Remedial Reading
The Burn Away Series 3



Written by: PerleTwo
Author's Website

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Summary: Valentine's Day and beyond with Love's Bitch. S2, set during Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered, before Xander's spell goes wonky. Sequel to Therapeutic Properties
Disclaimer: The show Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all of it's characters belong to Joss, Mutant Enemy, & Fox Prod.
Feedback: perletwo@yahoo.com

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The summons to the school office took Buffy by surprise. A phone call? From her father?

"Did he say what it was about?" she asked the student teacher who'd come up to her in the halls with the note.

"No, just, it was Mr. Summers and he needed to speak to his daughter, get her out of class," the young woman said. "The name matched up with the one in your files and he didn't sound like the kinda guy you wanna argue with, so..." Buffy followed her to the office and took the phone she offered.

"Hello? Dad?" She tried to still the pounding in her chest.

"What did I do wrong?" came a hard British voice over the other end of the line. Buffy glanced around the crowded office.

"Da-ad, please, you scared me silly! I thought somebody must've died or -" she said in an artificially bright voice.

"Can the good-little-schoolgirl act and answer my question, Slayer. The other night. The underground pool. What. Did I. Do. Wrong."

"Of *course* I know what you're talking about, Dad." She glanced around again. "I can't believe Mom told you, that's all." She cleared her throat. "*Yes,* I was dating an older guy. And *yes,* it did end pretty badly. But I - I'm dealing with it, I'm not getting in any more trouble -"

"This is about Angel then?"

"Well, yeah, y'know how it goes, I'll be hummin' along just fine and then somebody'll...*say* something...that'll bring it all back and it hurts like hell, Dad. But I'm doing okay now. Really." The warning bell rang and two teachers scurried out of the office, clutching message slips and coffeecups.

"So it *wasn't* anything I did that frightened you away then. Didn't *think* so. That's a relief. What did I say to set you off?"

The school secretary gave Buffy a dirty look and went into the next room to the mimeograph machine. "Okay, I'm alone, but only for a minute so shut up. You said you had a lot to teach me. Angel said...after we...that I had a lot to learn about pleasing a man. It just brought it all back. That's all."

A long silence on the other end. "How do you ever expect to learn those things if you run away from me, pet?" the voice said softly.

The secretary came back in. "Dad, look, I know Mom's upset. And yeah, the guy has been giving me some trouble and he scares her. But he only wants to hurt *me,* and - only 'cause I let him know how to do that. You see?"

"I see, pet. You're afraid if you let your guard down around me I'll 'urt you like 'e did."

"Yeah..." The secretary settled down at her computer and began clicking away, pretending not to listen, and Buffy turned her back on her.

"Listen to me, pet. I have spent a lifetime as the most devoted servant of the last woman Angelus tortured that way. I've seen exactly what he's trying to do to you in Drusilla. But I *know* you are stronger than Dru ever was, pet. He can't reach you where you live unless you let him. And I'm here to tell you, Slayer, it's *killing* him."

"I know, Sp-...Dad. I won't let that happen."

"I know you won't. But if you never believe anything else I tell you, believe this, pet. I have never hurt a woman in bed for the pleasure of seeing her suffer. It's not my style. It's not what I take women into my bed for. You know me well enough to know I'd own it without shame if I wasn't really above it."

Buffy blushed, and for a long moment the only sound on the line was her breathing.

"Angelus is a plotter. A schemer. And a sadist. If he can't have blood an' guts, he'll settle for petty cruelty an' wormin' his way around under the surface to satisfy his appetite for pain. If he can 'ave both, well, so much the better. Me, I was always one just to wade in openly an' bust heads if I wanted to 'urt somebody. Got us run out of many a city in Europe. You *know* that's true; you've seen me do it."

"Yeah..." She jumped at the shrill ring of the class bell.

