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Chapter 9

“I can trust you to keep your fangs sheathed around my friends, right?” Buffy asked when they landed in Los Angeles on the third day of the five the Slayer had been granted by the Order.  Spike didn’t even dignify that comment with a remark – and it wasn’t like he was going to volunteer that he’d adjusted his feeding habits to keep her conscience fairly clear while in his company.  It was something that, whenever he happened to think upon it, shocked the hell out of him. 

But, she’d somehow managed to worm her way into his unbeating heart, and he’d rather grown to like her company.  Besides, it wasn’t like there was a shortage of would-be criminals for him to sup upon. 

While still in France, the two had formed a tentative game plan for dealing with the threat in Sunnydale.  They’d timed their flight from Paris so that there was just enough time for them to clear customs before catching the early afternoon flight from Rome into Los Angeles – that time chosen because it would allow them to arrive in California during the evening hours, making it much easier for the pair to move around.  The biggest hurdle had been ensuring that Spike wasn’t singed by all the sunbeams filtering into the numerous windows of the airport; said vampire only breathing a sigh of relief once he was huddled in the far back corner of the plane and away from any glass fixture. 

In a final attempt to throw off the assassins, Buffy had bought a bogus bus ticket in her own name from Las Vegas to Sunnydale, due to arrive the morning of the fifth day.  Neither was figuring that the Order would fall for it, but it couldn’t hurt, and on the off chance it allowed the pair to slip into Sunnydale undetected, the hundred dollars had been deemed well worth the expense. 

With their duffle bags slung over their shoulders, Spike and Buffy made a quick stop by the airport lockers to stash the books they’d stolen from the Council’s stronghold.  Then, they escaped into the night to find sleeping accommodations and food, with Buffy leaning more towards the former.

~*~ 

The door had barely closed behind them before Buffy was stripping out of her clothes to fall exhausted onto the bed.  Spike made sure she was settled beneath the covers before he let himself out.  He needed to hit a few demon bars to see if he could suss out any details about the situation on the Hellmouth.  Plus there was the matter of obtaining a few weapons before he and the Slayer made their grand re-entrance in good ole Sunnyhell.  

By the time he slipped inside their motel room a few hours before dawn, he felt a little better about them surviving the encounter with the Order.  He had information and weapons in spades, now it was just a matter of them acting on what he’d learned and obtained. 

Spike pulled off his clothes and slid beneath the sheets behind the Slayer.  He pulled her back into his arms, smiling into her hair when she seemed to relax in his embrace.  The soft cadence of her heartbeat and the borrowed blood filling his veins – not to mention the lack of sleep during the past forty-eight hours – soon lulled the vampire to sleep, neither waking until sometime after noon. 

~*~*~*~*~ 

“I still don’t like it,” Spike argued.  Not for the first time. 

“Spike, we’ve been over this,” she pointed out.  “The Order doesn’t know that we’ve teamed up.  We stand a much better chance of splitting up and arriving in Sunnydale separately.”  She held up her hand when he would have interrupted her again.  “And, yes, I know…you still don’t like it.” 

“Damn right I don’t,” he grumbled under his breath. 

Buffy got up from her chair and straddled Spike’s lap, smiling slightly at the muscle that ticked in his jaw from where he was clenching his teeth to keep from arguing.  That she could smile now in the face of his anger boggled her mind, but it was no worse than willingly sitting on a somewhat docile master vampire’s lap – the same vampire that, a month ago, was eagerly plotting her destruction. 

“It’s only for a few hours, and I won’t do anything stupid.  Just get off the bus and scope out a secure place for us to sleep.”  She held up three fingers in a mock Boy Scout honor pledge, to which he didn’t even crack a smile.  Buffy sighed then, a long heartfelt exhalation of breath.  “You know I’m right, you’re just being stubborn, and all with the brooding.” 

That remark didn’t seem to go over very well at all. 

Before she had time to even process his actions, he’d fisted his hand in her hair and leaned over her, effectively pinning her body between his lap and his chest. 

“I don’t brood,” he growled. 

Then he crushed her to him, his arms banding so tight around her back that if she’d been merely human, she’d have been looking at a few cracked ribs.  As it was, his strength was still in jeopardy of messing with her Slayer constitution. 

