Part Seven ~ Burn One Down for Me
She watched him from the shadows, heart pounding and body taut with the effort to hold herself back from rushing in to confront him. She wanted to bury her hands in that supple leather and shake him until the answers she needed spilled from his lips.
It didn’t surprise her that he had broken loose. The chains had been strong but she knew from past encounters that he was far stronger. He had also found his clothes, she noticed. He was sprawled in the only chair in the room, head resting against the high back, eyes staring contemplatively at the ceiling.
“Might as well come out, luv. I sensed you the minute you walked into the bloody building.”
After nearly two days of nothing but grunts and growls, the rich timbre of his voice sent a frisson of chills down her spine. Buffy clenched and unclenched her hands a few times before wiping her damp palms on her jeans and moving into the muted candle light.
“I expected you earlier,” Spike commented, rolling his head to watch as she crept forward, his eyes caught up in the way her small white teeth worried at her full bottom lip.
“I had to wait until the fourth drink,” she replied cryptically.
He frowned. “Fourth drink?”
“My mom. After the fourth drink, she passes out and I can sneak out my window.”
Her words painted a mental picture of this slip of a girl, the most feared being of vampires everywhere, shimmying her way down a convenient tree. Spike grinned at the image and a soft chuckle rumbled forth.
“I’m glad to see you acting so much better. More like yourself, I mean,” Buffy said.
There was a sudden flare of heat in the eyes that met hers. After a heart stopping moment they dropped to linger almost caressingly on the bite marks he’d left on her neck.
“Yeah.” This time the smile was slow and darkly seductive. “I only had to wait on the third drink,” he murmured softly.
Buffy had to stifle a gasp as her body once again reacted to the power of his voice. Primal, feral Spike suddenly seemed easier to deal with than this Spike. This Spike’s penetrating blue eyes seemed to delve into her soul, glittering with all the fierce intelligence that had been missing before.
Aside from the heated looks and the subtle sexual inflection in his voice, he hadn’t made a move towards her. Maybe now that he was in control of his thoughts and actions, he wouldn’t’ be making with the pounce-y, growly sex. Which was good, right?
“W-we need to talk,” she stammered refusing to meet his eyes.
“Right.” Spike leaned his head back once more and loosed a gusty sigh. “Just don’t ask me how or why I got here, luv. I haven’t got a bloody clue.”
Buffy went to work on her bottom lip again, small white teeth gouging the tender flesh and drawing blood. She refused to ask the one question that was whirling through her chaotic thoughts. How did one even broach such a subject? ‘Oh, by the way, Spike, I know you bit me. Kind of expected it, with you being a vampire and all, but why did you claim me?’
“I might not know the how, but I’m pretty sure I know the why,” she told him warily. “H-how much do you… remember? About where you were, I mean.”
Spike flinched from the painful lash of memories and the eyes that met hers were dark with remembered pain. “All of it.”
Before she could ask him to elaborate he was out of the chair and pacing to and fro in agitation, his body practically vibrating with leashed energy, his demeanor much closer to that of the Spike she remembered.
“Can you--”
“No.”
“But--.”
“Leave it go, Slayer,” he bit out.
Buffy persisted. “Look, Spike, we need to--”
All she saw was a blur before he was on her, his eyes like molten gold, fingers digging into the soft flesh of her upper arms as he snatched her up and held her aloft.
“I said. Leave. It go!” he snarled, his nose nearly touching hers.
She flinched, turning her head to avoid his enraged countenance. “Put me down, Spike.” She shivered in spite of her efforts to quell her rising panic. “Please.”
Hearing the quaver in her voice and smelling her fear should have appeased him, but instead he dropped her like she had scalded him and quickly backed away, keeping his back to her as he struggled to regain control.
Buffy stumbled against a scorched armoire, barely catching herself on the edge to keep from falling.
“I’m sorry if I’ve upset you. We can talk later. Why don’t I just get out of here and leave you alone?” she murmured, her voice softly placating as she inched back towards the door.
