taste the air around her as she came. He slipped his left hand under the cup of her bra, pebbling her nipple between his fingers; his other hand stroking her stomach and dipping between them.

Buffy threw her head back as he captured her clit and began fondling her furiously. “Oh, oh God.”

He drew his mouth away from her and buried his brow in the crook of her throat, focusing on the burn spreading through his body. “Taste so sweet,” he murmured. She was going to tear holes into his duster if she grasped him any tighter, and he couldn’t find it within himself to care. Her strength was beyond her now; he could feel her as though there was nothing between them but skin. She could hurt him so sweetly, and every show of strength hastened his thrusts. His need to feel her come around him. He swirled his hips with every plunge, massaging her clit feverishly. “Come for me, baby.”

She grew tighter and wetter with each fall. The slick slide of his flesh from hers against the cooling night air that echoed with the slaps of their bodies. A long tremble ran down his back. His cock and his hand pushing her closer to that break of euphoria. He watched her hungrily as her eyes shone with a familiar yellow gleam that made him shiver with something he distantly recognized yet didn’t know the name for. There had to be something for that. As gorgeous as she was in human guise, there was something so utterly primal about her wearing her demon face. At that moment, he honestly didn’t know which he preferred. His girl was his in whatever visage she wore. Appeasing his humanity as well as the demon that lived inside.

He had to push her over before he took his own pleasure.

He needed to taste her blood.

An animalesque roar slashed through his throat and the bones in his face shifted, fangs tearing into her soft skin before he could vocalize his warning. And she exploded around him. Her scream of release sang into the cold night surrounding them, and that was it. It was a cyclone of sensation. Each whimper that tumbled through her lips made his blood sing. She was sobbing her pleasure, trembling in a tumultuous climax, and her life’s nectar was in his mouth.

He was so thoroughly hers. He would do whatever she wanted if it meant he could keep her. Any pretense of letting her go was thoroughly eradicated. He had thought it the night before, sampling the sweetness of her pussy with his mouth. He had thought it again at their wake, when her tongue had enveloped his cock in velvet fire. He had thought it so many times, and each instance only inspired the knowledge to further conviction. She gave him heaven. She gave him what he never thought he could reach. Not as a man, and certainly not as a vampire. There was nothing like this. Absolutely nothing. And he would never let her go.

When he came, it was unlike anything he had ever felt. It surpassed every cliché he had ever associated with sex. Eradicated every thought of life before her. Buffy was still panting in her aftermath, moaning her encouragement as he emptied himself inside her. She was cooing encouragingly in his ear, whispering little nothings, brushing soft kisses across his face until he collapsed with her.

And the world came tumbling back.

“Oh my God,” Spike gasped against her neck. “Buffy…”

She murmured something unintelligible and suckled on his ear gently.

“Please tell me you don’ regret this. I don’ think I could bloody take it.”

Buffy pulled back slightly at that and smiled. There was no regret in her eyes. Rather, the emotion there was so far placed from regret that he nearly burst into tears. It was something he had never seen; something no one had ever given him. “I told you I wanted this. I…there’s nothing I want more than this.” She swept a tender kiss across his lips. “More than you. You…God, Spike…”

“I have to tell you this.” He caressed her cheek tenderly. The words were there, but he was so terrified of speaking them. Of throwing them out there. Of making them tangible, and ruining the cloud of perfection he’d spent the past few days living in. He was so sure she felt the same, but as long as the words remained unspoken, he could live happily in his fairytale and never risk the chance that he didn’t have everything he thought he did. That this bliss wasn’t really his. But he needed to say it. He couldn’t continue to share this with her and remain taciturn as to his feelings.

She needed to hear it; he needed to say it. Even if this was where it stopped.

“Buffy…” He kissed her lips amorously, released a breath, and held her eyes. “I love you. You know I love you, right?” Before she could respond, he kissed her again, and buried his face in her throat. “God, I love you so much. Sometimes like I can’t bloody take it. Like it’s too much. You jus’…I needed to say it. I needed…I love you. An’ I needed to say it.”

He didn’t realize how nervous he was until he heard his words. How terrified love had made him of rejection, even when he was all but sure that she felt the same.

Which was why he could barely take it when she cupped his cheeks and leveled her eyes with his.

“I know,” she murmured. “You told me I knew that first night.”

He nodded. “That’s why I went after you. I jus’ hadn’t…I din’t know it until you…I might’ve never known had this never happened. An’ I’m sorry that I’m not sorrier. That your being sired is the best bloody thing that happened to me, even if it killed me that it killed you. But fuck Buffy, I love you so much.” He pressed his brow to hers, his eyes fluttering shut. “So much.”

A pause. “I love you, too.”

And the world stood still.

“C-can…” He pulled back and stared at her pleadingly. “Can you say that…again?”

She smiled. “I love you, Spike. I love you.” A beat. “So much.”

Passion devastated his eyes, and he smashed his lips to hers. Kissing her hungrily, dueling with her tongue for dominance. She whimpered into him, squeezing her thighs around him, earning a long moan and a quick thrust. He wanted her again; he wanted her until the end of time. He was hard and he needed her—fueled with love and the promise of a future that was now tangible. A future he could see. A future that they could have together.

“I love you,” she whispered again.

“I love you, too, kitten.” He nibbled lightly on her neck. “An’ I want you again.”

Her vaginal muscles compressed around him, eliciting a long whimper. “I really don’t mind.”

“I do. Don’ wanna do this out here. Wanna take you home.” He kissed her forehead. “Wanna make love to you till mornin’. You deserve better than this.”

“I don’t care.”

“I do.”

He pulled out of her before she could object. Before his cock made another decision for him; he wanted to explore her in bed, not out here where anyone could stumble across them. They were fortunate enough that the Powers hadn’t interfered yet; hadn’t sliced into their sanctuary. Hadn’t sent the Scoobies to find her, with or without his warning to the Watcher.

