One Good Lay | No Vacancy by kindred

No Vacancy

Summary: Alternative S3 'Anne'. After sending Angel to hell, Buffy disappears into anonymity in a dusty Californian town until a little piece of Sunnydale finds her...
Disclaimer: I do not own the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Angel (The Series). All of the characters belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, 20th Century Fox, et al.
Feedback: Always gratefully received @ alp@magma.ca

1.

A familiar piercing pain shot through her big toe. It was almost as exacting as her alarm clock. Big toe pain meant two hours to go in her shift.

She had switched over to nights and weekends at the restaurant but also accepted double shifts regularly. The mindless routine was helpful and there was no problem staying late.

She'd rather work weekends anyway as sleep was minimal these days and her social life was non-existent. Work was what she clung to. Work made sense and avoiding the pinches and accidental touches of the local male population was mildly diverting. Besides, she'd already counted the tiny violets on the faded wallpaper in her room.

Anything was better than that.

The polyester uniform with apron was not a problem. It was easier if people saw her as a role. She began to believe her name was 'Honey', 'Waitress', or 'Blondie'. They sounded just as plausible as 'Anne' did.

"Anne, table seven needs a menu."

"On it Millie," Buffy nodded to the older woman standing at the kitchen pass through and closed the cash drawer. Millie picked up her four heavily laden plates and turned toward her customers. She winked at Buffy with a wrinkled eyelid varnished blue.

Buffy began her familiar ritual: pencil in hand and over the page on the order pad. She grabbed a menu from the counter rack. Her feet took her to table seven without even looking up.

"There you go, sir--" She stilled as her hand held out a laminated menu card. Black lacquered fingertips took the menu.

"Evening Miss...Anne, is it?" Spike stared at the happy face name tag on her left breast.

Buffy's throat dried completely. The small restaurant was packed. It was game night for the local football team and the restaurant would be humming until closing. The team won this evening and everyone was in a celebratory mood. Buffy blinked with exhaustion and a general annoyance that Spike was here, in the restaurant and at her table.

She hadn't done any slaying related activities for months. All that mess was left behind. Duty and obligation were packed away with the pain of what she had done.

This sleepy little California town was football, Millie's pies and the ancient drive-in everyone fought to keep open for one more season. It was a haven from just the sort of riffraff sitting across from her looking intently at the nutritional selections.

Buffy exhaled heavily. Unsure of how to proceed she retreated to her routine. "We're out of the corn chowder and the cherry pie but all the rest is available." Spike's mouth quirked to a tight grin as he scrutinized the lengthy list of home made pies available.

"You bake these pies, love?" he asked teasingly.

Just give me a stake. "Uh...no. That would be Millie. This is her place. Did you miss the neon sign out front?" Buffy's face was implacable. Spike ke with contempt.

"No pet, that's yours. You getting stock options to put up with those yokels?" His voice was neutral. A snort escaped Buffy's nostrils. She sighed deeply wondering how long she'd have to soak in her tub after beating his ass into pulp.

"That was one terrific piece of pie, Anne," he said with satisfaction and a step toward her.

"Shut up," Buffy twisted her lips sourly.

"I know the world didn't end and all Slayer but there's still lots more evil doers out there. I don't think sleepy little Mayberry here quite reaches the heights of Angelus." Buffy shot her fist at him and he dodged it easily. "Ooh, reflexes are a bit rusty. What do you know? How convenient for me." Spike bounced on the balls of his feet, lithe and loose, dancing like a prizefighter.

Buffy swung again and clocked him. He fell back and giggled, shaking his head.

"I stand corrected, apparently thick polyester and slinging lard doesn't quite dim the Slayer's fists."

"Shut your stupid mouth!"

"Ooh Slayer, please, such rough talk. I 'd almost think you weren't happy to see me." Buffy remembered that sneer. She wanted to peel it from his lips and grind it under her waitress footwear.

"Aaagghh!" It wasn't the most coherent response but it was the quickest off her tongue. He countered with a giddy giggle.

They began to fight in earnest. Spike blocked her first few jabs. Her hand found a loose metal garbage can lid and smashed it into his face. Blood trickled down his nose and over a boyish grin.

He licked the blood slowly from his lips. "And here I thought we had a truce, Slayer. Didn't we do a pinky shake and everything?" Buffy kicked him in the head, pivoted and smashed his cheek with her elbow. "Oooh, yeah, kitty wants to play, that's my kitty." Spike kicked her solidly in the ribs.

"I'm not your kitty. I'm not your friggin' anything. Just crawl back to wherever you and Drusilla slithered off to and STAY DEAD!"

Something volatile flared behind Spike's eyes. He grabbed her lapels and head butted her. Roaring with rage he threw her to the end of the alley. She got to her feet dazed and slipped over the low fence and down into a rear parking lot. Spike flew after her in pursuit.

"Oh, is that it Spike?" Buffy taunted with an expression of faux sincerity on her face. "Drusilla pick some other shmuck to go to the formal with?" A quick left jab followed by a solid right hook collided with his head.

"Shut up, bitch." He countered with a furious arching left hook, which she dodged.

"Hit a nerve huh? Dumped by Drusilla? I never figured she'd have taste after all."

Spike's eyes flashed yellow. He flew at her snarling, feet flying into her chest and fists clawing at her torso.

"If you tear my uniform I'll never get my deposit back." Buffy's face seethed in a molten undulation.

"And it would be such a shame to deny the world the pleasure of seeing you wearing that fetching potato sack." The demon's face smirked at her as his fists found her chin and cheek in rapid succession.

"SHUT UP!" Buffy stood toe to toe with him trading hateful crushing blows.

"Nice to see some things never change, your verbal jousting is just as dismal as I recall." Buffy kicked at him but Spike grabbed her foot and twisted it, spinning her sideways. She rolled on the pavement and scrambled to her feet, quickly checking her skirt.

"That's motor oil, you used bag of blood. I'll NEVER get that stain out!" Her upper lip quivered vigorously. Spike could barely contain his amusement. He was practically at gleeful.

It had been a while since he had such an enjoyable encounter. Toe to toe with the Slayer, dancing and dodging with feints and fists and feet. Yeah, this is what he yearned for, what he got up off the sarcophagus for, what he was bloody well made for. Smashing and bashing and relishing thashifted in his seat.

"I'll take the raspberry-blueberry with whipped cream," he stated evenly.

"You're gonna need to pay for it," she said, knowing full well that vampires had no use for money.

Spike flashed a thick money clip from his pocket at her. Another heavy sigh accompanied her curt pivot. She walked to the counter and took the raspberry-blueberry pie from the lower display shelves. It was a wonderland of pastry behind slanted glass that was dotted with the nose prints of local children.

A large piece of pie found its way onto a small white dessert plate. Buffy shook the whipping cream can with venom. Her eyes trailed over the crowd and landed on Spike.

A few of the regular patrons were staring at his obvious fish-out-of-water-ness. A long leather coat, black fingernails, platinum hair and an indecipherable facial _expression were a novelty next to the sweat stained farmer's caps, cotton dresses, and the impossibly blue denims of the local teens.

He couldn't have looked more dead among those sun kissed folks had he been lying in a coffin at table seven. It was a surreal and ethereal scene. Perhaps something Goya or Brueghel might have painted if they had come to the fertile fields of California.

Millie sidled up to Buffy as she picked up the dessert plate. "That one will be a big tipper," Millie pronounced into Buffy's ear. "I know people, Anne. Look at that baby face. Probably a movie person up from Los Angeles."

"Baby face? Millie, that could be a serial killer," Buffy spoke in a flat tone.

"Shoulders back Anne and put on your pretty smile, I bet he tips you a tenner for the pie." Buffy groaned silently. That's all she needed to do, flex her chest at Spike. Ugh.

The girls in the restaurant had given her plenty of advice on how best to encourage big tips from the customers without appearing to be the skank of the month. It was a wholesome dance of smiling, juggling plates and genuine friendliness.

Millie winked at her again and waved her ferociously plucked eyebrows high and wide. She turned to a regular at the counter. "Hey Duane, what's shakin'?" Millie oozed the liquid smile of seduction known to waitresses nationwide.

Buffy walked back to Spike's table with the pie. She deposited it in front of him and then caught Millie looking at her from the counter.

"Coffee... Sir?" Her voice strained.

"No thanks love, keeps me up nights." Spike wrinkled his nose at her.

Slowly Buffy became aware that she held her pencil like a stake. Her feet separated automatically readying for battle. Adrenalin coursed through her body, throbbing noticeably in her big toe and temples. Spike acknowledged her readiness.

"You gonna let me have my pie, pet? Or do we throw down right here and give the locals a real show." Spike's tight eyes met Buffy's; he could go either way. It was up to her.

"Just eat, pay up and leave. Preferably the state." She turned and left him to his pie.

Millie was wrong. Spike left her a fifty.

2.

At 11:13 p.m. Buffy waved to Millie and exited by the front door. The air was crisp and Buffy could see her breath. The main strip was peppered with a few pick-up trucks at the far end. They hovered around the 24-hour truck stop. That was Millie's only competition in the town.

It was always a brisk walk down the road to her room at the local motel. Her legs were bare but she couldn't stand nylons working next to that kitchen. It was as hot as a forge.

Spike stepped lazily out from the alley beyond the small tailor's shop and dry cleaners. She stopped abruptly and looked at him. Stakes were no longer part of her wardrobe accessories. She wondered whether or not she could decapitate him with just her elbow.

"What now? You want your tip back?" She spot delightful look of repulsed exasperation on her teeny tiny face.

Oh yeah, this was living.

Charging with histrionic possession like some demented banshee, Buffy tackled him and began pummeling him from a position perched on his chest. "You stupid, stalking vampire! Take your stupid face and go be dead somewhere ELSE." Spike reared up and threw her off of him with a tidy snicker. That only increased her rage. She flew back at him with a vengeance. The heel of her palm smashed his chin. He countered with a solid punch to her ribs and then another to her cheek.

