Chapter Five

by Tam

She made it less than half mile down the road before her guilty conscience brought her to a screeching halt. Standing there in the middle of the deserted highway, Buffy fisted her hands at her sides and stomped her feet in a fit of pique.

Her frenzy of fear over Spike coming at her with that knife had been wasted. Sure, he had knicked her a few times while cutting her loose, but that was understandable given he’d been knocked senseless by Stoney the boulder demon. Which would never have happened if he’d kept his trap shut in the first place, she reasoned as she tried to force herself to continue her impromptu midnight hike.  

God! She couldn’t believe she was actually entertaining the idea of going back there. He’d kidnapped her, for heaven’s sakes! He fully intended on hauling her ass to Brazil and feeding her to that insane goth bimbo like a Buffy-shaped Scooby Snack.

Still, he’d been hurt defending her, and it chafed at her sense of fair play to have left him bloody and unconscious on the matted rug of their motel room. It wasn’t like he was in any danger. Once he’d freed her, she had efficiently dispatched Stoney’s buds with extreme prejudice and with one last smug look at his battered form, she’d skipped merrily out the door.

Only to run smack dab into this invisible but highly effective road block. With a frustrated growl, Buffy whipped around and headed back the way she came.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she muttered crossly. “Stupid conscience!”

Stomping back didn’t seem to take near as long as running away had. Unfortunately, Spike was right where she’d left him. His handsome face was blooming purple with bruises from Stoney’s rock hard fists, and he didn’t even stir when she heaved him none too gently up onto the bed.

A quick check for injuries other than the obvious bruises found a few broken ribs which she ruthlessly bound up with strips of shredded bed linens. She thought about tying him up with them, but even injured as he was, his vampiric strength would make a joke of her efforts, and the magical rope he’d used to restrain her lay in a pile of useless pieces on the floor.

Winded after her tussle with the unconscious English patient, Buffy flopped down on the bed beside him to catch her breath. Spike mumbled something that sounded like ‘bloody slayer’ but showed no other signs of waking up. She really should take off again before he regained what little bit of sense he owned.

On her feet and halfway across the tatty room, a sudden realization had her eyes widening with alarm. God, she’d almost made a colossal mistake by leaving him here! Once he woke up, Spike would be free to munch on an unsuspecting public.

Well, that was that. She’d have to load his undead carcass into that heap of rolling scrap iron he called a car and tote his ass back to Sunnydale.

It never occurred to her that it would be far easier to just stake him now, rather than go to the trouble of dragging him home with her.

The fact that there were several valid reasons why one Buffy Summers didn’t possess a driver’s license was immaterial. She had no other choice but to drive, because she sure as hell wasn’t giving him a slayer piggyback ride.

First she needed to find his car keys. A quick search of the table tops netted nothing, ditto for the pockets of that showy leather coat of his.

They had to be in the pockets of his jeans. Buffy approached the concussed vampire, eyeing him with an air of trepidation.

She realized with a jolt that this was the first time she had ever seen Spike sans shirt. She’d been too distracted earlier with the whole being tied up thing to look when he’d jumped into bed with her. Starting with the attractively mussed, strikingly white hair, her eyes traveled slowly over him. The lower she got, the higher her eyebrows lifted in silent adulation of his more than adequate physical attributes.

Climbing up on the bed, she inched forward cautiously until she knelt beside his hip. An involuntary sigh escaped her. He really was a beautiful man. ‘No wonder Drusilla was hell bent on having him,’ Buffy thought with an irreverent giggle. ‘And that was before she even saw him naked.’

Suddenly wistful hazel eyes lingered over skin so pale and perfect it was almost translucent. Loosening her death grip on her knees, she raised one hand and let it drift just above his body; not touching, but skimming lightly from point to point as her stare wandered southward.

How wrong was it of her to compare him to Angel only to have her first love come up short… er, lacking? Buffy shook her head, trying to jar some sense into her fuzzy brain. Sadly, her memories of their one night together were fuzzier than her head felt at the moment, so it was a struggle to remember the few times she had seen Angel without his shirt. The only thing that stuck with her was how he had always rushed to put something on like a blushing old maid.

Spike, on the other hand, seemed more the type to flaunt his goodies. Where Angel was Mr. Reserved and well… broody, Spike oozed confidence and a latent sexuality that she had fought from day one to ignore. It was in the walk, and definitely in the talk, and it drove her quietly insane most of the time.