"Point is. I'm. Not. Him, pet. If I wanna 'urt you I'll just 'it you. You'll see it comin' a mile away. You don't 'ave to analyze everythin' I say lookin' for the needles. If it's there you'll know it right away. If you don't, then there just isn't one."

"I -" Buffy looked around. The secretary was glaring openly at her now, trying to run her along to class. "I'll think about what you said, Dad, but I've got to get to class, can we talk about this *later*?"

"Count on it. And - Slayer?"

"Yeah?" She shifted her bookbag impatiently from one shoulder to the other.

"Happy Valentine's Day, pet. And - watch your back."

"...Same to you...Dad." She hung up and sprinted to class.

* * *

Willow skipped a bit in the school halls the next morning, trying to keep up with her best friend's angry, long-legged stride. "No, that was it, Will. Just flowers and a card that said 'Soon.' Just the thing to keep me jumpy..."

"Are you sure there's no possibility they were from somebody else? Seems kinda subtle for the old-and-unimproved Angel, don'cha think?"

"Well...naah. If they were - if there was an innocent explanation then it would've shown up by now, wouldn't you think? I mean, if they were from, say, my dad for example, he'd've called and -" Buffy opened her locker and fell still. Willow craned her neck to see around her friend.

Atop her schoolbooks sat a shirt-sized gift box, wrapped in blood-red matte paper with a foil stripe pattern. "Angel?" Willow asked nervously.

"One way to find out." Buffy reached for the package's lid and Willow crept an unobtrusive step back. Buffy lifted the lid, peeked inside and slammed it back down quickly. "Nope. It's okay."

"Not Angel?"

"Nope nope. Just a perfectly harmless, innocent belated-Valentine's Day gift. Nothin' worth seein'..."

Willow's eyes widened. "Well then who is it from? Xander? Can I see? Oooh, Buffy - d'you have a secret admirer?"

Buffy felt her cheeks flame as red as her friend's hair. "It's not from Xander, I think I know who it is from, and it's - really not worth seeing, Will. I'll tell you all about it later. Why'n't you go on to class? I'll be right behind you." Willow looked at her strangely, but nodded and hurried off.

Once she was out of sight, Buffy opened the lid again and took another look at her gift. Copies of the Kama Sutra, Fanny Hill - Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure, and The Story of O, all with several paper flags marking pages. Atop those was a cell phone and a note:

::This is an introductory reading list, pet. We'll work our way through some of the more specialized literature later.::

Face flushing again, she stuffed the box into her bookbag and raced to class.

* * *

Buffy was in Mrs. Fenneman's math class when the cell phone rang. She jumped a foot in the air, startling a glare from the teacher at the chalkboard and titters from her classmates. Scrambling through the jumble of stuff in her bookbag, she finally got the box open and yanked the cell phone out. "Hello?"

"I see you got my present, pet. Good."

"Aah, this isn't really a very good time, I'm in math class..." She blushed furiously.

"Dull for you. This'll be much more interesting. You found the books?"

"Uh-huh." Mrs. Fenneman was bearing down the aisle to the back of the classroom, headed her way. "Miss SUM-mers!" she barked, and Buffy snapped to attention.

"Anytime today, pet..."

"YES! - and, yes ma'am!" she snapped into the phone, then blinked at the teacher.

"Excellent. That's your homework for tonight. I promise you'll like it a lot more than doin' sums."

"...uhhhh....can't really talk now..." She looked up as Mrs. Fenneman reached her desk. "If I could have a moment of your at-TEN-tion, Miss Summers. The square root of 1,764."

"I'll be callin' you back at sundown, pet, I suggest you be someplace private. Forty-two."

"What? - Forty-two, ma'am! - I thought that was the meaning of life?" she added into the sudden vacuum of the phone. Spike had disconnected. She just prayed he hadn't been screwing with her head when he gave her the answer.

"IF you're quite through, perhaps you could prove that answer out...on the blackboard." The math teacher couldn't quite keep the evil smirk off her face. Snyder was going to *love* hearing about this little incident...