"I'm flattered Goldilocks, didn't know you missed me so much." Buffy's head snapped sideways, she shook herself to maintain focus. She gritted her teeth in mindless fury and punched him. Hard concussive blows hit their target periodically. Spike dodged several blows with a self satisfied grin on his lips.

Buffy kept her facial expression clenched with rage in order not to betray her own emotions. She was enjoying herself as well. It had been a long time since she'd had a good fight and pummeling Spike was always enjoyable.

Spike watched her closely. Her movement fascinated him. Spike noticed before Buffy was aware. Her swings slowed slightly and her angles of trajectory were haphazard at best. She was out of shape. Her shoulders and hip ached and her big toes were pounding a percussive rhythm that would rival any marching band.

No training made the Slayer a tasty target. She was fighting on the fumes of pure adrenalin: fast and hard and petering down to honest non supernatural exhaustion. Spike figured he was probably the first demon ever to pass through this dusty town. That meant the Slayer hadn't met a combatant since Angelus.

A moment's miscalculation caused Buffy to slip on a lump of something gooey. For the first time since she began slaying her storied reflexes faltered almost imperceptibly. Spike caught her fiercely and held her up off the ground. He didn't anticipate this result so soon but he wasn't going to squander it either. This one was a competent adversary, and well worthy of the death he would give her.

He wanted to enjoy his victory and he thought briefly about crowing into the wind. This was an achievement. This was a pinnacle most demons never even imagined, another slayer was his. His pompous self congratulatory celebration stopped when he looked into her eyes.

They were clouded and far away, her breaths heavy and slowing. There was no surrender in her countenance, just exhaustion. Spike had tasted acquiescence from two slayers. He remembered that look, the yen for death, the deep and intimate yearning to discover the answers to their questions. There had been an acceptance, an embrace even, of what he could offer them shining in their defeated eyes. They were the two most intimate experiences of his life. He wanted to feel that again.

Buffy gave him nothing but the sigh of a tired waitress, the silent cliched mantra of 'I'll be right with you'. She wouldn't even let him kill her properly. There were rules to this game, even Spike knew that. She raised her heavy hands and merely touched him above his waist, her breath the only sound between them in the night air.

She waited for the final strike but it did not come. What could he possibly be waiting for? Unbeknownst to Spike at that moment Buffy was truly ready to close her eyes and rest. The darkness wasn't calling to her so much as the quietness. The feeling didn't last long but it happened and she tasted it. It had the flavor of refuge, of home and her mother's forgiving arms. Just then she would have welcomed his embrace and his fangs and the blessed silence with gratitude.

For his part Spike was thrown off by her utter lack of enthusiasm for her own death. He was stunned by the dreary state of her defenses. This was the slayer he'd fantasized killing over and over again? It did not reflect well on Spike that his nemesis was in less than top form. In this, as in most matters, ego considerations were paramount. This bitch was the most diabolical creature ever devised.

"What the fuck is this?" Spike spat with disgust. "You need to fight me Slayer so I can conquer you, not wipe you away like soddin' pie crumbs." He dropped her to her feet like she was so much garbage. The demon visage faded to a fa�ade of bitter dregs.

See Spike? You'll never kill her. She's nothing, helpless in your grasp, and still you can't do it. Drusilla's torturous voice grated through his mind.

"Can too, you fucking bitch. I'll drain her. I'll--" Spike saw an absent tear drop from Buffy's dulled right eye. He morphed and realigned his human face almost in one stroke. "FUCK!" His roar echoed off the surrounding buildings. He couldn't do it. His mind raced. A near catatonic slayer really disrupted Spike's world view.

He knew the way of the world, how things worked and revisions were especially unwelcome. The slayer was a summit to be conquered, end of story. His fingers began to twitch. He needed to snap her out of whatever uninteresting crap had possessed her. She wasn't going to weasel out of her own death, not if he had anything to say about it.

3.

Nicotine scented fingers snapped in front of her face.

"Hey-- You in there? Slayer?" He peered into her impenetrable human mask. "This is pathetic. You're a fucking basket case. Have some pride for fuck's sakes," his voice grated, bitter with disgust. "Yep, that's bloody well perfect that is, just the kind of fucked up bitch I'd be saddled with..." His voice trailed off into grumbling indecipherable speech.

Unable to think of a quick solution, he pulled a flask of whiskey from beneath his coat lining. He unscrewed the lid and took a long needed draw. The liquid sliced down his throat on a familiar serpentine pathway. Yes, okay, that was something that made sense. Alcohol was not the best solution, but it could help pass the awkward and lengthening lull in the would be slaughter.

His irritability found a balm in agitated pacing and intermittent muttering. The click of his boots on the pavement was little help to his current problem. He stopped, twisted his mouth and offered Buffy the alcohol. She regarded him warily.

"Twelve year old whiskey pet, not cyanide," he held the bottle out and waited for a decision. Buffy stood there staring. She finally blinked and accepted his offering. A mouthful of burning liquid bled slowly down her throat. She convulsed, opened her mouth and took in a huge gasp of air.

"Okay. That's better, into the land of the living, good." Spike took the flask and another drink. What the fuck was wrong with her? This was not working out at all the way he had thought. He stepped back and leaned casually against a low stone wall that bounded one side of the small parking lot. His jaw flexed as the perfect opportunity passed. Maybe he could get drunk with her and bitch about all their bad old times together. Spike did not have clue one of how to spend an evening in a town that tucked into bed at eleven o'clock. There wasn't even the hope of a midnight snack. The streets were deserted in a way that disturbed even Spike. He held out the flask. Buffy stood dumbly and took the silver bottle and another swig.

"You want to continue, pet? Because I can put this off for a while until you're you again, unless you particularly want to die in this fabulous fuel and piss soaked parking lot." He looked to her for any reaction at all. "It's up to you, Slayer. As for myself, I'm not really that interested in drowning a kitten in a puddle, to tell the plain truth of it. Couldn't really brag about that now, could I?" He offered a tight sour smile that looked more like a fist.

He could kill her so easily. She was pitiable and out of condition. All he need do was edit out a few details and become an even greater legend than he already was and no one would be the wiser. But that was the sticking point. He would always know the truth.

He wanted her blood, he wanted her death, but he had standards. A clean kill was what he wanted. There would be no asterisk beside Buffy Summers' name on his dance card. She was his and he would have her right and proper.

Spike wasn't Angelus, he with the narcissistic masturbatory world domination fixation. Spike was a sportsman: clean kills were the object and not slayers in a barrel. His first two slayers were worthy opponents. They knew how to die. This sorry excuse in front of him? He'd teach her himself if he had to, make her worthy of her own death. This one needed proper training from a master who could keep her corralled and not some Watcher windbag who misplaced her so easily.

Buffy's head began to swim. She came in early that day to cover Jolene's shift and then did her own. She had an egg salad sandwich on her break but that was hours ago. It was almost eleven thirty. She felt the alcohol flush her cheeks in the cool air.

She saw his lips moving. He was still talking. God, does he ever shut up? Pure demon, through and through, that's what he was. Talking her to death would be the messier, pain filled option. At last she heard her own empty voice.

"I need to sleep," she said absently and stood up, seemingly oblivious to the vampire who had offered her death. Mentally assessing the correct direction she started walking out of the parking lot. Spike stood to accompany her.

"Where are we hanging our polyester these days, Slayer?" His tone shifted to conversational.

"Go away. Come back tomorrow. I'll stake you then," she tried to achieve her old sassy slayer vocal arrogance. Nothing registered on his face so she had no reflection of how she actually came across. Her balance wavered and she put her hands out to steady herself. Alcohol never had been much of a factor in her life and Spike's whiskey churned wickedly in her empty stomach.

His strong hand found her shoulder in an attempt to steady her. "Get off, you idiot!" Buffy jerked herself away from him with considerable force and fell back hard on the pavement. "Ow." There was some pain in her voice but mostly the sudden shock of a loss of balance.

"Fuck, this is a public place," Spike complained. "I can't be seen with a half-assed slayer. What the bloody hell is wrong with you, Summers? Suck it up already." He yanked her to her feet and clamped an arm securely around her waist. They began walking. "One foot in front of the other," he said with icy condescension. "That's right, pet, your Mom would be so proud." They wound themselves back onto the street.

"Where?" Spike asked. Buffy started walking. She had little choice but to accept the muscular form next to her as he held her with an iron grip. She concentrated on getting back to her room. It was the only solution that entered her mind. All would be well if she could only get to her room. Then she would figure out what to do with this growth on the side of her body.

"You got any booze, Slayer? 'Cause I figure we're gonna need some more alcohol right quick."

4.

The ancient neon sign in the small motel flickered and buzzed as they turned into the parking lot. Buffy led Spike to the last lime green door on the first level. She fished a key from her pocket, unlocked the door, switched on the light and entered.

Spike stepped up and leaned against the door jamb. He felt the barrier lightly with the back of his index finger. Motels wouldn't usually keep him out but Buffy had lived there for quite a while and that made the difference. She thought of it as her home and had been there long enough for it to become one. Vampires were therefore excluded.

Her coat found its way to a hanger on a lonely metal rod. Buffy looked at the open door and walked over. Spike gave her his best come hither look. He wasn't through playing even though he knew he wasn't going to kill her that evening.

"Friendly chat over for tonight?" He asked with a sweet _expression trying to get a rise from her.

"What do you want, Spike?" She rubbed her forehead.

"Well pet, I had my pie and we had a nice little tussle in the alley. I could go for a good hard fuck or some more cheery conversation right about now." His voice rolled hypnotically off his tongue.

Buffy was hit by the lulling timbre of his voice. It buzzed in her teeth. The meaning of that sentence didn't exactly register immediately. She was concentrating on her throbbing toe. That pain was fast occupying her entire being.

"What?" she tried to focus. "What was that?"

"You gonna invite me in, hmm?" He raised his eyebrows and bent his left hand pinky finger. "Truce?" She stood and blinked at him instead of slamming the door in his face.

Shit. If he's here at least I'll know he's not out chewing on our quarterback. This town needs that kid.