“Uh….Spike?  Ribs?  Kinda’ don’t need ‘em broken right now.” 

He didn’t seem to hear her with his face buried in her neck, the telltale ridges pressed against her tender flesh, causing her Slayer warning bells to go off.  But, she ignored them, trying to concentrate on what he was mumbling against her skin.  While the exact meaning was lost on her, she did manage to pick up on the possessive tone in his voice.  The worry he was unable to hide. 

She didn’t know if she should be insulted or pleased by his concern. 

“Look I know you don’t like—” 

The fangs in her throat took her completely by surprise, his bite being the last thing she’d expected.  Before she had a chance to grip his hair and pull him away, he’d released her, his demon retreating so that he just sucked at the twin piercings he’d made.  Buffy relaxed against him, not sensing any danger.  

The tension in him ebbed at her capitulation, relieved that she was ok with this…with him marking her.  For the next few minutes, he lulled her into a state of semi-arousal, knowing that this next bite was going to go deep, its pain a testament to the mark’s staying power. 

The Slayer was riding a soft swell of pleasure as his tongue laved at the twin pinpricks on her throat.  Her body slowly rocking against the bulge in his pants. His next bite, when it came, ripped her from her pleasure-induced haze and knocked her back into cold hard reality.  The searing pain was intense, and she scrambled to get away from him.  In response, he just growled and held her body still, forcing her to submit to him, his teeth digging deeper into her flesh. 

She whimpered against him, unable to escape, trying to figure out what had set him off so that he was now trying to kill her.  Tears welled in her eyes to fall unbidden down her suddenly pale face, his name a whispered question escaping her mouth.  He started purring then, a soft rumbling centered in his chest that seemed to engulf his entire body, and it was then, Buffy realized, that he wasn’t draining her so much as marking her.  And she forced her body to lie passively above him, surrendering herself to the pain. 

Dimly she was aware of being lifted, and figured she must have passed out momentarily.  He’d removed his fangs and was lovingly licking at – what she was sure to be – a rather large wound.  Then her back came into contact with the mattress and he was lowering himself on top of her. 

Spike smoothed the overly-red strands of hair from her face, his thumb tracing the line of her tears where they’d not completely dried.  With his demon sated, he looked upon her confused features, his deep blue eyes taking note of every little nuance.  He meant to go slow, make this joining special, give her back a little bit of what she’d given him.  But the second his lips touched hers, and he felt her limbs wrap around his body…he was lost. 

Clothes were shed with all possible haste, until nothing remained between them.  With his hand around the base of his cock, he lined himself up with her slit and rammed his way home.  He breathed a sigh that she was so wet and he’d not hurt her more with his invasion.  And, oh god…was she wet.  And tight, so tight.  Like she’d been made just for him.  Her vaginal walls gripped him so lovingly… 

“Fuck…Slayer,” he hissed once he was completely sheathed within her pussy.  He stilled above her, forcing her to open her eyes and look at him.  He could see the lust and impatience swimming in her hazel depths and he couldn’t prevent the self-satisfied smirk that graced his lips. 

Spike rocked his hips against her, pleased to see her eyes flutter from the sensation, the way she arched her neck and lifted her hips to take more of him.  He was automatically drawn to the puckered scar on her neck, proof that she was his now – whether she wanted to be or not.  When this was all done, the Order no more, she’d have a hell of a time walking away from him. 

He wasn’t sure why he’d marked her as his.  Maybe it was his need to establish some type of connection.  Maybe because she’d mentioned his grandsire in a roundabout way and the fact that he was now alone, his family completely gone.  A lone Aurelius master with no one to lord over. 

He’d claimed her in a moment of weakness – unable to bear it if something were to happen to her while they were parted. 

This little slip of a girl who was a Slayer.  His sworn enemy. 

“Spike.” 

Her whispered plea brought him back to the present and he increased his movements, the sound of the bare skin slapping together as they raced towards release fighting for supremacy in volume against their growls and groans of pleasure. 

Buffy was anxious.  It was different this time.  Somehow.  The mark on her neck seemed to vibrate harder and harder the closer she got, and it felt as if he were inside her.  Reading her thoughts, searching out all of her secrets.  It scared her how vulnerable she felt at this moment. 