Perhaps she was right. Perhaps they were taking him seriously. But he wasn’t about to tempt fate.

Buffy whimpered when he separated his body from hers, collapsing to the ground beside her. He tucked himself back into his jeans and released a deep sigh, turning to her. The look in her eyes inspired him to new heights of something he was still exploring, still trying to name. “I’ve never…” he began. “You’re the firs’.”

“What?”

“The firs’ woman, other than my mum, to tell me that.” He glanced down, then edged near her again. Using the corners of his shirt to tenderly clean their mingled spendings from her inner thighs. “I’ve never…”

Buffy’s eyes went wide. “Never? Oh, Spike…” Her arms enveloped him. “I can’t…never?”

“Well, it’s not like…” He paused, trailed off, and flashed an awkward smile. “Told you already that…Dru din’t love me an’ never pretended to. The reason I was turned, Cecily…she had me thinkin’ I wasn’ good enough for her, either. My entire life’s been spent…you really love me? You’re not jus’ sayin’ it?”

She stroked his cheek reverentially. “I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t feel it,” she said. “I love you.”

He was going to be an utter wanker and burst into tears. He could see it in her eyes. He had known it before she said it. He had known it simply by looking at her. The words, though, were so much more powerful than unadorned supposition. “God, Buffy,” he gasped, tugging her into his arms. “I’m so, so sorry.”

“Why?”

“For not bein’ sorrier. You bloody well broke my heart when I saw you in my crypt that firs’ night…an’ this terrible thing that’s happened to you has turned into the greatest gift for me.” He shook his head frantically. “An’ I don’ know how to…how can I be so happy about somethin’ that made the woman I love so miserable?”

“I’m not miserable, Spike.” She kissed his cheek. “Do I look miserable to you?”

“Sweetheart—”

“I really don’t know how I feel about it.”

“I’ve been with you every day, Buffy. You can’t tell me that this hasn’t—”

“It wasn’t. Not at first. But I…I’ve told you I don’t like the girl I was. It’s changed everything. I still hurt. I still…there are things I don’t understand, but you helped me through that.” She paused. “And I love you. I have more in death than I did in life…so what does that say about the sort of life I was leading?”

“Buffy—”

“I love you. I wouldn’t have let myself love you if this hadn’t happened.”

His vision was blurred with tears. God, he was such a bloody cry baby. “An’ that makes it okay?”

“I don’t know what it makes it. But I’d rather have you and be a vampire than not have you and be the Slayer.” She shrugged. “I’m happy that you’re happy, okay?”

“But I—”

She kissed him again. “Everything else…you understand that it’s only been a few days. The fact that you have me out here, saying this, feeling this…you make me forget without letting me forget. If this is how I feel in just a few days, what’s going to happen in a week? In a few months? You brought me here. I’m sitting here, and I’m not broken, and it’s because of you.”

Spike smiled through his tears. “I don’ know what I did,” he replied honestly. “I jus’…I…”

“You understood. You didn’t let me give up. You gave me what I needed.”

“I don’ want you to love me outta gratitude, Buffy.”

She shook her head. “I don’t. I love you because I love you. The fact that I’m grateful is just…there.” A pause. “There’s a reason I went to you, Spike. Not just because you’re the way I got out. Maybe I didn’t think of it when I was there…when I made the decision to go to you, but there was something.”

A trembling sigh shuddered through his lips. “God, I’ve done nothin’ to deserve this,” he said, heaving a breath and drawing them to their feet. “I’m a monster, luv. I don’ have a soul. Don’ ever forget that. I might be a tame monster, but I’m not the Cliff Note’s version. When this chip goes out, I don’ want—”

“I won’t.”

“What?”

She straightened her skirt as he watched her, then stepped forward and laced her fingers through his. “I’m not the girl I was,” she said. “I know what I’m getting myself into. I know what loving you means. What being with you means. Don’t try to talk me out of it; it won’t work.”

There was a beat, and then a large grin spread across his lips. “Let’s get home.”

Home. She really was beginning to think of the crypt as home. And the acceptance on her face warmed every inch of him. Their home. The crypt could be their home.

His home with the woman he loved. With the woman who loved him back.

There was simply no feeling in the world comparable to this.

No feeling at all.

*~*~*

Having the words between them changed everything.

It was as though she was seeing light for the first time. As though the world had only blinked into existence, and she was kept there by an anchor that would never betray her. It was strange, but warming beyond imagination. She was in a crypt in the graveyard, and she was home.

More than that, she was naked and spread on Spike’s bed, and he was looking at her like a man starved.

The man himself was standing at the edge of the bed, his hand stroking his erection almost subconsciously. “Christ,” he said. “You’re so lovely.”

She eyed him needily, licking her lips. “Spike…”

“Shhh…” The mattress dipped with his weight as he began to prowl toward her. He inhaled deeply, nuzzling his face between her legs. “You smell divine,” he growled, lapping at her slit. “An’ you taste…”

“Spike!”

“Mmm…” His tongue delved into her, licking her sweetly, before turning his attention to her swollen clit. “Yeh,” he decided. “You do taste like me.”

An alien giggle escaped her lips. “Perv,” Buffy replied affectionately.

He chuckled into her, and the vibrations felt so unexpectedly good that she didn’t realized she had gasped until she met his dancing eyes. “Get up here,” she whispered.

An insolent look crossed his face and he defiantly suckled her clit into his mouth. “You don’ want me here?”

“Oooh…”

A finger slid inside her. “I rather like it here.”

“Spike…”

“So lovely.” He dipped his tongue into her again before reclaiming her delicate button, slipping another finger into her tight passage and thrusting delicately. “The sounds you make…the way you taste.”

“Oh God!”

“But,” he conceded with a sigh, “’f you insist…” He drew his fingers out cautiously and sucked them into his mouth as he prowled up her body. The head of his cock teased her folds, slipping over her wet skin. Her breasts were pressed against his chest, his arms hooking under hers. Not a breath passed between them.