"Come in." Her voice was a dead ringer for perfect defeat. Too tired to think she turned her back on the vampire entering her small room. "Welcome to Casa Slayer," she sighed.

Spike shut the door and surveyed the bleak room: bad wallpaper, horrible pink bedspread, nondescript mismatched furniture, Gideon bible, weird paint by number harvest scene and a tiny television with rabbit ears.

Spike nodded at the horror surrounding him. "It suits you," he pronounced with authority.

"The water pressure is awesome. I guess that's something," Buffy offered as she sat in a low easy chair. There was little in the room to suggest that someone had been living there as opposed to staying for one night. A coat, two more uniforms and two pairs of jeans hung beside the bathroom door. She filled two out of six drawers in the low dresser. A few personal items sat on top.

"What are you doing here?" she sighed wearily. "This is hardly Spiketown." Even Mayberry was a tad too cosmopolitan a moniker for this little town. When she first arrived Buffy wouldn't have been surprised to see a stagecoach rattle down the main drag. There was a definite one horse vibe to the whole community.

"Don't know about that pet, you're here." She stared at him. He shrugged his shoulders. "I fancied a road trip is all. I'm a back roads fella, myself."

"Really?" Buffy angled a disbelieving eyebrow at the downtown saturated figure before her. It really pissed her off that he could swagger and remain perfectly still at the same time. She had no idea how he did that.

"And there's always something interesting off the beaten track, ain't that right, Slayer?" Spike winked at her and shifted his weight onto his other foot.

Buffy sighed and crossed her legs. She removed her utilitarian footwear and began working on her knotted toes.

"Here." Spike stepped to her and held out his hand.

"No, you already wrenched my foot enough, thanks."

"You're bloody doing it wrong." Spike's critical tone was undone by his kneeling at her feet with one hand held out patiently.

"No."

"Slayer, I already passed up the chance to munch on your precious self earlier, any brain cells left in there at all? Give me your soddin' foot."

"I'm completely insane." Buffy muttered to herself as she put her foot into Spike's hand.

"Don't flatter yourself, love." Spike smirked and began working over her beleaguered arch and metatarsals in a thorough and competent manner. Buffy leaned back in the chair, her feet hadn't felt this good in a long time.

"What are you doing here?" Spike fished casually.

"Juggling pies," a blank _expression occupied her face. A hint of a smirk touched his upper lip. "Shut up," Buffy demanded weakly.

The massage was repeated on her other foot. Buffy's mind drifted and she actually closed her eyes. Spike is massaging my waitress feet. Spike is-- Her eyes snapped open.

"Don't think this gets you struck off the 'Totally Evil' list," Buffy warned with a glare.

"Never even entered my mind," Spike grinned at her. At the moment his mind was quite delightfully occupied. Faint traces of a lotion she had spread on her skin hours ago filtered their way to Spike's nostrils. Under the scent of lard, sweat, pastry dust, egg salad and cigarette smoke was the delicate waft of old fashioned roses and the call of something powerfully feminine.

Remnants of her aroused defenses from their recent interaction spoke directly to him. Well, mostly just the heat of rage and disgust and a general pissed-offedness, but heat is heat, and a heated slayer smelled delicious.

Buffy floated on the surprising luxury of Spike's cool muscular grip. Those were the hands of a man on her skin. She breathed deeply, simply enjoying something she hadn't felt in a long time.

Her eyes finally opened to find Spike looking at her. His face was oddly calm without even a trace of the standard 'Baddest Badass in the West' countenance he always showed her. He glowed in the strange shadowed light of her room. His piercing eyes pulsated with blue flames, looking eerily like a neon sign. His smooth facial contours shone like curved glass tubing filled with luminescence; an otherworldly entity plopped into this sleepy town.

The room looked shabby and wan compared to his glinting leather refracted form. Never before had her anonymous room felt so empty as when this shimmering dead man illuminated its want.

He was hauntingly beautiful amid the Goodwill refuse of her room. Buffy had seen paintings in her mother's art books that were eerily similar to this scene: a resplendently still dead boy kneeling on the faded carpet.

She felt suddenly self conscious and lacking. Buffy Summers: pie juggler and pariah in polyester, hiding in an anonymous motel. Then he rolled his lips at her with teasing animation and the moment was lost.

"I have to have a bath," she said plainly, removing her foot from his hands and hoping against hope he'd take the hint and leave. Spike stood and removed his long coat.

"Fine, I can go for a bath."

"Yeah, right." Buffy huffed derisively as she stood up into a wall of muscle. Spike grabbed her forcefully around her biceps. Suddenly those strong hands that had brought her relief and unexpected pleasure were now piercing her arms with something Buffy could not decipher. Was it need? Murderous vengeance? Loneliness?

"What do you want?" Buffy asked failing to control the slight hitch in her voice. Her palms spread flat against his chest but they were not exactly pushing him away. They seemed only to acknowledge a boundary that was not to be crossed, and yet the sweat of her hands that beaded against his chest threatened to melt through flesh to the bone. Her voice wavered at his proximity and her fatigue. There was something softer in his _expression as he gripped her than she'd never seen in him before.

Quietude overtook Spike as he stood inhaling the soft scents of the tired slayer in his hands. What did he want? He began to mull that question over in his mind as he studied her hairline and the curve of her cheek. Choice required careful consideration. He tilted his head and regarded her.

She was only a shadow of what he once knew. He remembered a saucy ego driven maniac all wound up in suburban righteousness, the perfect faux sheep in pastel mini skirts and frosted lipstick. The one who continually infuriated and hardened him with her tantalizing wiles.

Now it seemed only the color palate was unchanged. Where was that saucy bitch? The one worthy of his obsession. She made him pace in the daytime when sleep mocked him. This girl in front of him, the one embracing small town numbness had a whiff of a future hausfrau about her, wide hipped with screaming children yapping at her heels.

It was a vision that made Spike wretch.

The future was already decided. He was sure of that. Her future lay in his grasp and under his fangs. A slayer didn't take her marbles or dollies or whatever the hell this one played with and run away. It was just not done. She belonged to him and not to some deeply tanned fruit farmer who tipped her extra and twisted his lips around a toothpick.

Belonged. Yeah, that's what he meant, and here in this sad little room he truly felt it. She belonged to him. There was an order to things. Even a damned creature like Spike knew that. The big picture starred bona fide hero types like the Slayer but he also was a player. There was no denying that. Cosmic order was reliable and reassuring. It made the evil that much sweeter for its certainty.

He was important and necessary, and he was ready to prove that to her.

5.

Spike drew nearer and nearer to her. Even like this she was magnetic. He felt his own arousal crackle in her midst. Killing could wait, that need was no longer foremost in his thoughts. The prowl was a succulent delicacy all on its own. Suddenly the possibility of fucking a slayer thundered through his body like a siren's call. She was pathetic to be sure, but her scent told him the truth. This one was ripe for the picking.

"What do I want?" he said gently as his lip whisper touched her temple. Spike had been rigorously trained in the warfare of seduction. Darla and Angelus had been rigorous taskmasters. "Interesting question, love. Seems to me it requires some thought." His eyes pierced hers with an inviting gaze.

Buffy wriggled slightly in his grip as she started to tremor internally. A gentle deep voice. The faintest touch of lips. The presence of a man. All of these things had been forcibly banished from her mind.

She felt her heart between her legs, the slow growing beat of desire. Then the heat of shame at what had aroused her suffused her mind: death in leather skins, an immaculate dye job and banal black fingernails. It was death wearing the likeness of a man with a low sultry voice of pure animal seduction. Spike inhaled audibly, crinkled his nose and grinned with satisfaction, knowing he had aroused her.

Full points to Spike for possessing the ghost of testosterone past.

"Don't," Buffy turned away in embarrassment and tried to push him off. He caught her head with his cheek and lowered his mouth slowly and deliberately. Steady calm lips tickled against her blushing cheek, stalking her lips with purpose.

"Don't what, love?" he soothed with expert precision. He was a talented spider and knew how to rein in a tasty morsel. "Don't this?" he asked rhetorically as his arms encircled her back. "Don't this?" he tilted his growing erection into her pelvis.

Buffy caught her breath. "Don't this, Slayer?" he moved his hands to her bottom, cupping her closely. Buffy opened her mouth to respond and he briefly covered her lips with his. "Or was it that?" he whispered into her stunned face, teasing her with seduction.

He looked upon her with an _expression of conceited fascination. In her exhausted state she replied not with fury but with a tinge of pink on her blushing cheeks. It had been a long time since he'd seen someone blush so delicately and more than a lifetime since he'd caused someone to react in such a manner. There was a sweetness to her honest response that touched him. This was not a slayer in his arms, but a girl who had been wounded and left untended.

Aware of her own awakening arousal she shifted against him uncomfortably. He felt so solid beneath her fingers. She looked at his chest and the front of his throat as her head began to spin. "What was the question?" she asked through her haze and raised her face to his. Soft lips covered hers again, raspberry-blueberry lips with a trace of whiskey and a scant whisper of blood. It wasn't that unpleasant a combination.

Sinuous flesh sampled her lips, pursuing and retreating, asking and answering. For Spike it was a practiced rhythm, a polished artistry. Buffy pursed her lips in response just as he withdrew.

"Oh that's nice, Slayer," his voice vibrated at a deep level. "Maybe we should be asking what it is that you want, love." He looked at her lower lip and sampled it. Her upper lip trembled in response. "Don't worry pet, I don't leave things unfinished."

He kissed her upper lip and then covered both lips again gently. An image of Drusilla's mouth appeared in Buffy's mind. These are the lips that kissed that, for like, a century...oh god. Spike's tongue traced the outline of her bottom lip.

Her lips tasted of sweetness remembered, a plump tangle of sun ripened fruit, all melons and mangoes; the haunting effigy of swollen flesh on the vine, craning and bruised for its readiness.

He tasted her strength also. The slayer aura was a forbidding and alluring elixir but there was something else he couldn't place. It was almost the taste of fog, an opaque thickness rolling off of her tongue and lips. It was permeating her, a density of unknown nuance and tempo.