Running away went against everything she stood for. She knew she should stake him. Her hand even found its way behind her back to the reassuring presence of wood tucked into her waistband.
But one glaring fact stayed her hand. She had been gone for quite some time because her mother’s wrath over the handcuff incident had burned for hours. While he was obviously not completely healed mentally, physically he was as fit as ever. There had been nothing and no one to stand in his way if he decided to cut a bloody swathe through the unsuspecting town, yet he was still here and had clearly been waiting for her.
She decided to try one last time to get through to him. If he refused, the next time she faced him would be the last for one of them. She could only compromise her morals so far.
“Look, I know I haven’t had it nearly as bad as you have, but it’s still been pretty rough. I want to know what’s going on here as much as you do, but how are we going to figure it out if we don’t talk about what’s happened to both of us?”
Her softly spoken words were directed at his stiffly held back. He was so tense she wondered if he might break if she touched him. Buffy was just about to give up when he turned his head infinitesimally in her direction.
“We do this; there are limits to what I’ll tell you. I won’t lie to you, but don’t expect me to tell you every soddin’ detail, either. Agreed?” he asked harshly.
“Agreed.”
Spike motioned for her to take the chair while he continued to pace. It was distracting for her, but perhaps that’s what he intended, so she said nothing.
She had no idea where to begin. Apparently he had no such qualms. “Why did you run earlier?”
Her face flamed. It would be so easy to use her mother as an excuse, but if he was going to be honest with her she owed him the same courtesy, didn’t she?
A quick glance showed that he had stopped the ceaseless pacing and was staring at her with narrowed eyes as he waited for her answer.
“What you said? It kinda wigged me out,” she admitted. “What made you say that?”
“First, tell me why it scared you,” he countered.
“I’ve had some pretty intense dreams about what happened that morning. Different scenarios, but the end result was usually the same; I end up skewering you anyway and Angelus rips my throat out just before I wake up screaming.”
Buffy couldn’t repress the shudder that last image evoked. “The last few nights they were different. In this one, it’s just you and I in what you tell me is my version of hell.”
She didn’t miss the sudden tightening of his features at her mention of hell and rushed on. “We talked for a little while. I can’t remember what about. And then I… You… We-”
“Had the same dream.”
“We huh?” she squeaked. “No way!”
Spike had to smile. Even slack-jawed and bug-eyed, the slayer was just too cute for her own good. The smile was quickly followed by a ferocious frown. His demon should be howling with rage over the softer feelings its host was evincing towards the girl. Instead, the faithless creature was practically rolling over and waving metaphorical paws in the air like a hound begging for a tummy scratch. He faced her with a resigned sigh.
“Right. Went a bit like this…”
In seconds he’d picked her up and taken her place in the chair, dropping her down to sit astride him, her knees digging into the chair beside his hips. His hand at the small of her back nudged her forward until the moist warmth of her cleft cradled his straining erection, her heat searing him through the layers of their clothing.
Buffy let loose a startled gasp, a little shocked at his manhandling, but all thought of protest fled her mind once he settled her on his lap. She sat there in stunned anticipation of what his next move would be.
His mouth covered hers, swallowing the breathless moan that burst free as the hand at her back pushed her down harder into him while the other tangled in her hair, angling it to deepen the kiss.
Buffy responded without hesitation. He had that effect on her and she was helpless to fight against it. There had never been any mention of Spike having thrall in anything she had read about him. Maybe all vampires had it to a degree? Or maybe it was just the way he was. She more than suspected the latter.
His tongue coaxed hers out to play, to mesh and tangle with his in an erotic dance that sent shivers down her spine and curled her toes. Her hands fluttered up to rest on his shoulders before sliding up to sink into the soft hair at his nape.
She gasped as his mouth left hers to trail a damp path across her cheekbone to her ear, and from there down the long line of her throat to where the healing marks of his earlier bite itched and tingled unbearably, begging for his attentions. Her head fell back and her body arched, gliding back and forth in a steady rhythm across the fly of his jeans.