Icy shivers went down Buffy's spine, but she got up and headed to the front of the room anyway, feeling every eye in the room on her. Taking the chalk in her hand, she stared at the equation, mind blank. Then for some reason she heard Spike's voice saying "Forty-two" firmly in her head again, and the fog started to lift.

{{I know how to do this,}} she thought, and began working her way through the math problem on autopilot. {{I know how to do this!}}

"Correct," the teacher ground out through clenched teeth. "Now if you're quite through arranging your social life -"

"I turned the phone off! I'm so sorry, it's new and I didn't realize it was on," she said gaily, sitting back down. Strangely, she felt much lighter at that moment than she had in many days.

* * *

Buffy managed to be sitting at the dressing table in her bedroom at sundown. Locking the door was a reasonable action for any hormonally irrational teen-age girl, she told herself sternly, and pretended the cell phone wasn't staring at her from the center of the bed.

She had just stopped herself from glancing at it for the fifteenth time when it rang.

"Trust you're someplace nice an' snug an' by yourself this time, pet?" Spike's voice was warm and teasing, and Buffy felt a blush starting at the sound of it.

"I'm in my bedroom," she said, and cursed herself roundly as soon as the words were out.

"Ah. Doin' your homework?"

She sat down on the bed. "I've...looked through your books. A little."

"Mmmm. They're not the best books out there, but they're a good startin' place. Been the startin' places for many a young person for a long time. Kama Sutra's got some fairly silly racial stuff peculiar to the Asia of its time you gotta wade through, but people in my day that could get it, wanted it 'cause the good stuff was all *practical.* Your countrymen Masters 'n Johnson were a looong way off in the future."

She leafed through the book, flipping quickly past the illustrations. "Of the three, Kama Sutra's the one I found easiest to read."

"Yeah, you're a little modern for Fanny Hill. She seems stuffy now, but she was a favorite shady lady in my time, though, an' Darla used to tell me it was pretty accurate to the England of its time period." He hesitated slightly, pressed on. "I don't think you're the sort to relate very well to O, pet. But if nothin' else you should know that part'a the world exists, even if you'd rather wipe it out than join in."

"O scares me. I only read a few pages, but she's so...passive. It's like she's decided to stop growing. Stop trying."

"Yeah, she has. I got little use for Rene, myself. He's taken a perfectly simple pleasure an' built this whole elaborate little Eiffel Tower on top of it, y'know? Seems an awful lotta trouble to go to just to satisfy a simple appetite."

Anger pricked at the back of Buffy's neck. "Is that what sex is to you? An appetite? Like blood?"

"It's one of the things it is. In its most basic form. It's other things, too...that have to do with intimacy, an' trust...but it's an expression of those things, pet. Not a magic trick to make them appear outta nowhere."

"And...what we did? In the caverns? What was that to you?" A long silence drew out, and Buffy found herself holding her breath.

"A pleasure. An honor." She heard him let out a breath. "A pledge," he added, almost too softly for her to hear. "That do you, pet?"

"....yeah."

"You have plans for tonight?" His voice softened, sent shivers down her spine.

"Patrol. With my watcher. I'm meeting him in -" she glanced at her watch. "- about an hour."

"An' that takes how long?" Buffy was silent for a long minute, calculating, and he added, " 'Cause I want to see you tonight, pet."

"Two hours. Usually." {{God, what kind of mistake am I making now?}} "But, but I don't, I'm not sure..."

"Let me simplify it for you. I've taken a room at the California Arms Hotel out on Route 23. Room number's 318. I plan t'be in it at 10 or a little after. The door'll be open. If you're not there by 1 a.m., I'll figure you don't wanna play anymore an' go home. All right?"

Spike. A bed. Private room. Fairly unlimited time alone. Her pulse picked up speed. "And if I do?"

"Then we'll play, pet..." he purred into her ear, then disconnected.