Spike was quite taken by the soft warmth of the Slayer's lips and the heated promise of what lay beyond. He tried to think if he'd ever kissed a human for this long before. He couldn't remember ever doing that. The bulk of his experience had been fang centric: biting, sucking and chewing, but kissing had its merits. Merely teasing and tasting the slayer's lips was worthwhile all on its own.

Never did Spike anticipate that kissing his sworn enemy could be so delicious, but then he always did gravitate toward the dangerous end of the spectrum. Angelus had punished him severely many times for such conspicuous behavior but things had changed. Angelus was tucked away good and tight in a hopefully enthusiastic hell dimension and Spike was free and clear to roam and make merry at his leisure. Leisurely, yes he would be leisurely. He would be quite thoroughly leisurely with this one.

The image of lying chained and spread-eagled as Drusilla skewered him with sharpened rebars while she berated him for allowing Angelus to be taken from her was fading fast. Maybe they truly did need a break.

Their tried and true formula of reprisals and retribution was beyond hackneyed. It was merely a dog-eared script they clung to, not knowing any other possibility. There was finality in her tone during that grotesquely unpleasant torture session, and Drusilla had been uncharacteristically clear headed during it all. Spike figured he could always track her down in Brazil for a little comeuppance if he chose to.

She often turned up there seeking a certain Fungus demon named Phil who was a particularly attentive listener. Brazil was a possibility, but later, much later.

Spike's cock jumped at the sensation of the slayer in his arms deepening their kiss.

6.

That was all it took. Spike grabbed her hard and thrust his tongue into her mouth. Soon their tongues entwined with an urgent need. It was no longer combat or games but a difficult want.

Buffy's tongue grated over his trying to wrest something from him. The sudden thrill to taste death filled her head. She searched his mouth repeatedly. It was a cavern of echoes and absences. Enamel and soft palate. She wanted the taste of blood, to sample the darkness of this specter surrounding her; infiltrating her. She wanted the taste of death from the tongue of this killer.

When she opened her eyes white blond hair and blue eyes were all she could see. Not brown, not soft but searing. She closed her eyes again and he was there. Brown eyes looking at her from across the room. Nothing else but his soulful confused brown eyes, watching her do this thing: sup from the mouth of this miscreant.

Buffy pushed Spike away from her and their lips separated with a tremendous smack. She held his black t-shirt bunched in her fists. "What's wrong with me?" she mumbled, unaware that she had voiced her question. A sly giggle touched her ears.

"Nothing pet, I think you're doing just fine." There was acid in his seductive voice.

Why hadn't she thrown him through the wall? Why was she standing there considering what she was considering doing with this abomination in her grasp? Why wasn't he dust out the door?

A troubling primal beat claimed her body and her focus. She was being occupied by something dark and ancient. It was a blistering desire to engulf him, to take him whole to the bone. This unexpected feeling shamed her deeply.

Angel's phantom gaze burned into her skin but she wanted this one in front of her. This smug-faced bastard who was toying with her, putting thoughts into her head and making her knees tremble.

Suddenly she wanted Spike to pay for her misery. She wanted him to suffer as she had, but she also wanted to be punished. There was a smoldering need within her to be punished. She wanted the horrible darkness to smother her, to reduce her to ashes. But she also wanted his lips on her; his fingers on her and the hardness pressed to her hip buried deep inside her. A buzz tingled between her legs accompanied by a flare from Spike's nostrils.

Breaths surged from her mouth as she juggled her twin desires: to kill him and be done with it or to fuck him in a messy horrible frenzy. She bit her lip to keep it from trembling. A quick glance at his face betrayed his preference. A hard swallow gulped down her throat as she saw his eyes sparking with lust.

The choice was made; the consequences be damned. She already knew what hell was: a mismatched motel room in a quiet friendly town. Why not act as damned as she felt, as empty as that lonely main street after midnight? It wouldn't matter. Nothing mattered anymore.

Her mind filled with the innumerable horrors of this meaningless world, the unworthy orb she sacrificed Angel for. She wanted something in her mind other than that guilt and sorrow. She wanted Spike to take that burden. She wanted to shove that choking weight down his throat.

Spike's mind filled with the delicious promise of the warm and yielding slayer in his grasp and the signs and scents of delights to come. He felt strangely honored to be in her company.

He sneered at her and reached to unzip her uniform. "Take off that bloody plastic dress." Spike drew the long zipper down her back. The frilly apron was tugged off and discarded on the desk on top of his duster. This was soon followed by her dress, pulled off over her head as she stood there in a stupor. He tugged his t-shirt off in one motion.

Buffy stood before him in mismatched bra and panties shaking with panic and desire. Spike hissed a quick breath at the vision before him. Her golden skin was sprinkled with bruises, reminders of their dance in the alley. She looked resplendent, a dazzling flesh jewel of swelling shades pooling under her soft skin. Spike slowly bit his lower lip as he drank in her soft curves caressed by his personal signature.

Her eyes clung to the expanse of his chest. The taut musculature beneath his parchment skin snaked over his body like a hardened dirt road. Her eyes drifted over his abdomen and belly button and further down to observe hands unclasping his belt buckle. Spike removed it from the fabric loops, folded and snapped it between his fists.

"I don't know, Slayer, but something tells me you may be an adventurous girl." He dropped the belt and undid his jeans snap. A well muscled hand casually caressed down over his covered bulge. She followed his actions with her eyes. "See something you like, pet?" His eyebrows flared over his whisper.

Two pale hands carefully untangled her tight bun. Twelve bobby pins fell from her tethered hair along with any fragments of resistance she may have thought she had left. Buffy's hands rested on his hips as his fingers gently massaged her scalp. She closed her eyes. The brown eyes were gone. Her eyes opened again with effort. Rational thought made a final weak bid for dominance.

"But you hate me...and I...hate you..." She struggled to complete that thought as her voice dwindled to nothing.

"So what?" He looked at her with hunger. "There's not much better than a hate fuelled fuck. You'll see. The more you hate, the harder you come." Tilting his head to observe her, Spike licked along the blunt edges of his upper incisors and rolled his lips into a smile. "And Slayer? I think we may rip the roof off of this place," his soft giggle burrowed into her mind as her arousal accelerated.

They were both on the same hate filled page.

7.

Spike's eyelid's fell thickly to half-mast. "Anybody ever taste that juicy slayer pussy, love?" he whispered with icy seduction and dropped to his knees. Contrary to his hardened tone he slid his fingers softly into her waistband and eased her plain white panties smoothly down her legs and off her feet. Spike pushed her right foot up onto the arm of the side chair and angled her knee outward. "Oh, very nice, kitty," he hummed into her mound in appreciation. His tone abruptly changed to pure sass. "Try not to like it," he challenged as he glared up at her.

The look on her face told him she'd not experienced this before. In Spike's estimation Angel was certifiable not to have sucked on this delicacy. That made no sense to Spike at all. Angel did her, did the dirt, lost his soul for it and never went down on her.

Spike could smell her arousal hasten at the anticipation of a tongue down there; specifically, a tongue that knew its way around the neighborhood. This flooded her with desire. His nose practically entered her lubricated passage as he inhaled her. Her abdominal muscles jumped at the sensation.

"Ouph!" escaped her lips as her hands moved convulsively to her pubis.

"Here, love," he directed softly as he paused to kiss her hands and place them on his head. "Put them here, I'm gonna take you someplace wonderful." He returned his attention back to her flesh. "Beautiful," a low voice Buffy would never have recognized as Spike's filled her ears. He inhaled the delirious scents once more. He knew she had finished her cycle mere days before and he cursed his timing.

"You smell like gumdrops."

He floated in her essence. As gently as he covered her mouth his lips touched her vulva. Again she reacted in a mindless convulsion. A high pitched breathless yelp rocketed out of her throat. He stilled himself, steadied her and looked into her questioning eyes again.

"Just let it happen, love," he soothed with another tender kiss. A soft kiss transformed into long luxurious licks up and down her cleft. He sopped up her flowing lubrication like a sponge. "Pussy candy," his voice hushed with delight. Buffy's gasping wordless exclamations hardened him severely. Her hands left his head and gripped the top of the chair with murderous intent.

He felt an unexpected pleasure and pride in initiating her in this activity. He would be thorough. She would not forget his tongue any time soon. She tried to brace herself but teetered as his tongue entered her passage. He curled it internally and drew out streams of fluid. She could hear him slurping it up with relish.

Pausing briefly he looked up into her quivering face and smirked. "You like it, don't you?" She opened her jaw but no words came out. Words hadn't yet been invented for this.

With no warning he growled sensuously into her tissues and she climaxed. Buffy had experienced orgasms before. The bad one she hurt Angel with was not her first. She knew how to pleasure herself but hadn't done so in a long time, not since before she left Sunnydale.

Now she was stunned not to experience the slow rise of sensation to an inevitable burst. Her climax slammed into her at full force, seemingly from nowhere. Her hands found his head again and held him in place. She never wanted him to move from that spot again.

An unfamiliar voice filled her ears with a shriek of pleasure. It was her voice. She was transforming in the dusty yellow light of her small room. She was being reshaped for pleasures yet to come.

Spike grinned at his success and claimed her clit. I'll make you howl, Slayer...make you sputter...make you forget the earth is round...

Her knees buckled under her as she hurdled into a second orgasm. Two fingers entered her aggressively and pumped with fevered urgency. Her juices flowed freely over his hand. The crescendo of sensation stunned her, it screamed in her ears. Another orgasm thundered through her body.

"No," she struggled. "I can't, I can't..." Her voice twisted with pain and then stopped. Her knees wobbled, she was crumbling, losing her balance. Spike grabbed her and pulled her forward down onto the carpet.

"Yes you can. Come on Slayer, be bold, show me want you need." That brief encouragement was met with a pained gasp from Buffy. Spike lay back and lifted her over his face. She spread her legs widely and arched herself into his mouth. No prodding was necessary to initiate the desired movement. It just happened. The Slayer fucked the face of this vampire as naturally as she once shopped for shoes, with fevered abandon.