Then all tease was gone. He kissed her so tenderly she thought she might cry.

“I love you,” he whispered.

“Love you.”

He sank inside her with a moan of completion.

And this was it. Home. In the arms of the man she loved. The man who loved her back. He was moving within her. His mouth was on her. She was swimming in him and it wasn’t enough. Too much but still not enough.

So much had changed in such a small amount of time.

Spike was murmuring into her throat. Whispering things that set her blood aflame. He drove her to new extremes without even realizing it. Made her want to weep her joy for the feel of it all.

He had replaced her pain with love.

And she wouldn’t let anything come between them.

 

Buffy awoke at home. She was sure of it.

There were certain human-based instincts that so many people took for granted. She remembered the feel of waking in hotels on family trips before the divorce. Of spending the night with her girlfriends only to attempt futilely to find sleep on hardwood floors cushioned with the faulty support of a worn sleeping bag. She remembered waking in Angel’s apartment so many years before after having spent an awkward night torn between childhood and maturity. Riley’s dorm was the same. Hell, her dorm was the same. There was absolutely nothing like the call of home.

She was home now. She awoke feeling at home. Her arm was resting over Spike’s chest; his own entwined around her touch. Her right leg having crept over his left sometime after they fell asleep. Her head was pillowed at his shoulder, his left arm curled around her.

Buffy blinked and fought off a yawn, shifting slightly. The crypt was the same. The room had not changed. She was snuggled thoroughly into the side of the man she loved after having shared the most phenomenal night of her life. It was strange but thoroughly welcoming. As though she had rewound time to the night she had breeched this particular venue of womanhood, only it was Spike she had shared it with. As though she had regained everything the past few years had cost her, and she was a new woman for what he had given her the night before.

His words of love warmed her thoroughly, and she found she couldn’t keep herself from smiling.

God, how quickly things could change.

Buffy dropped a kiss across his shoulder, shifting further until she was astride his hips. He was sporting a morning erection that she found endearing. There were so many things about him that were thoroughly human; things she would never have accredited him with before her turning. He was a man first and a vampire second in her eyes. And he was thoroughly hers.

“Spike,” she murmured, nibbling gently at his throat. “Wakey, wakey?”

He whimpered slightly but did not stir.

“Humph,” she pouted, sliding down his abdomen, gasping when his cock brushed her folds but forcing herself to lower herself still. “And Mom calls me a heavy sleeper.”

Then, she mused to herself when she was nose to nose with his erection, on the other hand, this did have its benefits. And she planned to tell him so.

Later.

Curling a hand around the base of his cock, her eyes flickered once to his dozing face, her tongue poking out to play. She never thought that this was anything she would enjoy. Never. Parker had tried to get her to suck him off, and she had wisely refuted—though at the time it was more for the sake of her embarrassment at her inexperience. She had been so certain that she was repulsive to the male race during the months following Angel’s disappearance that she thought now she might have done anything to prove it otherwise to herself.

Granted, Parker’s similar dismissal hadn’t done much for her ego. And it made her feel all kinds of shallow to think that Riley’s presence in her life had been nothing more than a continuous stroke of her esteem. Someone who was so enthralled with her that all her faults were ignored for mediocre sex and the promise of her coveted normal.

With every day, she hated her former self all the more. What a sniveling weakling she had been.

Spike didn’t make her embarrassed. He made her feel cherished. Her only fear was displeasing him, though he assured her with every look that such was impossible.

She enveloped the velvety head of his cock with her tongue and drew him into her mouth, suckling sweetly at the drops of precum beading against his skin. Her hand squeezed him delicately, her other dropping to cup his balls. The whimpers spilling from his lips were becoming more pronounced. She smiled slightly around him, taking him further into her mouth as her hand became more boisterous.

And then he moaned aloud, and shot awake. The blue of his eyes drawing her in, and his hips thrust forward as a long, desperate gasp strangled his throat.

“Oh…oh bloody fuck.”

Buffy drew her head back, lapping delicately at his tip. “Morning,” she said cheekily, squeezing his sac.

“Christ,” he whimpered, thrusting into her mouth again. Unable to stop himself. “B-Buffy…I…how long have…I been…”

She slurped at him hungrily. “Missing out?” she asked, exploring his cock in long laps of her tongue.

He nodded furiously. “An’ here I was…plannin’ to…wake you up like this.”

“I just wore you out good, huh?”

“Best bloody…god, Buffy, I need you up here.” Before she could whisper a word of complaint, he had curled his arms around her shoulders and dragged her up the length of his body until her pussy was hovering over his erection. “Like this,” he whispered, seizing her lips as she sank onto him.

Her eyes fell shut and her walls squeezed around him. “Oohhh.”

“Fuck yeah,” he gasped in agreement, hands settling on her hips. His eyes took in the sight of her. Her body cast over his. Atop his. Her thighs imprisoning him—and he the willing captive. “Ride me, baby. Ride me to a bloody gallop.”

Then her eyes were on him, wide and uncertain. And he understood.

“Lean back a bit,” he whispered, doing his best to contain his shock when she complied. That was something he would never get used to. Buffy not arguing him for the sake of arguing. Buffy with him because that was what she wanted. He was buried inside her; he was sharing with her a sacred union. Touching places inside her he had only previously imagined. Finding her warm even in death.

“Bleedin’ hell,” he gasped as she squeezed him again, his hands trailing up her sides until he was cupping her breasts, pebbling her nipples between his fingers. Watching her move over him was one of the most breathtaking scenes of his unlife. His eyes were trained on the hungry, glistening sight of her pussy swallowing his cock with every thrust. In all his years, he’d never seen anything that affected him like that. “You’re so fucking gorgeous.”