“I remember this part the best,” he panted needlessly against the soft skin of her neck, his cool tongue burning a path over firm, resilient flesh. “The part where you begged for my fangs. For my bite. Your body remembers, doesn’t it?”
She nodded, knowing her voice wouldn’t hold strong enough for a coherent reply. Impatient hands divested her of the light jacket and tight little tee she wore, then moved down to the crotch of her silky lounge pants. The delicate material gave easily, shredding between the strong fingers that were soon delving under the lacy scrap of her underwear and shoving them to the side.
One hand busied itself parting her slick folds, finding her needy clit with unerring accuracy while the other wrenched open his jeans and freed his pulsing sex.
Buffy threw her head back, a soundless scream shaping her mouth as he pulled her down onto him, his cock filling her so completely she was sure she would burst from the incredible sensation. Her nails scored down his chest, shredding the material of his tee shirt and leaving angry red welts in their wake.
Spike’s demon howled in lusty appreciation of her reaction to his invasion and he growled, burying his face in the lush curves of her breasts. The diamond hard tips brushed over his lips and he latched on to one and then the other, sucking and nipping in turn with hedonistic gusto.
She couldn’t stifle her cries of pleasure as they rocked against each other. Close. She was so close and only he had the power to tip her over the precipice and into the beckoning darkness beyond. Her hands left off kneading the hard muscles of his stomach and came up to frame his face, her fingertips digging in lightly as she tilted his head back and kissed him wildly, devouring him with lips and tongue.
Their mouths parted and their eyes locked, his flashing amber with the intensity of the moment. A slow, cunning smile curved her lips as she tilted her head invitingly to the side, her eyes never leaving his as she dared him to take what he had laid claim to.
Irresistible, he thought as his demon burst forth in response to her coquetry. Baby had a bit of the dark side in her that was just begging to come out and play, whether she believed it or not.
His hand on the back of her neck dragged her down, her body flush against him as his lips and roughened tongue worried over the scars.
“I told you to be ready for me, didn’t I, luv?” he rumbled the rich decadence of his voice sounding like pure unadulterated sin. “Are you ready for me now, Buffy?”
The sound of her name on his lips wrung a shudder from her highly sensitized body. Reservations were flung to the four winds as she arched ever closer, baring her throat to him in supplication.
“Now, Spike,” she breathed in a dark, sensual voice in no way recognizable as her own. “I’m ready for you. Want you, now.”
Who was he to deny what she begged for so sweetly? Spike sank his teeth into the ripe succulence of her neck, moaning as her indescribable, spicy essence flavored his tongue. He pulled another mouthful, savoring what he had been unable to appreciate in his more feral state.
Buffy screamed as she reached that elusive edge and plummeted over, the muscles of her passage clenching around his girth as her body quivered from the intense rush of her climax.
Spike threw his head back and roared his release to the rafters, bruising fingers at her hips slamming her down as his cool seed flooded her womb.
After what felt like an eternity, he slumped back in the chair, arms moving to encircle her limp warmth as she sagged against him.
“You’re mine, Buffy.” The words were whispered into the soft cloud of her hair as it fell across his face, cloaking him in her fragrance.
She turned her head on his shoulder, burying her nose in his neck with a sigh that warmed his skin before sleepily mumbling words that jolted the heart that hadn’t spoken in over a hundred years.
“Yes, Spike. Yours.”
~*~*~
Far above the slumbering lovers, shrouded by the shadows that mirrored the darkness of his soul, Angel fisted his hands and fought the urge to swoop down on the pair and brutally expose their perfidy. He ached with the need to rip and tear at both of them, to flail the skin from their bodies until their treachery flowed forth like the blood from their veins.
Instead, a rare smile bloomed in an expression that would have chilled the hearts of anyone who might take note of it. It might rankle to let it go for now, but he had to be patient.
Revenge would be so much sweeter for the wait.