* * *

At ten minutes to one, Buffy burst into room 318, puffing from the sprint over. She found Spike gathering his leather coat from a cane-back chair pulled up to the room's tiny, scuffed table, decorated with an ashtray full of fresh cigarette butts. He looked surprised and wary at her sudden appearance.

"Sorry. Sorry!" she said between pants. "Gi - my watcher - insisted on hitting the books after patrol, looking over Angel's Greatest Valentine's Day Gestures. I had a hard time getting away."

"Glad I didn't get you that puppy then." Buffy pulled a face at him and sank into the other canebacked chair, and he sat down on the edge of the bed nearest the table. "A hard, messy job, that, I gather. But of course, you've got nail guns now. That'd simplify things immensely."

He looked her over. Her skin was glowing with perspiration and her breathing, though considerably slowed, was still deeper than it ought to be. Her eyes were bright, lips slightly parted, and he felt an ache throb through his entire body. The hard mask slipped, and he said, "I thought you weren't coming."

"I'm here now," she said, too brightly. Looked away, then back into his eyes. "...I almost didn't."

"Gonna run again, pet?" She looked down, shook her head. He set his coat aside again and put his hands out to her. After a moment's hesitation, she stood and took them. He scooted backward on the bed, bringing his legs up flat and spreading them into a V, and tugged her forward by her hands until she climbed onto the bed on her knees, in the space between his open legs.

Sitting upright, almost nose-to-nose with her, Spike took two fingertips and smoothed her hair back from her face. "Been doin' your reading since we talked?" She swallowed and nodded, eyes wide.

"Show me," he said, leaning in to catch her lower lip in his mouth and pressing his teeth into it gently. "What's that called?"

"Discreet bite," she whispered, and her breath hitched as he nipped at her earlobe, catching it between his teeth and pulling at the flesh. He pulled back and looked at her, questioning. "Coral jewel bite."

"An' that's meant to convey what?" he asked softly, turning his head to watch the red mark swell at her ear. Buffy's head swooped in and struck at his neck, teeth grasping and pulling first one round white scar, then the other beneath it, and he gasped in shock and arousal. "Marks of possession," she growled, pulling back to look into his widened eyes.

"Buffy..." he whispered, awestruck, then recovered. "You've been readin' ahead of the lesson!"

"I'm counting on sex ed to pull up my grade point average this year." She grinned, worked at the buttons of his shirt, leaned in to nuzzle the cool skin exposed there.

"Keep on like that an' that's not all you'll pull up..." His hands came up to her jawline and slid easily down her throat and under the collar of her shirt, along the line of her shoulders, absorbing heat and moisture from her overheated skin.

She pulled away from his body once his shirt was stripped off, swallowed hard as she met his eyes and pulled her own top off. "...ohh my..." His fingertips traced a line lightly down from her collarbone over the center of her breasts, feathering over the nipples and down to her ribcage, and back up to the lower curves of her breasts, teasing.

She mewled and squirmed under his touch, and brought her hands and mouth back to his bare torso. He lay flat on his back, allowing her to play with him at will, tracing patterns in the sweat on her skin. "...ohgod..." she breathed when his fingers slipped under the elastic waist of her running pants. "...Spike..."

"Too much?" he gasped, breathing hard, and she shook her head. "Too many clothes...help me out of these..." her hands pushed restlessly at her pants, frustrated and clumsy, and he helped her struggle out of the tight leggings. Then she set to work on his jeans and boots, slipping off the bed briefly to pull them away from him. Once they were both naked, he caught her arms in his hands and pulled her back up to lie on her side next to him, legs tangled together as they touched and tasted.

When they were both gasping for air and writhing against each other, straining for more contact, he pulled away and sat her up. Seeing the confusion in her eyes, he took her hands and brought them down to his cock, guiding them to squeeze at the base, tracing her fingertips up the vein and showing her how to coax the head out from under the foreskin.