“Ohhh…”

“You know what you do to me, don’ you?” he whispered, his voice a rough hiss that barely elapsed the sound of their bodies moving together. He thrust into her with a needy, heated frenzy. This wasn’t going to be a long, drawn out lovemaking. He needed to feel her come around him. Needed to hear her scream her release into the formerly lonely silence of his bedroom. Needed to reach that with her now. “Make me so hard I can’t think of anythin’ but you. How good you feel. How delicious you are. How wet you get for me. Your mouth on me…you drive me insane.” One hand dropped to where they were joined and began massaging her roughly. “Need that hot, tight li’l quim of yours. Need to taste you. Lap at you with my tongue.”

“Spike…”

“You feel so good,” he mewled in agreement. “So fucking good.”

Her shyness was gone. Her uncertainty was completely eradicated. She was slamming into him, her muscles strangling his cock. The ecstasy flashing across her face only served to feed his own need. He needed her to feel it now. Needed to watch her as she came.

He was stroking her clit furiously, drinking in the hard sobs of pleasure erupting from her mouth.

“Oh God!” she gasped, throwing her head back. “Ohhhh…”

“Need to taste you,” Spike growled, hauling himself up, suckling intently on the proud bite mark he had given her the night before. “God, Buffy…”

“Please!”

That was all he needed. His fangs elongated and sank into her milky flesh, and she exploded around him. Her head thrown back, her eyes overwhelmed with rapture, riding out the throes of her orgasm with the most harmonious cry that had ever touched his ears. Her blood pouring into his mouth. Her body coming hard around him. He growled into her and flipped her over, thrusting into her with a frenzy that he had nearly forgotten over the years.

She had awakened something in him that had been dead for longer than even he had acknowledged, and he would never stop worshipping her for it.

Then he felt her fangs pierce his throat, and he was coming hard. Her muscles milking him for everything he had to give her. She held him soundly as the world came tumbling back. Spike panted against her, burying his face in her throat and hugging her to him.

It was amazing. He had been alive for so long, but had never experienced this sort of intimacy. Had never felt this close to someone, and have the sentiment returned. She gave him everything.

Purring with satisfaction, he pulled back and kissed tenderly.

“Hi,” she said after their lips parted, enchanting him with her blush.

He grinned. “Hey.”

Buffy settled back against his pillows, her shyness dissipating again. “How are you?”

“Bloody blissful.” His head dipped to nuzzle her throat delicately. “An’ you? Am I squishin’ you?”

“Not possible.”

“Good, ‘cause I’m never movin’.” In direct contradiction to his words, he rolled them over again so that she was sprawled over his chest, his cock slipping from her warmth, inspiring a joint moan of protest. “You bloody well blow my mind away.”

“I woke up very horny.”

“Not complainin’. Point of fact…” He nuzzled her with another small growl. “Any time you wanna jump my willin’ body, don’ let anythin’ stop you.”

“I don’t plan on it.”

A warm chuckle rumbled through his chest. “I love you,” he murmured, brushing a kiss across her temple. The words hadn’t been spoken today, and the minute they escaped his lips, he immediately clamped down in apprehension, daring fate to take yesterday’s gift away. Daring the love that had been there to have been the fabrication of wishful thinking.

That fear vanished the next second. “I love you, too,” she whispered.

A wide grin spread across his lips. “An’ I’m never gonna get tired of hearin’ that.”

She smiled, settling against his chest. “This is nice,” she said redundantly.

“Understatement of the bloody year,” Spike agreed. “’m so…I’d half convinced myself that I’d dreamt up last night.”

“I woke you up.”

“From a very pleasant dream.” He smiled. “Then I woke up, an’ she was still here.”

“You are so lame.” Buffy flushed in spite of herself. “But you’re sweet.”

His smile melted into a scowl. “I mean it.”

“I know.”

He wedged a hand between them and tweaked her nipple. “An’ don’ be callin’ me lame.”

She giggled. “Sorry.”

“You are not.”

“Well, you’re awfully adorable when you’re lame.”

A mock growl tumbled through his throat. “I bloody well am not adorable,” he snarled, bumpies bursting through his human pretense as the basis of his demonhood was threatened. “’m a bad, rude, crude man.”

“Uh huh.”

He rumbled in disapproval. “Need me to prove anythin’?”

“No,” she replied, slithering a hand between them and wrapping her fingers around his cock, her mouth finding her proud bite mark on his throat and lapping at him delicately. Instantly, the demon receded inward and Spike threw his head back with a long mewl. “I don’t think proof is necessary.”

“God, baby…”

She smiled. “We better stop,” she said regretfully, removing her touch.

“Why?” he nearly whined, thrusting upward needily.

“Because if I stay here, I’m gonna make love to you again.”

Her brazenness while using even the gentlest language sent a rush of lust straight to his erection. “Not really a problem here,” he gasped, bucking into her again. “Fuck, what you do to me.”

“Not a problem,” she agreed. “Except I’m hungry.”

He grinned a little at that. “Well then,” he said, sitting up. “Let’s go see what’s in the fridge, right?”

“So we can come back and make with the sexcapades?”

Spike’s gaze heated. “Sounds like a plan,” he agreed fervently.

Now it was just a matter of getting out of bed.

Successfully.

“What’s gonna happen?”

Buffy glanced up from where she sat on the corner sarcophagus, sipping on the gently cooling blood that he had handed her in one of Giles’s purloined ‘Kiss The Librarian’ mugs. The sudden sense of solemnity in his tone worried her. “When?” she asked softly.

“When you meet your mates.”

A chilled breath rolled off her shoulders. “I…I’m not there yet.”

Spike nodded and stepped forward. “I know, sweetling. But you’re gonna be.”

“I’m not.”

He met her eyes and held. “But you’re gonna be,” he said again. “An’ I guess…luv, I know things are different now. Believe me, I know it. But what happens when your mates try to…when they—”

“Try to take me away from you?”

A wry grin tickled his lips. “I doubt they’d get very far in makin’ you do anythin’ you don’ want to do.”

“Hence the ‘try.’” She smiled wryly and heaved a sigh. “I don’t know. I really don’t. I think…if I sit down and talk them through it, it’ll be okay. Will, Tara, and Anya…they’ll understand. Maybe even Giles.” She paused. “Xander won’t. Not at first.”