A relentless tongue lassoed her clit. She flowed through hard peaks and valleys of unrivaled sensation. Her weight fell forward over his head and onto her palms and then her elbows as her hips ground her ferocious need into his mouth. Unusual spiraling cries vibrated through her lower jaw as she crested again and again.

Lost in this language she spoke in tongues she had never known.

Spike moved suddenly with swiftness that she had only glimpsed in battle. Ignoring his own need to take her right there on the carpet and pound into her for several hours he chose another selection. The need to show Buffy her own desires became paramount. He slipped out from under her and turned to pick her up. She was brought to standing facing the dresser.

"Climb up." His voice drifted inside her head. She felt her knees press against the smooth surface of the wooden dressed as she mounted it. A forceful knee knocked her deodorant, lipstick and a magazine off the dresser and onto the floor.

"Spread your legs." His voice was as soft as his tongued caresses had been. Gentle fingers slipped down her inner thighs urging her wider as her breath skittered from her lips.

Angel had been so attentive, so fixed on her pleasure and yet that first growling orgasm from Spike was the most devastating physical truth Buffy had ever experienced. Now she wanted Spike to take her to places she'd never been, places Angel had been too gentlemanly to dare visit.

Buffy wanted to know it all.

8.

"Oh, Slayer." Spike caressed up and down her sopping cleft. "You're soaking again, that's bloody wonderful, that is." He sucked his fingers loudly to demonstrate his pleasure. His tone was clipped by a lustful fervor that she'd heard many times but now it was tempered by something else. She couldn't place it. It was something wide-eyed and surprising, like a kid on Christmas morning. It was that delightful fullness of receiving, of being granted a bountiful treasure.

"Spike--" She turned her head to one side trying to see him through her mussed hair. Her arousal burned into his nostrils. She felt electrified and numbed simultaneously just balancing there, splayed on an ugly motel dresser, waiting and wanting to be taken, to be transformed. By Spike. The clanging of her heart was deafening; its beat bruised Spike's throat.

Into the land of the living, indeed.

"I'm here, pretty girl, I'm right here." The buzz of his zipper filled her ears as Spike opened his jeans fully and shoved them down his thighs. Buffy looked into the mirror and was stunned by the shocking reflection of her wanton position.

"Hands up, Slayer." His voice choked with lust as he led her hands up over the mirror and onto the wall. His arms curved around her body and his fingers traced down over the fullness of her lace covered breasts. Yeah, he'd get to that eventually, but right now she looked so nice just the way she was, all raunchy and bursting at the seams, ready to spill out all over him. He burrowed himself into the nape of her neck and tunneled into her hair with his nose. She felt the tip of his cock teasing her opening and turned again to try to see him.

"You want it, pet?" his low husky voice seized her mind. His eyes were closed as he began a relaxed interrogation. He couldn't resist playing with her. Buffy nodded dumbly.

"Fucking right you want it," he gritted out, barely able to control his own lust. "Do you have any idea how wet you are? How irresistible you smell? What you're doing to me this very second?"

"Uhh--"

"Let me do the same to you, pet. Tell me what you like," she hadn't expected him to say that, let alone his next sentence. "You even know what you like, love?" He rubbed himself slowly over her weeping aperture. She was scorching him already.

"Uhhhh," Buffy's sigh revealed a pained naivet�.

"Let's find out, yeah? See if you like it good...and hard," he ground his fingers into her hips at that statement and then relaxed them. "Do you want to find out?" His voice was so tender and calm. Her hips began to vibrate in response.

"Y-yeah." Her nodding whisper floated on a cloud.

"I bet you'll like a bit of the rough, all messy and hungry. You're probably starving for it, eh?" The softness of his voice was torturous.

"Wha--?"

"Are you a hungry kitty?" His free hand twisted loosely in her hair, grabbing and releasing fistfuls. She could feel his loose sneer as if he had cut it into her skin. "Ready to order, love?"

"H-huh?" Overwhelmed by the prospect before her, this thing she suddenly wanted more than her next breath, Buffy could hardly decipher his running comments.

"Problems with translation, love? You do get the picture here, don't you?" His hand suddenly gripped her hair firmly, holding her cheek immobile against his mouth. Buffy's mind swirled. She had no experience with this type of torture and that's what it was, torture. He released her hair and softly kissed her cheek. "Maybe we need to clarify a few things first. Tell me love, why exactly are you so delightfully poised on this dreadful wooden box?" His eyes gazed in appreciation down over her glistening curves.

"Um...you...you're gonna..." her dry mouth struggled to form the words. Why was he even talking? One day she would enjoy slamming a stake through his chest. But today? Today she wanted him to shut up and push himself inside her body as deep and dark as the deep blue sea.

Today she wanted to disappear inside him.

"Yes, love? There's something I'm supposed to do?" His cock was drenched with her moisture as he swept it continually over her weeping folds. She wanted to slap his face really hard but she didn't want to move for fear he would stop doing what he was doing between her legs.

"You're... gonna..." her voice dwindled to near microscopic levels, "f-fuck me."

"Think you got the wrong word there, love." He pressed his chest tightly to her back, causing her to arch mindlessly into him in response.

What the hell was he doing to her? He had no business being there, inside her head. Telling her those things, making her want-- She could feel herself dripping onto the hardness nestled between her legs. Even she smelled it now, the unmistakable heady musk of her deepest need. It was a truth she could not stop. Jesus.

"We, Slayer. We are gonna fuck. You and me, lamb." He felt her jerk subtly in his embrace. This was going to be so sweet.

"Shall we go then, pet? See where the night takes us?" He goaded her carefully and threaded his fingers delicately through her hair.

"Yes." Her soft affirmation thickened on her tongue. It was a low animal sound from the deepest reaches of her being. It was Spike's kitty waking from her slumber. He could taste the lust percolating in her throat. She wanted it was badly as he did.

"Right. Look at yourself then, Slayer. Watch yourself come." Buffy looked into the mirror and saw almost a child's look of expectation and uncertainty on her face. Spike pressed forward solidly into her slick channel. She was lubricated enough for him to enter, but it was an impossibly tight fit. He failed to achieve the bruising pace his lust demanded but he pushed onward.

Buffy squeezed her eyes shut and gulped a shuddered breath in reply to his urgent presence within her small body. Spike had size and feral urgency in his corner. It hurt. She thought she knew what to expect, but this was nothing like it had been with Angel. Her brow darkened as she accepted the pain. She did not react at all. This was what she deserved, nothing less. After all, the damned deserve their torment.

And she was one of the damned now.

9.

The dresser surface cleared as items rolled off the edges with each successive thrust. The mirror perspective was quite odd. She saw her body inexplicably thrusting forward and her hips being invisibly pinched. Spike glanced at her reflection wanting to see the evidence of what he was feeling, unrivaled pleasure. What he saw was a twisted mask of pain on her beautiful features. He was hurting her.

"Fuck..." Spike clenched his jaw and stopped his hips. It suddenly dawned on him that she was not much more than the chaste virgin of Angel's obsession. The look of discomfort on her face troubled him beyond measure.

"Easy, pet," he whispered directly into her ear, "it's gonna be so good. You'll see, just let me..." He lifted her slightly and angled himself to ease their joining. His voice gentled as well. The smug edge of his interrogation left his tone entirely.

He meant those words and the realization floored him. Spike truly wanted this to be pleasurable for her. He had no interest in hurting or humiliating her sexually. His fingertips whispered a cascade of sensation down her spine.

"Arch your back, Slayer." Buffy did so and something shifted internally. "Is it better yet? There...yeah...can you feel it? Right there." Turning his mouth to her cheek he spoke gently. "You feel it?" Buffy gasped a faint reply and nodded. The pain was gone and replaced by something tingling and fluid and spreading beyond the boundaries of her mind. It was a graceful wordless communication.

Then she felt him inside her moving with her and moving through her. Their bodies merged and eased in symbiotic concert. Instinctively she knew how to move with him. It was an energetic cohesion, robust and raw but not brutal.

Angel was stillness and slow progressions and deep soulful kisses, but her jaw never vibrated like this. She could well condemn herself with her approaching orgasm. It stalked her like a tornado on the horizon. This was Spike inside her mind and body and she didn't feel punished at all. He leaned forward again and met her turned cheek. She looked at him from the corner or her eye. His hands roamed wantonly over her flesh.

"That's it, pet...oh yeah...much better...shoulda been more careful with a kitten like you...you like it now? Like how that feels?" Spike put his palms to the sides of her face and gently turned her to face the mirror. "Look at yourself, love...look at what you want...what you need...what you are...beautiful...beautiful..." It was the oddest thing. Buffy could see Spike peripherally but he was nowhere to be found in the mirror.

His voice filled her mind with a truth she could not evade. "...Feel me, Slayer...fuck, you feel so...ahhh that's right, move with me...I know...I know, baby...it's okay...show me how you like it...yeah...oh yeah...I could get stuck in you..." Spike continued to babble in a stream of consciousness commentary. He was not exactly aware of everything that fell from his mouth

Buffy tried to concentrate on her own hazel irises. She spoke silently to herself. No cries of passion or pleasure escaped her lips. A few plaintive gasps leaked out but she had said quite enough and Spike was doing enough talking for the both of them.

She bit her bottom lip until she feared drawing blood to stop her from saying anything further. She didn't want any words said during this surreal experience to come back and own her. The unimaginable feelings of ecstasy were devastating enough without betraying the truth aloud.

Spike was facing his own unexpected truths. What was it that Drusilla shamed him with? That he was covered by the Slayer? Consumed by her? His eyes traveled down over their heaving and dipping bodies. He was floating in her, covered with her.

No amount of fantasy imaginings could have prepared him for this. This was a sensation greater even than draining the life's blood from a slayer. This wasn't about death or mayhem or darkness anymore. This was truly sinful, and this bliss was theirs. It belonged to Spike and his slayer and it wasn't going to be ending any time soon.

Spike's left hand eased up her sweat slicked back and unhooked her bra. She moved her arms so Spike could pull it free from her body. Buffy's palms returned to the wall. She obeyed his instructions. She wanted to be led; she wanted to go where Spike would lead her. Long fingers slipped around her body and cupped her breasts, finding her painfully erect nipples.