He let out a loud growl when he led her fingers along the underside of the head and found the bundle of nerves there, electrifying his whole body, and she giggled. "I'm gonna have to remember that one..." He laughed along with her, her delight setting of a flow of warmth through long-cold places deep inside him. Then he showed her how to work the slippery skin covering his shaft, letting her experiment with speed and pressure, and brought her hands down to his balls, testing their weight and exploring the wrinkling skin of his scrotum.

His hips were twitching and jerking with the motions of her hands, and Buffy looked up into his face. His eyes were half-closed and his features shone with the bliss washing over him. A rush of power flowed through her veins, and she decided if he wanted her to play, then she'd play.

Spike's eyes snapped open when he felt her lips close over the head of his cock, cheek muscles stiffened to simulate an opening slightly too tight to accomodate his size comfortably. Her lips and tongue started to move, and he called out her name. She stroked his hipbones, encouraging him to move with her, and gasping and helpless, he followed her rhythm, praying she could handle what she'd started.

Her eyes checked the clenching muscles of his jaw and the breathy little groans he let out as she worked, checking his progress toward climax carefully. The sight and sound coupled with the taste and feel of him against her tongue started moisture flowing through her groin, and she pressed her thighs together to fight the urge to satisfy herself. She was busy satisfying someone else. It didn't occur to her that might be the source of her arousal.

When she was fairly certain he was on the edge of orgasm, fighting to hold it at bay, Buffy relaxed the ring of muscles at the opening of her throat and let the head of his cock slip down through it, opening and closing the ring of muscles against him in a squeezing motion. She heard him cry out and felt his whole body twist under her lips, and her own cry got muffled around the mass of flesh riding inside her mouth. Heat prickles spread out in a sunburst pattern from the base of her spine, and she came in time with the swallowing motion of her throat.

Spike's whole body was on fire, he was burning to ashes, if she staked him now he'd never notice the difference as he fell to dust. He howled in mindless pleasure as his orgasm poured into her throat, each swallow setting off another pulse of fluid.

Little electric sparks danced along his nerves after he'd spent himself into her mouth, making his skin twitch. When he'd regained enough muscle control to move his arms, he pulled her up to lie against him, breathing in her scent of sweat and arousal and strength. {{My god, my *god*, she came too. Just from that. Without my even touchin' 'er. Oh my god, I am so lost in her...}}

She cuddled close into his body, cooing and sighing, and the thought slid away from his conscious mind as they fell into a light doze in each other's arms.

* * *

Consciousness returned slowly, and when it did both were first aware of the slick sensation of skin moving against skin, triggering all sorts of interesting impulses along their nervous systems, and for a long moment they simply lay in each other's arms shifting against each other's bodies luxuriously.

Then Spike groaned deep in his chest and shifted Buffy over onto her back, looming over her on one elbow, and traced her features with a fingertip. "F'r the love'a all that's holy...please tell me that's a hidden talent you just all of a sudden discovered, pet..."

"I've never done it before, if that's what you're after," she said, nipping at his finger, and he popped the tip of her nose lightly. "Not with...ahhh..."

"Right. Got it." She sighed in relief. "Then how..." A wicked grin came to her lips.

"The Internet is a wonderful research tool," she purred, and he laughed aloud. Lunging suddenly, he pinned her arms down and she yelped.

"My turn, pet." His mouth worked its way sinuously from her ribcage down her belly, and she squirmed. Stopping, he looked up at her and grinned evilly. "Payback's a bitch, ain't it?" Then he bent his head again and returned to his teasing. The objections she'd been formulating slipped away like water through her fingers, and she moaned softly as his head moved ever lower.

He traced the long vein in her thigh, nipping and pulling with blunt-edged teeth to leave a line of tiny red marks along it. {{Marks of possession,}} she thought, floating in warm happiness. Then his teeth and tongue scraped along the engorged flesh of her lower lips for the first time, and her legs jerked from the shock. He looked up again, found her eyes glazed and breathing coming in shallow pants, and he smiled.