A silent beat settled between them.

“An’ Solider Boy?” Spike asked softly. “How does he fit in?”

“He doesn’t.”

That obviously surprised him. “Not at all?”

“I don’t want Riley. I’ve never…” Buffy glanced down, ashamed. “Riley…he’s nice, in that big ‘aren’t I just the gosh-darndest best thing on two legs’ type of guy. And I wanted to feel…something with him. I really did. And I really, really tried.”

He winced. “I remember.”

“I don’t want him. I want you. I love you.”

He held up a hand and smiled softly. “I know, pet,” he said. “I jus’…he’s not gonna take this lightly. Captain Cardboard’s already President of the Let’s Stake Spike Club. When he finds out about us…”

“He won’t care.”

“I find that rather unlikely.”

“I’m a vampire, Spike. He won’t care. And it’s all the better, really. He’ll bow out and that’ll be the end of that.” She shook her head. “I’m terrible. I don’t want to hurt him, but I also…I don’t want him to be here. Around you…us. I don’t want to have to worry that he’s going to do something crazy in what he’d think is protecting my honor.”

“Bein’ in a relationship with me is that bloody self-deprecatin’?”

“In his world, yes. And I know it, because it was my world not too long ago.” A trembling sigh spilled through her lips, and she shook her head. “Everything I’ve ever done to you, and you still—”

Spike was at her side the next minute, tilting her chin upward from where she had subconsciously averted her eyes to the ground. “’S a two way street, sweetling,” he murmured. “I’ve done things to you that are bloody well unforgivable.”

“Not really.”

“Well…said things, in any regard.”

“I’m past that.”

He nodded. “So am I.” A brief pause. “But Buffy, your mates aren’ gonna sit around an’ twiddle their thumbs forever. We’re bloody fortunate we haven’ stumbled across them on patrol jus’ yet. Eventually they’re gonna get tired of waitin’ an’ come for you. Then what?”

“I thought you told Giles we’d leave town.”

“’F that’s what you want, you bloody well better believe it. I’ll take you wherever you wanna go, kitten. Jus’ say the word.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Doesn’ change what you’re gonna have to face, though. You love your friends. You’ll wanna chat up Red ‘bout some girly flick you wanna see. Or maybe strike up conversations with Demon Girl on the virtues of earth-shakin’ orgasms.” He waggled his brows, inspiring a cool flush against her pale skin. “’S gonna happen, though. Don’ doubt it.”

“I don’t. I just…” She looked at him pleadingly. “I’ve tried though, right? I’ve tried going near people. I’ve accepted that I need blood and every time I drink, I just want more. I need a chip…or something. You think Riley could hook me up with an Initiative chip?”

Spike’s eyes darkened and he growled lowly. “That git’s not gonna touch you. You think I’d let him knock you out an’ put you under the knife? Are you—”

“No, of course not.” Buffy smiled humorlessly. “Bad joke.”

“Oh.”

“But I…I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.”

“Well, for starters, luv, you din’t ease yourself into feelin’ round the humanly types. You went to the single most popular place in town. Of course you felt your control slippin’.”

She shook her head. “But it shouldn’t be like this. I just…God, I don’t know.”

Spike studied her for a few seconds, then muttered an oath and took her into the protective circle of his arms. She curled around him instantly, nuzzling her face into his chest, quivering with the weight of the world that seemed so adamant on cutting into her happiness. Happiness founded in pain, but had served as the one thing that kept her from falling completely apart.

“Vampires aren’ meant to bag it, darling,” he murmured into her hair. “’S against your nature. A part of eatin’ blood comes from the kill. The violence of it. The rush. Achievin’ two of the three essentials in one swoop is…well, what we’re made for. ‘S one of the reasons why bringing fangs into our sex life is so bloody unbelievable.”

The tremors wracking through her body intensified. “I’m not letting myself kill anyone,” she swore. “It’s not happening.”

“I know. I know.” He brushed a tender kiss to her forehead. “We’ll think of somethin’.”

And he was determined at that. Determined to think of something that would appease her need for the hunt and the need for blood. Satisfy the demon so the woman wouldn’t suffer. He’d walk through fire to spare her pain.

There was more to it than that. The demon wanted to claim her. Badly. Every time he slid his fangs inside her, the ritualistic words, in all their simplicity, surfaced for the intrinsic need of being voiced. He loved her so much, but was so bloody terrified that something out there would still swoop in and take her from him. He had already achieved the impossible with gaining her love. He had already broken barriers.

She had asked him time again and time again about the claim. How it worked. What needed to be said. What it meant for those under its power.

Distant hope was better than none. He was nearly sure if he asked her, she would say yes, but it still seemed far too premature to presume. Like popping the question after the first date. At least marriage offered the luxury of divorce. Claims were forever; and one didn’t just rush into forever.

Spike knew what forever felt like. She didn’t. To suppose she would feel the way he did for the rest of eternity was a hard gamble. He would love her until the world ended. He was almost sure she felt the same—felt that degree of love…but almost wasn’t good enough. Not for forever. And he never wanted to be one of her regrets.

He would ask her, though. The promise of true eternity in her arms was worth any risk.

He just needed time and courage. He would steal the rest.

 

 

Giles didn’t know when they had stopped asking about Buffy.

In the beginning, she was all they could talk about. The source of heated debates and hot tempers. Of anger and bewilderment, and everything in between. No one knew exactly what to expect from her anymore; when or if they would see her again. Making suppositions for the future was dangerous, though, and the Watcher knew it. Only days had passed since the platinum vampire visited him and dropped the bombshell of the Slayer’s change. Only days, and yet it felt as though years had gone by since he’d seen Buffy’s face or heard her casually berating him for some British habit that he refused to sacrifice to American culture. Nightmares had only plagued him the first restless night.