"Give me some lube," he whispered and put a hand to her mouth. She sucked three fingers inside and slathered them with her tongue. Spike worked his fingers in and out of her mouth, entranced by the feel of her suction; then he removed them and traced his wet fingers back to her nipples working each one into a frenzy. She clamped muscularly around his shaft in response. Spike buckled and leaned heavily into her while he struggled for balance.

"Ahhhh...OHHH...sweet FUCK...do that again," he moaned, "strangle my cock." Buffy clamped down on him. "GaaaHHH...that...ohhh...yeahhhh..." he groaned and began to ejaculate. Unable to maintain control any further, Spike morphed in his sexual delirium and bit deeply into her shoulder. It was a non lethal strike, the purest _expression of a swiftly mutating desire.

The contents of Spike's mind dissipated as if spewed by a centrifuge. All thoughts of killing her were summarily abandoned leaving something else entirely in their midst. Something small and feral and dangerous.

Something that had no name.

"Spike!" Buffy cried out in pain and lust and an undulating orgasm that snaked through her body. Her arms fell across her chest and held onto his arms. Buffy's eyes snapped to her side and she saw his demon face sucking and licking at her shoulder. His hips churned into her center as he spurted repeatedly. A slackened mouth left her shoulder and nuzzled deeply into her neck.

"Stay with it...fuck...come on...stay with me..." he begged with his hips and a growling voice of unrestrained need.

Then he was swept by a wave of purpose. Spike pulled her upright against his chest. He lifted her from the dresser and walked to the bed. His left arm supported her torso while his palm encircled her throat in a display of animal possession.

That sensation beat through Buffy's pelvis like a bass drum. She made no attempt to remove his hand. She drank deep the forbidden pleasure of submission to her sworn enemy, this demon inside her, the one to whom she surrendered her body and her blood.

This unexpected submission raced unimpeded through Spike. It was a stunning development. He did not stop to analyze or acknowledge anything beyond purely sensory stimulation. Something primal was occurring. Beyond speech, beyond reason, it was a solidness beneath bedrock, spiraling toward magma. To the core.

Buffy had no words for the sensation coursing through her. She didn't even know her own desire until she felt him take her blood. She wanted to be taken, that was a blood beat scouring her soul. She wanted to be taken by Spike.

Pure instinct took control. These were the dynamics of marking a mate, of taking possession. Any thoughts of fucking the Slayer just for bragging rights fled. This was no longer a game or strategy or a perversion of combat. It was a pure animal calling beyond the boundaries of his conscious mind. He wanted her now. He wanted to crush her and rebuild her; he wanted to brand her and claim her.

He wanted to name her.

"Slayer," his demon snarl rumbled sensuously from deep inside his chest. His fingers found her clit and worked her to another shattering orgasm. An incoherent cry spasmed through her throat as she jerked and shook through a wave of climaxes in his embrace. Scrambling for a handhold, her sweaty palms merely slipped off his skin. He tightened his hold on her in response. A vibrating snarl accompanied her soaring sensations.

She arched and curled around his vocalization as the thickened tones sank into her being. She'd never heard a snarl like that. It was sounded for one purpose, to accentuate and perpetuate her pleasure. Lost in his larynx she floated far from shore.

A dim memory of duty and righteousness floated abandoned in her internal atmosphere. Weeks earlier one of local cheerleaders handed Buffy a brochure on abstinence at the diner with her tip. She actually read the contents.

She could not rationally reconcile her feelings, but she left rational a few stops back. This new feeling slammed into her like a freight train. It was illicit and wicked and she wanted it. It was shiny and pulsating and fun.

Damnation had never felt so right as now, with Spike as her personal tour guide.

10.

As she gradually calmed her eyes drifted over the contours of her room, this unforeseen crucible. The small alarm clock told her it was 1:54 a.m. There was something she needed to do. Tomorrow's shift started at noon. What was it? Her mind could not recall. A thought floated toward her like so much flotsam in her consciousness.

"I need to get some sleep." The words fell absently from her lips.

Spike hushed softly. "Fuck now, sleep later." The tone of voice told her he'd reverted to his human mask. He leaned sideways and flipped off the ugly textured bedspread. "Pull down the sheets," he ordered quietly. Slender arms reached forward and pulled on the sheets. Her weight shifted and she slipped off of him with a loud suctioned slurp and rolled.

He stood before her with his black jeans at his knees and his boots still on. His hard cock stood in mid air craning for her. Buffy stared at him slightly agog. It took her a few seconds to focus. 'What was that sound?' battled 'Holy shit!' in Buffy's consciousness as she stared wantonly at the vision in front of her. She'd never seen an erect penis before or even a soft one for that matter. Angel's room had been dimly lit and she only felt him inside her under the covers in his bed.

Spike grinned with satisfaction and amazement. This was the seemingly all-powerful Slayer, the bane of his kind and he held her mesmerized by the curve of his straining slayer-slathered cock.

"Want to touch it?" he grinned coyly as his hand stroked up and down its length. His voice was barely a whisper now as it softened with each acquiescence on her part. Buffy worried her lower lip.

"Come here," he said simply. Buffy moved to the edge of the bed and tucked her hands behind her. Spike smiled at her, smitten by her girlishness. Even with the physical evidence of what they had just done coursing through her and leaking onto the sheets under her, Spike could see this was not an act.

"No need to be shy love, not after we've gotten so friendly." Buffy's breath caught in her throat. Was this what they were? Friendly? She didn't really know.

"You can touch me, I'm right here." He stepped closer to her as though she didn't already have a front row seat for his erotic display.

"It's gooey." She wrinkled her nose. He caught a laugh in his throat and decided right then that he loved her nose.

"That's all you Slayer, your creamy pussy, see?" Spike showed her his slick palm and then licked the residue from it. "Give me your hand." Buffy obeyed. "Like this love, I like it like this." He curved her palm around his girth and eased it up to the tip. The foreskin bunched.

"You have a turtleneck," she said naively and then reddened deeply as he giggled.

"Foreskin, love," he smiled without derision. "Born that way, like all boys." He released her hand to watch her actions. She brought up her other hand and encircled him, sliding her fingers back down his shaft. The foreskin retracted to reveal his reddened glans and oozing aperture. This motion fascinated her and she repeated it. Again her hands slipped down his firm length and back up to the fleshy tip.

"That's right, pet, feels real nice." He pulsed his hips forward slightly, encouraging her.

The heat of her body still clung to him; she was not expecting that. His skin was supple, moist and soft while his shaft was hardened with a muscular appearance, but she knew it was all blood. Borrowed blood poured into this rather unusual vessel. This is what had been inside her so insistent and demanding. This was the evidence of simple desire. It wasn't a veil or a sham but honesty. A simple human thing.

Brushing a fingertip over the aperture, Buffy came away with a smooth slick substance. She worked her fingertips together in thought and then a realization dawned on her. She was not aware of the smile that settled on her lips. The look of discovery on her face undid him. His balls tightened and he came again, surprising them both. An arc of jism splattered against Buffy's shocked face and chest. All girlish introspection and exploration dissolved into rage.

"Fucking jerk--" she roared and lashed out spitting and punching. Spike dove on top of her and gripped her flailing form. He soon secured her wrists over her head with one hand. He couldn't stop his chuckle at the image of his come dribbling down the Slayer's face. This was a frequent sexual fantasy of his realized.

"You BASTARD!" she grit her teeth with revulsion.

"Stop!" Spike's tone returned to commanding.

"Asshole!"

"Slayer--"

"You did that on purpose." He couldn't deny that his aim could have been altered. "You went on my face!" she spat again.

"I noticed," he said with a giggle. "SLAYER!" his voice rose alarmingly through gritted teeth, "calm the fuck down." He leaned into her and licked his own come from her eyebrow, the edge of her eye and down her cheek. That little maneuver stunned her.

"Yuck. You are an animal," she twisted her mouth and struggled in his strengthening grip.

"It's just come, pet. I've got lots more." His tone returned to seduction as he licked further down her face. His lips brushed against hers.

"I'm NOT kissing you with that yuck on your tongue." Her angry pout was so outrageous he'd have come again if he had any reserve left at all just then. She had no clue what she did to him.

"Aren't you curious? At all?" As much as he wanted to see his come on her tongue he didn't want to press, they would have time. She wasn't going to be able to get rid of him so easily.

"No, curiosity ends here." Buffy began to wiggle again in his grasp trying to break away. She felt his still hardened cock against her thigh. How can he still be hard? He put his fingers to her closed legs.

"Open Slayer."

"Sorry, closed for the night," she snapped. Spike gently tickled the tip of her clit. "Stop that!" she tried for fury but failed.

"Open up love," he whispered softly, "we're still fucking."

His tongue swept across her chest and teased a nipple before suckling on it. She arched into his mouth and gasped. "No...unnhh fair... that's...oohhh god..."

Spike pulled on her nipple gently with blunt teeth until it slipped from his mouth and then attacked it once more sucking strongly before releasing her red swollen flesh. "Not finished yet, are we love?" He looked up sweetly into her addled face and released her wrists.

A wandering thought appeared in her mind: this will never be finished. Then a shudder of certainty filtered through her body. They would never be done. She wanted him again and her returning desire was only a disturbing amplification of her initial feelings.

He was a thing that had killed, that would kill again and again, and all she could think of was his tongue, hands and cock and how he made her come. She merely shook her head in agreement and shuddered as his tongue traveled up her chest and onto her neck.

He snarled a whisper into her neck. His mouth covered her jugular and sucked sensuously at her skin. His neglected erection throbbed painfully against her thigh. Buffy's fingers moved automatically to his head. No thought of death entered her mind. Her only thought was to prolong the exquisite waves of pleasure emanating from her neck and engulfing her totally. She needed his mouth at her neck and his cock planted deeply within her.

A muscled tremor signaled movement in her legs. Spike moved off the bed and kicked off his boots and socks. His jeans slipped down to the floor and off his feet. The discarded belt appeared in his hands. Buffy's legs stilled and her mind stopped churning erotic scenarios.