Before it had been about mutual need, mutual comfort.  The pleasure they’d derived from each other’s bodies hadn’t weakened them in the least. 

Now…now it seemed strictly one-sided.  Like the bite he’d inflicted had granted him an all-access pass to her soul.  With no hint, whatsoever, of what he might be thinking. Or feeling. 

And she started to struggle.  To escape his all-seeing eyes and go back to what she was before.  A girl closed off from the world.  Unwilling to open herself to anything or anyone.  Her heart encased in ice. 

Spike sensed the change come over her and he countered her movements.  Slowing his thrusts so that he could take possession of her mouth, his tongue slipping between her parted lips to begin an intimate dance with hers.  Slowly, hesitantly, he seduced her out of her shell until she was panting and clinging to him once again.  Her little mewls of pleasure near driving him insane.  He tore his mouth from her lips and trailed kisses along her jaw towards her ear.  Felt her get wetter and he trailed his tongue along the outer shell.  Then wetter still when he nibbled on the lobe, his cool breath skimming the wet surface. 

“Tha’s it, Slayer,” he encouraged as her vaginal walls tightened reflexively around his cock.  “Squeeze me tight.” 

“Spike…more…need…” 

“I know what you need, baby.” He punctuated that statement with a surge of his hips.  “Mmmm…yeah…like that, did’ja?” 

Buffy nodded, unable to speak. 

“Again?” 

Another nod. 

He drove himself back into her, a twisted snarl of rapture transforming his features.  His eyes closed tight and he concentrated on angling his hips just right… 

She gasped and jumped beneath him, and he grinned.  Spike held her body just so while he pounded away at her pussy, ignoring her whimpered cries of too much until she couldn’t say anything, caught in the grips of her orgasm.  He watched as she struggled to open her eyes, to focus on the man above her, her body convulsing beneath his. 

The intensity in her gaze was near blinding, his possessive nature rearing its ugly head.  Only for him.  Only he could make her look that way.  Feel this way.  Didn’t matter how they got here, she was his. 

“Mine,” he growled, hips never stopping their punishing pace, his face looming above hers.  At her slight nod, he gave in to his body’s demands and flooded her womb with his seed. 

Spike collapsed on top of her, happy when she tightened her arms and legs around his body and held him close, feeling her struggle to breathe normally.  They lay there like that, neither moving nor speaking.  Just floating along in the aftermath of the most intense orgasm either had ever felt. 

When she’d felt she’d wasted all the time she could, she loosened her grip and rolled them so that he was sprawled on his back beneath her. 

“I’ve got to get ready so I don’t miss my bus,” she spoke softly. 

He nodded, not saying anything.  Knowing that this was their best course of action, no matter how much he hated being separated from her.  Spike helped her up and followed her into the bathroom to shower. 

Neither spoke while they washed each other off, their touch almost impersonal so as not to start something neither would be able to finish.  Afterwards, Spike dried her off and nudged her towards where her clothes were laid out on the second bed, before wrapping the towel around his lean hips.  He watched silently as she dressed quickly, her movements efficient as she transformed from the girl he’d made love to not twenty minutes ago into the Slayer.  One with a vendetta. 

Buffy’s hardened gazed swept around the room until she noticed her packed duffle of weapons, clothes, and a little cash, lying on the floor near the door.  Without a backward glance, her stride ate up the short distance across the motel room, and she leaned down and gripped the bag in her hands.  Hand on the door, the Slayer drew a deep breath, steeling herself for the coming battle. 

A moment later she dropped the bag and flung herself at the vampire watching her departure.  She attacked his lips, her fingers slipping into his dark locks to hold him close, kissing him with a desperation bordering on panic. 

Spike crushed the Slayer to him and kissed her back, slanting  until she seemed to get a handle on her emotions and reluctantly pulled away. 

“I’ll see you tonight?” 

“Count on it, luv.” 

“You’ll be able to find me?” 

The vampire smiled then.  His fingers brushed over the hidden marks on her neck, watching the telltale shiver that the action elicited.  

“Anywhere.” 

Buffy nodded, trusting his words, then she turned and walked out of the room, her duffle held securely in her hand. 

It was going to be a long eight hours.

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