Every night thereafter was spent under terrible speculation of what Spike was doing to her. There were times, though few and far between, when he would admit the inner struggle waned a little with a softer resolution that the master vampire was perhaps the best link they could have hoped to find Buffy in the hours following her transformation. Times when he needed peace above everything else, and his mind offered some comfort in knowing that Spike’s behavior had to be monitored based on what he knew the Scoobies would do to him if he tried to hurt her.

Then again, the thought of hurting a sired Slayer was blatantly preposterous.

Comfort was his default position whenever she haunted his thoughts. Most days and nights were spent agonizing over what was happening to her. If Spike’s bloodlust for Slayers had won over what little humanity he had. If he had staked Buffy as she slept, then high-tailed it out of town before anyone could know a damn thing about it.

That seemed a little ridiculous, though. Even to one that trusted vampires as little as the Watcher did.

At the same time, Giles was convinced that Spike would honor his threat to leave Sunnydale with Buffy if anyone attempted to approach him. Furthermore, the fact that Buffy had yet to show up on his doorstep only soothed his raging conscience in that staying away was the best thing he could do. That Spike had spoken the truth the night he told him that Buffy wanted nothing to do with any of them. Not now. That she needed the help of a vampire, and that placing her in the same room as humans was the most dangerous, damaging thing anyone could ask of her right now.

It just didn’t seem right that Buffy wouldn’t have gone to Angel. Angel had a soul. Angel loved her and would do whatever he could to help her. Angel wouldn’t be the danger to her that Spike was.

It wasn’t as though Giles liked Angel—he didn’t, and he would never pretend otherwise. But as far as trusting vampires, he knew where his Slayer’s former boyfriend stood. Spike had no motive other than money to help Buffy adapt to her new life.

He had yet to ask for money. He had yet to ask for anything.

The reaction from her friends went as expected. Willow had panicked. Anya had shrugged. Tara had stuttered but refrained from saying much. Xander had gone crazy and demanded they storm the bloodsucker’s crypt and save their friend, as she had obviously been brainwashed.

Riley hadn’t said much at all, which surprised everyone. He had sat silent for a few minutes as chaotic debate exploded around him, a distant look on his face. Somewhere between rage and apathy. A twist of something not many could touch. As though he was not as much surprised as he was disappointed, but angry with himself at his own verdict.

In the few days that had passed, temperament among her friends had dwindled from casual discussion to begrudged acceptance. Willow and Tara came to the conclusion that, if sired Slayers truly did keep their souls, then Buffy had to have gone to Spike of her own accord. And if Buffy wanted to be elsewhere, she would be. Right now she wanted to be with Spike, and they were in no position to deny what she needed. Even Xander had come around—not completely, but he said the other day that if Buffy felt she needed to be with Spike to get through whatever she was going through, then he would support her. They had no way of gauging how this was affecting her, and to presume they knew what was best was as ignorant as it was callous.

Perhaps it was Joyce’s reaction that had calmed everyone down. So much like his own. Horror, then outrage, then relief, then acceptance. Her daughter was not dead, nor was she a monster. And after Giles explained the terms that Spike had set out, Joyce was determined to keep her daughter’s friends away from the cemetery. She trusted Spike for reasons beyond everyone, and she honored what Buffy wanted.

If Buffy needed Spike right now, she said, no one was in the position to deny her that.

They were nearing on the end of a week, though, without any word. Only a week.

The longest week of Giles’s life.

His living room was filled with the expected crowd. Willow and Tara were chatting about some spell they had finally nailed the night before. Anya was on Xander’s lap, trying to persuade him to sneak off with her upstairs so they could get in a pre-Scooby meeting orgasm before she had to be bored for an hour and a half. Riley was sitting by himself, not engaged or even paying attention to the world around him. He looked as though life itself had been drained, and that nothing would ever make him happy again.

Giles sighed and removed his glasses. He didn’t particularly want to see the facial reactions to what he was about to say.

“I have decided,” he declared loudly, slicing through the mingled conversations around him, “to phone Angel.”

There was a brief silence at that; everyone stared.

“Phone Angel?” Willow finally asked. “Why?”

“He deserves to know what has happened,” the Watcher replied. “Furthermore, I’m not entirely sure that Buffy’s judgment has been…well, obviously, we can’t know what’s going through her mind, but I am getting worried, as I’m sure you are, as well. She’s been with Spike for nearly a week now, and we have no idea what he’s doing to her.”

Tara’s eyes went wide at that. “D-d-doing to her?” she stammered. “What do you mean?”

“Spike wouldn’t have the gall to do anything to her,” Xander agreed. “She’d stake him so fast, he’d see his own dust.”

“I don’t trust him,” Giles said firmly. “Buffy wouldn’t have left us without word from her this long. Not a phone call. Not a letter. Not even a stop by her mother’s.”

“But we all decided,” Willow argued. “Spike said she was having trouble coping…you know, with the fangy thing? Being around people equals bad? And if she wanted Angel to help her, don’t you think she would’ve said so?”

“Do we really trust Spike to have told the truth in that regard?”

Xander frowned. “Not to be coming to Captain Peroxide’s defense, because hey, that’s so not happening, but…why would he not tell the truth? That just doesn’t make sense, G-Man. Like he wants a live-in houseguest for god-knows-how-long? Especially in Buffy-form? This is the guy that—”

“Kills Slayers,” the Watcher finished coldly. “Yes, Xander, I am perfectly aware of who we’re talking about. Which is all the more reason to intervene before something happens that we’re incapable of stopping.” There was a pause, and he sighed. “I’m not about to forcibly remove Buffy from where she feels comfortable,” he clarified. “I just…I have yet to hear from her, and that worries me. The idea that she wouldn’t have gone to Angel, or at least tried to, simply doesn’t make sense. He’s the one with a soul. He’s the one she…” His eyes caught Riley’s in the corner, and he flushed brightly and glanced away. “I’m not sure Buffy has actually weighed in an opinion, and I’m simply tired of taking all of this on faith from a vampire that has attempted to kill us all more than once, especially knowing that he has a particular agenda when it comes to slaughtering Slayers. Perhaps Buffy realized that she couldn’t get to Angel in time, and went to Spike as a fallback under the provision that he help her to Los Angeles.”