"What's that for?" her voice was a dry wisp. Spike sensed fear for the first time that evening. He needed to calm her. As incongruous as that thought was, it was true. He did not want her fear.

"For games, pet. You know any fuck games?" He asked evenly, already knowing the answer. An audible gulp sounded from Buffy's throat.

"Um..." She hoped that didn't sound lame.

Spike snickered internally. He couldn't believe how Angel had cheated this wide-eyed girl. Angelus was always an enthusiast for penetration and not much else. He was always lacking in the imagination department. Evidently Angel was no different. It didn't matter. Angel's selfishness put them both out of the picture and this fuck soaked slayer on a bed with Spike.

Destiny, apparently, was not a bitch after all.

11. "Give me your wrists," his voice curled toward her. Buffy hesitated but her breath thickened. This new prospect was turning her on. Spike struggled to control his smirk. He wanted her aroused, not defensive or annoyed. There was a complex set of variables to balance, but the outcome was well worth it.

This one was worth his effort.

"This isn't about hurting, is it?" Buffy spoke in a voice of inexperience. A dim recollection of Xander's adolescent bondage references passed through her mind.

"You know about this? Why does that not surprise me, kitten?" His slow smile widened. "I knew you'd be an adventurous girl." He playfully wrinkled his nose at her, signaling nothing untoward in his meaning.

Buffy shook her head and gulped a swallow. "Heard of it...from demon research." She winced faintly, knowing that was a lame cover.

"I see," he nodded seriously and then winked. "Don't worry, pet, your secret's safe with me." Buffy stared at the belt undulating between his hands as her cheeks flushed with color.

"Um," she said quickly and with conviction. He smiled at her hesitation.

"It's just this, love." Spike offered something tame. He looped the belt through the buckle and slipped it over his own wrists. "Nothing big, just a little restraint. If you don't like it, just take it off." He demonstrated a quick release. "It's not about forcing," he spoke with tender promise, "it's about releasing, giving in. You'll come so hard, love, you'll--"

Buffy interrupted him with a small voice. "I'll try it." She surprised herself but her curiosity got the better of her. It was a risk she chose to take. Looking directly into his eyes she held out her trusting wrists with no hesitation.

"Yeah...in for a penny and all that." Spike's shaky voice merely accentuated the _expression of wonder that crept onto his face. He couldn't hold back his amazement or the extreme rigidity of his aroused flesh. This is how far they had come from a hate fueled fuck. His sworn enemy held out her wrists for him to bind. That was something beyond hate.

The raw eroticism of the situation seized him. All that remained within him was naked need: to see her face when she came, to hear her breathe his name in ecstasy and to see that shard of iris glint gold in her green brown eyes from an inch away.

He bound her carefully, showing her how to escape the tether as he proceeded. It was a thoughtful discussion but unnecessary. Nothing would hold back the Slayer if she wanted free of the restraint. He simply wanted her to know the only motivations he had were purely pleasurable ones.

Then he pushed her back onto the bed. His preparations were gentle and sensuous. With a deliberate slowness he placed her wrists over her head and spread her legs apart, readjusting the positioning of her knees with kisses and gentle caresses. "That's right beauty, make me welcome." Buffy felt light-headed with anticipation. She followed his progress with interest and a renewed arousal.

Buffy understood 'horny' and other snicker worthy generic sexual terms. They always struck her as goofy and silly. The halls of Sunnydale High hummed with near constant sexual innuendo supplied most days by Xander Harris, proponent of the 'wink, wink, nudge, nudge' school of thought.

This night expanded Buffy's vocabulary one hundred fold. Words entered her mind and her body accompanied by Spike's caresses and the urgent sounds of his pleasure.

She knew now that sex was not something ominous nor puerile you did and whispered about later with your friends. It was something you were, a presence inside you as defining as your heartbeat and breath. It was something to remember, something she'd always be grateful for.

Spike looked at her with a combination of drunken depravity and genuine tenderness. She needed to memorize that look on his face. Bloodlust, hatred, frustration, smug defiance: all of these were familiar expressions. She'd never thought him capable of the look he was giving her now. He showed her the simple desire of a man for a woman. She felt it numbing her jaw and thickening the back of her dry throat.

Nuzzling deeply into her neck, he slid solidly back into her. He started a slow meditative rhythm but soon his hips crashed possessively into hers over and over again. When he finally raised his head to look into her face again he was shocked to see her eyes clear and focused and boring into his. Those were the Slayer's eyes, not those of some wandering child.

Her tethered wrists fueled something inside her. It was a darkness Spike knew intimately; a well of renegade ferocity, passion and defiance. Buffy felt this truth of her sexual identity for the first time. Instead of guilt she felt emboldened and awakened as if from a long slumber.

Struck by her ravenous responses, Spike felt a sudden urge to introduce himself drift across his mind. What couldn't they have if this was their starting point? Instead, Buffy bit his lips into a kiss and took him over the snarling precipice of coherence.

The realization that he was being swept away within her had not dawned on him fully even though he felt his own surrender begin to unfurl. He simply let it happen. It was a delicious fullness he'd only dreamed about and he'd been a slave to far less delicious sensations in his long and perverse existence.

All previous dreams of this sort of perfection had been for Drusilla, when she finally turned away from Angelus and toward him totally. Those were now mere details that no longer mattered. Besides, Drusilla had been rather specific in their last parting. He'd truly been a fool to wait for her for so long. This sensation was immediate: rich, ripe and warm, and opened willingly beneath him.

Opened willingly beneath him. Such a gift. Such a chance. The poet in him sang a mouthless aria. Words, there would be time enough for words. William would see to that. The echoes of this night would last.

The lady was willing.

Spike's mind convulsed with pleasure. The warmth of the Slayer's honeyed skin, the shyness of her inexperience and the growl of her animal need were snares he had not anticipated. Spike was a conquered man, done in by her girlish curiosity.

She had infected him, infused herself through him. He was not alone under his skin. She was there as well with her fruity lip gloss, her manipulative pout and her crushing right cross.

His previous thoughts of training her to meet her death at his hands transformed in the elasticity of his mind. A different type of training tickled the edges of his mind. This new fantasy was as potent as the other one, perhaps even more so.

It certainly deserved as much time and attention as he'd given any of his other fantasies. Yes, only his careful and undivided attention would suffice now.

12. Buffy opened her eyes and looked at the clock. It was just after nine. Gradually she became aware of the cool hard chest flush against her back and the cool hard cock gliding effortlessly and slowly in and out of her body. Slowly she started to respond to that now familiar sensation. Oh god. Spike.

Gentle deep tones of hushed desire filtered from Spike's throat through her body. "There's the sleepy girl...so soft and warm...been waiting for you to wake up...thought I'd give you a nudge, yeah?...Lovely...sleepy girl...bet you taste good in the morning..." The tip of his index finger traced a strand of hair away from her eye. His touch was so comforting, soft and firm.

Buffy closed her eyes with a sigh and Angel was there. Soft confused brown eyes...mouth open and disbelieving...the sword thrust...that horrible sucking vortex and the end of her world as Angel disappeared into the void.

Buffy erupted from the bed, kicking wildly at Spike and the bedcovers.

"STOP! Not like that, stop!" She sprang from the bed shaking, a volcanic pain coursing through her mind. When at last she focused on the figure in bed a horrified _expression gripped her face. Spike lay naked and shameless before her, his torso littered with scratches and bite marks. He stared at her with eyes thickened by returning lust.

Buffy's mind quaked. A shameful recollection emerged: the belt on Spike's wrists, his goading lust filled encouragement, the bitter taste of his blood, and how he howled as he came. The unsullied truth of his need galvanized and hardened her as he spoke his desire.

He said yes. He said again. He said more.

She had done this damage, tasted his flesh and flayed his skin with her fingernails and teeth and a hunger that rumbled deep within her bones. That was all her, from some darkness she tried so hard to repress. That was the kiss of the devourer.

A sassy tired voice spoke up. "Who would have guessed? Fucking all night makes the Slayer a cranky girl." She forced her mind to calm. The sensations of the previous night's ecstasies mingled with her horrible memories of that awful day. Buffy's mind shook. An unwanted tingling sparked in her pelvis. She felt nauseated and trapped: an animal in a snare. Escape was the only option.

"Get out."

"Sun's up," he repositioned himself on the bed ready for more.

"OUT!" she pointed desperately at the door.

"NO," he growled at her.

Buffy fled into the bathroom and slammed the door. She wretched in long painful dry heaves. Her stomach emptied hours ago, so only the whispers of bile touched the back of her throat. She sat on the toilet with her head between her legs trying to find firm ground.

The truth rose within her with each violent and elongated heave. She deserved punishment. She hadn't expected Spike to make her feel as he had. Spike did not fulfill his role of villain as she had cast him.

Darkness and misery was what she wanted but Spike was not accommodating. He did not fill her with darkness. She felt alive again and she did not want to feel that. He peeled back her self-imposed barrier and let in the light, the air, and with it the memory of Angel impaled by her hand and sinking into that horrific tempest.

After the toilet tank stopped filling she started the shower. She buried her head in that fierce stream, rinsing her mouth compulsively and trying to wash the taste of that horrible image away.

Her only pitiful consolation was that Angel would never know what she had done and what she had become. She was just an empty shell who let Spike fuck her. As her mind drifted to just exactly what Spike had done with her during the night, 'fuck' didn't seem descriptive enough to cover it.

An urgent need to wash the night away swept through her. She felt stained from the attentions of a thorough lover. As the shower curtain shifted and Spike stepped inside the bathtub, Buffy snapped from her stupor.

"What is it, love?" he asked softly, back to the persona of a lover. Buffy glared at him. She would use every last molecule of slayer strength bestowed upon her not to tell him anything. He was not worthy to know her truth, to know that she'd sent Angel to hell and not Angelus. Spike was nothing to her and he would never be anything to her. This thing they did was a glitch that needed to go away fast.

"Go away," she gruffed.