As if to mock her conflict-y thoughts, her hand continued to dance airily from pec to pec and down over his stomach, and of course those thoughts had no effect on the unconscious pout that pushed out her bottom lip when the bandages around his torso hid what promised to be a scrumptious rack of rippling abdominals.

Her breath hitched in her throat as her eager eyes lighted on the faint dusting of light brown curls that ran from his navel to disappear under the button fly of his Levis.

‘Happy traaails!!’ her inner perv sang out rapturously as she avidly followed the path of silky hair and came to rest on the substantial bulge pressing against its denim prison. Her eyes nearly popped out of their sockets when the dormant beast began to swell and rise towards the warmth of her hand as it hovered over him.

‘Holy crap, talk about responsive! Wonder if that’s a vamp thing?’ Buffy marveled. Somehow, she was pretty certain it was a Spike-only thing, because she’d certainly never noticed Angel tenting his trousers at the merest hint of her touch. ‘Argh! Stop with the comparisons, Buffy!’

Narrow hips arched just the tiniest bit upwards and a soft, purr-y growl erupted from Spike’s throat. Buffy snatched her hand back and glared suspiciously at his relaxed face. So help her, if he was faking it, he was dust!

She waited a full five minutes before leaning over him once more and using two fingers to frisk his front pockets. ‘Just check his pockets, Buff. Don’t think about anything else your fingers might be close to,’ she ordered herself bracingly.

She really should have pulled her hand out once the delinquent keychain was located, but the urge was too strong to resist. Perv!Buffy was firmly in the driver’s seat and steering her tingling fingers on a slight detour. She gasped as she made contact, amazed at the warmth that seemed to emanate from his hard flesh even through layers of material.

‘That has to be uncomfortable,’ Buffy couldn’t help thinking in a surprising moment of skewed sympathy. ‘All crammed in there like that. Maybe I should loosen a few buttons… Just to give him some breathing room, so to speak.’

Lustful thought became deed as she reached with her free hand and quickly undid the top three buttons. She couldn’t suppress the delicious shiver that swept over her as she folded his jeans back and Spike was revealed to her for the first time.

‘Whoa, mama!’

The rigid column of his erection lay thick and enticing against his flat belly, porcelain perfection rising from a nest of honey colored curls. Her murky memories of the Playgirl magazine she’d been lucky enough to sneak a peek at in the girls restroom long ago had in no way prepared her for this. She dithered, reaching out and drawing back in several aborted attempts, caught between shame at molesting an incapacitated man and the all-consuming need to see what it felt like.

The decision of whether she should risk touching him again was taken out of her hands when an iron grip seized her wrist and ground her frozen fingers down onto his turgid shaft. For one heart stopping moment, she allowed herself to savor the illicit sensation of having him hard and pulsing under her hand, and then he spoke, “Mmm… Dru…”

Buffy jerked her hand free with an indignant squawk and scuttled from the bed, horrified eyes flying to rest on his face. He… How dare he think she was his demented ho of a girlfriend!

She was seconds away from punching the still unmoving bleached menace in the nose when she froze, completely aghast at her reaction. What the hell was wrong with her? Why should she care if he assumed she was his criminally insane sire? Spike waking up thinking this was a dream was a good thing, because she knew he would never, ever let her live it down if he suspected it was her.

Precious minutes were wasted as she fought to calm herself enough to brave tucking him away and doing up his pants. She then hefted him over her shoulder and carried him to the car, muttering profanities all the while. “Bet your precious Dru wouldn’t have come back for you, you ungrateful bastard!” she ranted, completely ignorant of the childish whine her voice had taken on. She was less than gentle, managing to somehow stuff him in the back seat without waking him. Tossing his belongings in after him, she hopped in the driver’s seat and thrust the key into the ignition.

It started with a coughing roar on the first try and Buffy gripped the steering wheel so hard she was sure she was leaving dents in it. She could do this!

Grabbing the gear shift with grim determination, she tugged it into reverse and pressed on the gas. The car shot back out of the parking space, narrowly missing a late model minivan before she threw it into drive and began to inch out of the parking lot.

She only took out two signs and a payphone before she made it to the exit.

NEXT~