“If killing Buffy was his intention, don’t you think it would have been a little easier to have not come and told you that she was staying with him?” Anya intervened, looking bored and unimpressed. “One would assume that he would have found her, killed her, and not said a word to anyone. Spike’s been around for a hundred years or more. He might be thickheaded, but he’s not stupid. What is it with you people and constantly searching for hidden motives, especially where demons are involved? Especially ones that make absolutely no sense?”

“Because demons often have hidden motives, sweetie,” Xander said, patting her back.

A look of pure agitation flashed across the blonde’s face. “You just don’t understand me at all, do you, Xander?”

Willow’s eyes narrowed. “Okay, I’m about to do something kinda crazy here, but I agree with Anya.”

“Thank you,” the former demon said, smiling proudly.

“I’ll admit, you do raise a good point,” Giles conceded. “However, under the circumstances…especially while we know so little…I believe that we should contact Angel. If Buffy truly wants to stay with Spike, that’s fine. I would simply rather hear it from a vampire whose last life’s conquest was not in the Slayer’s death.”

“He doesn’t want her dead,” Riley murmured, his eyes glued to the window.

The entire room froze and turned to look at him.

“How do you know?” Giles asked.

“He doesn’t want her dead,” he repeated, turning to face them. “He just wants her.”

Xander’s eyes bulged. “Say that again? That sounds like the sort of sense that…you know, doesn’t make any.”

“He wants her.”

“Spike?” Willow forced a small laugh. “Spike hates Buffy. Why in the world would you think he—”

“Because I…” He released a short breath and glanced down. “The other night…when we were all at the Bronze…Buffy was there.”

The five faces surrounding him went slack with disbelief.

“She was?” Xander asked, voice quivering. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I was going to, but then Spike showed up. She looked very…she wasn’t happy.” He paused. “She looked like she was in pain, or something. Like she was…she just looked bad. But I only saw her for a few seconds, and then Spike showed up and she was fine.”

Willow heaved a deep sigh. “Well, then, that doesn’t mean he…he wants her or anything. He was just there and—”

“She grabbed him,” Riley said shortly. “And kissed him. And they practically had sex on the balcony. That’s why I didn’t say anything. Buffy’s with Spike because she wants to be, and Spike doesn’t want her dead. He just wants her.” He turned his eyes to the ground. “Makes sense, I guess. He’s killed so many…why not want one…to have?”

The room fell deathly silent.

“Buffy…” Xander was shaking his head violently. “No. No, she wouldn’t do that.”

“She’s a vampire,” Riley replied. “Why not?”

“She has a soul!” He pointed at the Watcher. “He promised us that sired Slayers keep their souls! Why would she…with Spike? That’s…that’s just…”

Anya shrugged. “Well,” she said, “it’s about time she got some sexual gratification.”

Xander and Riley glared at her.

“What?” the former demon asked, genuinely confused. “Buffy’s been needing a good orgasm for months. I would have thought you,” she glanced to the Slayer’s boyfriend, “would have noticed that. After all, you were the designated orgasm provider. If she wasn’t satisfied, it makes sense that she would have turned to a vampire to fulfill her sexual needs. They have amazing stamina.”

Riley looked angry enough to throw her through the window, with or without Xander attached. He pointed to himself irately. “I have amazing stamina!” he whined.

“You’re human,” Anya retorted. “Humans don’t have amazing stamina.”

“Ahn.” Harris was bright red. “Now’s not exactly the time—”

“Buffy always said—”

Willow threw up her hands in a desperate call for neutrality. “Okay!” she quipped, tossing her girlfriend an apologetic glance. “This is really approaching the line of TMI.”

“Approaching? Oh no,” Giles muttered, “look behind you.”

“There’s no way Buffy would ever…with Spike,” Xander declared, making a face. “You saw wrong.”

“I didn’t see wrong. You think I like this? My girlfriend’s a vampire; she went to a vampire because she didn’t trust any of us not to stake her on sight, and now she’s sleeping with Spike.” Riley shook his head in disgust. “Trust me, if there was a way to see it wrong, I would’ve spun it by now. There wasn’t. Buffy was there. She molested Spike on the balcony, and he really, really didn’t mind. And they left in a hurry, so where they were going with what intention really leaves little to the imagination.”

“And you really kept all of this to yourself?” Giles shook his head in outrage. “You selfish, stupid boy.”

The farm boy glared at him. “You have something to say to me? I didn’t want…I don’t know…”

“If what you’re saying is true, you should have told us from the beginning. But you didn’t. To spare your broken ego, you kept your mouth shut. And now Buffy is…” He broke off with a muttered curse. “If she really is…with Spike like that, I’m sure there’s a reason.”

“She’s a vampire, he’s a vampire, I guess they hit it off.”

The entire room turned to glare at Xander.

“I was just kidding,” he said, holding his hands up, his eyes distant and confused. “Look, I know I’m the last person in the world to say this, and obviously the prospect doesn’t make me want to leap to my feet and do interpretive dance, but…Buffy is…if she feels she can trust Spike…and if he’s what she needs, I guess…”

Willow’s brows perked. “And just a few seconds ago, you were about ready to declare war on the thought.”

“A man can’t grow in a few seconds?” Xander shrugged. “Don’t get me wrong, nothing—and I mean nothing—gives me a bigger case of the wiggins than thinking of Buffy and Spike and anything to do with…” He glanced to Anya dismally.

“Orgasms?” she provided.

“Yeah.” He heaved a sigh. “That’s just…but she’s…she’s going through something, you know? She has to be going through something. She went to Spike, and…” He made another face. “Gah, this entire conversation is just wrong.”

“You have no idea,” Riley all but growled.

“Well, that settles it,” Giles said. “I’m calling Angel.”