Ignoring her, Spike filled his palm with shampoo and lathered her hair. Despite her best efforts, Buffy uncoiled beneath his skilled fingers. Soon she simply leaned into this chest with eyes closed as long ropes of shampoo lather coiled down their bodies. He shampooed his own hair and then rinsed them both thoroughly.

She felt the sensation of tasting his voice when he spoke. "You don't want me to be gentle?" he murmured, lifting her wide against the slick wall tiles before she had sense enough to protest. "Is that it? Want to pretend I can't do this?" He slid into her still swollen passage softly.

"You have no idea what I'm capable of Slayer. I know what gentleness is..."

Spike could not believe the words he was hearing spill from his lips. He didn't stop to think, as usual he went with his gut impulse. He guided her legs around his waist and held her securely with his hands tucked under her bottom.

Something deep inside him knew that the last few hours were the most dangerous risk of his long, visceral life. He ignored that truthful voice with sullen defiance. The Slayer was so rich and decadent he could not stop. Suddenly he wanted things he'd never thought of before.

He wanted her sighs and coos, to see her eyes full of him. He wanted to be gentle for her and to have her blood on his tongue forever. Deep within his leathered shell his most secret yearnings came forward.

He wanted to be a part of something, to belong in the world. He wanted to matter, to be allowed and connected. He wanted his invitation in a decadently thick gold embossed envelope. He wanted a freedom beyond the tasting and for his thirst, at last, to be quenched.

These desires flooded his mind and clogged his thinking. It had been a long time since his desires expanded beyond blood or sex, the narrow confines of the flesh. These unrestrained thoughts were doubly intoxicating for their perverseness.

Now he started thinking in ways he'd denied himself for decades. A word...a thought...a possibility beyond what he had known, what he'd been content to be: Drusilla's own.

Something from long ago tickled his mind, something from the old days, his human days. It was ridiculous but it wouldn't let him alone. What was that story again? Something about conversion, change. Becoming oneself. Saul on the road to Damascus.

Becoming.

Spike thought such things were long past. Drusilla was his salvation. She delivered him from mediocrity. She was his conversion, his road to Damascus, traveled all those years ago in another century. Was such a thing even possible again?

It was worth thinking about, but later. He had a slayer in his arms and his own rising needs to tend to.

13.

"It'll be good, Slayer, you'll see," his soft promise hushed through her body as he initiated gentle measured strokes. Buffy began to tremor dangerously. Her torso and head shook. Spike stilled his actions when he realized she was crying. He tried to withdraw from her body but she clung to him like a parasite. Her legs wrapped convulsively around his waist and her fingernails dug into his neck and back.

Such a response would normally have driven him wild with lust but he did not respond in that way. His body chose an action before his brain could evaluate options. Bracing his feet he pressed into her and held on.

Wave after wave of catastrophic grief poured out of her. She wailed in horror and loathing, in need and rage, in sorrow and anguish.

Mucus poured from her eyes, nose and mouth. Spike thought briefly that she might actually explode. Buffy had taken his hatred, his arrogance, his bragging and his testosterone fueled 'Fuck King' man crap for hours.

She had felt the raw surface sensations flow over and through her with impunity. But softness, genuine tenderness and a lilting voice in bed, even against the shower wall was too much. It dug deeply into her, past her well barricaded exterior. Spike pried open the door that Anne had slammed shut.

Buffy's denial ripped through her and spiraled down the drain. She had destroyed her world, not Acathla. She didn't even deserve a pitiful plastic dress and the loose coins left on her tables.

Spike held on and grounded her through her hurricane. Tears had always been a problem. Drusilla's tears flattened him almost to nothing while the tears of his victims always hardened him to stone. It was a difficult juxtaposition. The tears of this girl in his arms cut into him. He had not anticipated such a reaction but he steeled himself. In this sanitized bathroom Spike simply pressed Buffy to the wall so she wouldn't spiral down the drain as well.

Everything ebbed away as her tears gradually lessened. Her face swelled as if she had been beaten, and still Spike held her. Eventually he moved her under the water again and tenderly washed the ruminants of sorrow from her tanned skin. She shuddered and hiccuped and looked into eyes that, amazingly, reflected compassion and concern. Then her mouth was on his saying with actions what she never would in words.

He had succeeded in opening her. The build up of emotional placque that had clogged her mind had been released and rinsed clean. She could face the day again, face the past, the present and the future. She could finally begin to face her decision, with what she had done and be the Slayer again. All because of Spike. She owed him for the chance of a fresh start.

Buffy swept her tongue softly across his. The games were finished. The taste of fog was long gone. There was clarity and stillness now that the storm broke. She tasted of silks and velvets. Her Devon custard tongue ignited their shared need once more.

Something changed, something small yet vital had shifted. He no longer knew where he was or what he was doing. Where was this place? This pause in the cosmos? He wanted nothing more than to be inside her, to be beside her, to be filled by her. To be hers.

Spike established a slow rhythm as he thrust deeply and lyrically within her. His hips murmured a softness she absorbed with a sumptuous response. Their skins blended to new flesh. Their eyes locked, never wavered and barely blinked. This was her gift of thanks and he felt it singing through him, overtaking him.

Completely unaware of what he had done for her he felt her body lulling his, wanting him wholly. It was an intimacy that shook him and grounded him. For the first time in a century he saw himself reflected in a face that was not Drusilla's. Spike had always been her perfect beast. In the eyes of the Slayer however, he saw something else entirely. Something he could not ignore.

He saw the shadow of a man reflected in the features of his enemy, an enemy no longer. It took an adversary to reveal once again the man inside the demon to the demon inside the man. Buffy gave him a vision of what might be...what could be.

Spike on the road to Damascus.

He had a choice of a new direction as well, if he chose to acknowledge it. This realization shocked him. Found anew it never occurred to Spike that he had ever been lost. He didn't quite understand it but it was a tantalizing possibility he did not want to discard. Just to hold it in his mind was an exquisite luxury.

Buffy was as oblivious of her gift to Spike as he was of his gift to her. He came hard and helplessly into her welcoming body and eyes.

Buffy never spoke a word.

*

The whir of the blow dryer filled the small bathroom as Buffy caught sight of something unusual. Her uniform hung on the back of the bathroom door. She stared at it dumbfounded. It was yesterday's uniform but the motor oil stain was nowhere to be found. When exactly did that happen? Spike must have scrubbed it clean sometime during the night while she slept.

She couldn't quite get her mind around that bizarre notion but there it was, damp and drying on a hanger and no longer stained. Try as she might the dots defied connecting. Do you scrub a stubborn stain from the clothing of your sworn enemy? Somebody should have told her.

Perhaps that was included in one of Giles' thrilling yet sleep inducing lectures when she zoned out in favor of more pleasurable thoughts, such as the latest sale at the galleria. Maybe that tidbit was something to be found in the elusive slayer handbook, perhaps under the heading: vampires, domesticity and; or vampires, unusual battle tactics. She really needed to get her hands on that little treatise if this was the kind of information she was missing out on.

Without reference to the handbook, Buffy needed to check the Webster's definition closely. 'Enemy' didn't quite describe what she and Spike were to each other now. She wondered briefly if they had a word for that? Nemeses interrupted? No, that's two words.

She dressed quickly and checked the clock. 11:30 a.m. That was just enough time to get to work and have a juice and a muffin before her shift. Buffy exited the bathroom and saw the sated body of Spike sprawled across the bed, naked and relaxed in a manner illegal in half of the states in the union.

"If you're still here when I get back, I'll stake you." Despite her body's unconscious reaction to his continuous state of undress, Buffy lied and flashed him her best slayer glare. She struggled to keep her eyes away from his. She wanted nothing more than to dive back into that bed, into his mouth and body.

"Yeah, I had a nice time too, pet." He grinned lazily from the bed and stretched wantonly before her. "Hey Slayer, you ever think about Hawaii? What about Paris? You may need a vacation." His tone was one of seriousness.

He'd been doing some thinking in that regard. It could be a business trip. He knew there were plenty of vampires in Paris that needed killing, certainly a number he could name personally. They could have fun there: the Eiffel Tower, the shopping, the little caf�s, the night life. Spike could already see them set up in a small anonymous turret bed-sit shagging themselves stupid for a year or two, with emphasis on the shagging part. He'd been mulling over a number of possible scenarios while she dried her hair.

Entranced for a moment by the thought of Spike on a moonlit Hawaiian beach, Buffy pulled on her jacket and opened the door carefully. "The Slayer doesn't get a vacation." The dead weight of her words hung in the air. He detected a note of regret in her countenance.

Ever the optimist, Spike soldiered on with another viable scenario. "So maybe I'll need to vacation in, say, Sunnydale?" Spike caught the subtle smile that escaped her lips. Oh yeah, Sunnydale was definitely the preferred vacation destination, and a certain hot-blooded slayer's body the resort of choice.

Buffy grabbed the 'do not disturb' sign and slipped it over the doorknob. It was a small gesture but Spike noticed and nodded his thanks and a silent farewell. She let her eyes caress him one last time as the door closed.

Spike slept soundly all day. Drusilla never once entered his dreams. Over the years he'd often thought he was incapable of thinking of anything but her, even asleep. This was a momentous day, indeed. This day his dreams filled with the tiny merciless fists of the Slayer, her heady gasps of passion released and the sweetly scented elixir of her flesh.

When he woke, feeling refreshed for the first time in years, Spike straightened her demolished room. He left long before she returned in the evening. She was a little disappointed when she returned and found him gone.

Buffy gave her notice at work the next day. She said that a family emergency called her back home. Millie was saddened to lose the best employee she'd had in a decade.

The last day of work was her best one. Buffy smiled honestly at all her customers and chatted up the regulars with wit and patience. Jokes she'd heard a dozen times suddenly made her giggle. The 'good-bye Anne' tip jar overflowed with generosity.

Her eyes darted frequently outside to marvel at the sunlight glinting off the leaves on the tree lined street. She could hardly believe it, there were leaves on the trees, shimmering like jeweled ribbons in the breeze. It was a wonder to behold.

She'd never even noticed them before.

The End

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