Using the stiffened tip of his tongue, he teased her lips apart, using it to spread her own moisture over her more evenly. He trained his ears to pick up every tiny breath and sound she made, gauging her reactions. Then he lay his tongue flat against her wide-open slit and licked from one end to the other, and her whole body bucked in shock. Deciding the time for teasing was past, he opened his mouth wide and sealed it over her vagina, licking and sucking in earnest.

Buffy was crying and moaning in a nonstop low-pitched wail at the sensation, legs and hips moving of their own volition in time with the pulling of his mouth. Her bones were turning to liquid, muscles and tendons melting from the heat, everything flowing down, following the flow of her blood to pool in the flesh against his mouth.

Her climax rushed up through her without warning, like a sudden stab of lightning, and she convulsed and cried out, thinking he'd stop. But his mouth kept moving, lapping up her secretions like a kitten at a saucer of milk, and she dissolved into a second, slower orgasm. At last her cries tapered off into a weary groan, and he slipped away from her swollen flesh, pulling himself up alongside her again.

Turning her slightly into the press of his arms, he inhaled the scent of her, relishing the rush of hormones it triggered and committing the sensation carefully to memory. His hand stroked lightly along her spine, picking up the sweat cooling there, and she murmured in appreciation. "Liked that, did you, pet?"

"...mmmm...." She turned her face into the crook of his neck, lips taking in the taste of his skin. "...sleepy now..."

He pulled the bedspread up from the far side of the bed to wrap around them. "Can't sleep long, sweet one, we'll be missed."

"...mmhmmm...jus' a few minutes..." Laughing softly, Spike felt the last drops of tension drain away from her muscles and shifted her back onto the mattress, slipping a pillow under her head. He lay propped up on one elbow watching her sleep, marshalling all his concentration to force thoughts of the real world beyond their hotel room door out of his mind.

* * *

A ringing telephone jolted Buffy out of a sound sleep. A stationary phone, not her cell, she realized suddenly, and sat up in bed, groping for the receiver.

"This is the front desk with a wake-up call for a Mr. Charles Hill?" came the voice on the other end. Looking around, she realized Spike was gone, and a sheet of hotel stationery was folded over once and propped on the table with her name on it.

"Ah, he's here, he's awake, are you sure -"

"We had instructions to put in a four a.m. wake-up call for Mr. Hill. Something about catching a flight. If you're sure he's up - "

"Yeah. Thanks." Buffy hung up, gathered her clothes and padded to the table to read the note.

* * *

"Slayer -

Sorry to leave without saying good-bye. Please don't take it personally. Fire axes notwithstanding, your mother and your watcher would doubtless be far less violent in punishing you for staying out all night than the members of my happy household will if they catch me. And I hated to wake you to tell you that. You needed a little time away from the waking nightmare our mutual friend has made of our lives. I envy you that time.

I trust you'll be able to sneak in undetected. I'd think it a necessary survival skill for a Slayer with family and friends. Keep up with your reading, and your...electronic research, pet, they're serving you very well. I'll call you on the little phone when I'm able, keep it with you. And yes, I'll try to mind the hours so's not to catch you in class again.

I'll leave you with a quick, fairly tame quote from Fanny Hill. 'We may say what we please, but those we can be the easiest and freest with, are ever those we like, not to say love, the best.' See? The old girl has a bit of life left in her yet.

For the record, and you may quote me on this: If Angelus implied you're inept in bed, he is the lyin'est whoreson on Earth. But then, we already knew that, didn't we?

- Spike"

* * *

Buffy read and re-read the note, pulling her knees up to her chest and resting her head on them. Old tensions were seeping into her joints and muscles again, making them ache as she steeled herself to face the real world. But she felt looser, more limber and supple, and stronger than she had before.

She dressed and slipped out the door, fingers working over the crease in the notepaper.

Spike watched from the shadows until she'd turned out fully onto the street, then headed off in the opposite direction for home.




Continued...


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