Willow’s eyes went wide. “Why? Color me stupid, but throwing Angel into the mix…especially if Buffy’s involved with Spike…like that…isn’t that like, a bad idea?”

“Not any worse than Buffy sleeping with Spike,” Riley retorted.

“B-but,” Tara interjected, glancing down shyly. “I-i-if Buffy is w-w-with Spike, doesn’t it st-stand to reason that she w-wants to be? She’s a v-vampire now, right? A-and Spike’s there for her, s-s-so…m-maybe we should trust that she knows what she’s doing.”

“Or maybe he’s brainwashed her,” the shunned boyfriend muttered.

“Into sleeping with him? Buffy doesn’t get brainwashed.” Xander paused. “Except for the entire ‘allowing Drac to lure her to his castle and vamp her’ thing.”

Giles released a hard sigh. “We don’t know anything,” he said. “This is all pure speculation. However, if Buffy and Spike have developed a…physical relationship, as Riley’s testimony seems to suggest, I do believe that calling Angel is essential.” He held up a hand. “To make sure…no one has ever been able to reach her like Angel did. If what she’s…doing with Spike is nothing more than a side-effect of her turning, Angel should be able to reach her.” He paused. “If Spike has taken advantage of her…”

“You really think that might be it?” Riley asked, shades of hope crossing his face.

“I don’t know. It might be.”

“But if it’s not, we’re just creating a whole new problem,” Willow said. “If Angel’s here, and Buffy’s all naked and groiny with Spike, don’t you think he might, you know…go to the Dark Side?”

Giles rolled his eyes. “Willow, it takes a moment of pure happiness to make Angel…go to the Dark Side.” He stopped almost disdainfully at his own recitation of her words. “I rather doubt knowing that Buffy and Spike have engaged in a…physical relationship will give him any emotion remotely connected to happiness.”

“Yeah, but…” The redhead shook her head dispassionately. “Angel’s all…with the temper? You know. He came here and practically beat the crap out of Riley. And Riley’s all…human.”

“He did not beat the crap out of me,” the former soldier reneged.

“Children, please.” Giles placed his glasses on the bridge of his nose. “We’ll deal with that when it happens,” he told Willow. “Right now, Buffy is our priority.”

“Yeah, and if she gets pissed and runs off with Spike, we might never see her again,” Xander retorted. “Say this thing she’s doing right now is legit. She’s not going to be happy that you called Angel.”

The redhead tossed him a wary glance. “You really need to stop doing that.”

“What?”

“Acting all logical and sense-like.”

“I know. It’s kinda creeping me out, too.”

Giles smiled humorlessly. “Well,” he said. “If it…comes to that, hopefully she will have the foresight to acknowledge that we were acting in a way that we thought served her well being. I simply cannot…my Slayer is out there, turned, possibly involving herself with another vampire—be it voluntarily or not, and I have to know…she’s my daughter.” He earned another roomful of stunned glances. “Figuratively,” he clarified. “She’s my Slayer. My daughter. If she’s with Spike because she wants to be…I will try to find it within myself to not stake him and lock her in a room until she realizes what she’s doing. But if she isn’t…if she wants to be with us, or heaven forbid, Angel, we need to know.” A short pause. “I can’t keep waking up every day, worrying about her like I do. It’s killing me.”

Those three conclusive words sent a cold shudder through the room, and effectively killed any rebuttal waiting to be fired in his direction. Riley turned back to the window, taciturn and displeased. Xander exchanged a long look with Willow, then nodded when they reached a silent accordance.

“I’ll make the call,” Willow said, slipping off the couch.

“No,” Giles said shortly. “Leave that to me.”

*~*~*

“You ready to pack it in?”

Spike glanced up, wiping dust from his hands, a slow grin spreading across his face. “Three vamps?” he retorted, tossing his stake to the ground. “You’re ready to pack it in with jus’ three vamps?”

“Well…” Buffy’s eyes fell bashfully to the side, raising a hand to fondle the leather of his duster lovingly. “You looked really hot doing that.”

“I look really hot doin’ anythin’.”

She smirked. “Wow, have I stroked your ego one too many times?”

“Feel free to stroke anythin’ of mine that tickles your fancy.” Spike dipped his head to suckle tenderly at the proud bite mark on her throat. His hand captured her wrist and guided her touch to his crotch. “Anythin’ tickle your fancy?”

“Well…it doesn’t really tickle.” She gave his erection a fond squeeze, eliciting a long, ardent rumble from his lips.

Spike threw his head back with a long whimper, then took one look at her smirking face, scowled, grabbed her hand and began storming back to the crypt with a fury.

“What’s gotten into you?”

“Nothin’,” he retorted. “But something’s gonna be in you in about five minutes.”

“Oh, someone’s feisty.”

“Not feisty.” He nearly growled as he turned and tugged her into his arms, ravaging her mouth with a hungry kiss. “Horny.” Another kiss. “Want you…but not here.”

“Have you already lost your sense of adventure?” she replied teasingly as he renewed his mission to get her to the crypt.

“In a town full of wankers who want me dead? More over, who want you dead?” He shook his head. “Never. Jus’ don’ fancy sharin’ you with the whole bloody world. You’re all mine.”

“Am I, now?”

“Better bloody believe it.” He turned to her again, his expression softening. “I love you.”

She smiled. “I love you, too.”

“You are mine, you know.”

Buffy kissed him again, smiling still. “This ownership thing goes both ways, right?” she asked teasingly. “’Cause if you’re mine, I won’t need another Christmas present as long as I live.”

“That’s quite a long time, pet.”

“I knew it when I said it.”

He scoffed. “Like I’m gonna let one bloody day go by without showerin’ you with gifts.”

“Well, just wanted to let you know that I’ll still love you if you don’t.”

Spike grinned and they continued walking. Their fingers entwined. Like lovers taking a moonlight walk on the beach.

Not the beach, but damn close.

God, he loved her so much. And she was his.

It was only a matter of time before he made it official.