E-mail: ljakers@ucdavis.edu
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~Part: 11~
Freshly showered and a little more collected, Willow headed out the door to the magic shop where she had agreed to meet Giles when he called her an hour ago. Anya had asked for the afternoon off to run some errands, and the Watcher had received a call from someone down at the docks about some customs concerns in relation to an incoming shipment. Could she come watch the shop for an hour or two?
She was happy to do it—anything was better than sitting around in a frustrating stew of self-doubt and vague longing. Having work to do and other people around would snap her out of this. As she turned the last corner, she caught sight of Dawn standing with a small group of teenagers outside the 7-11 and talking loudly. She was about to call out to Dawn when she saw the cigarette in her young friend’s hand.
<She’s just holding it> Willow assured herself. <She knows better than to… > But then Dawn lifted the offensive object to her lips and took a drag. And promptly turned a bit green. <Good! She’s new at this.> It had been hard to break Jessie of his smoking habit in 9th grade—only constant bullying and the eagle eyes of his friends had been able to get him to kick the habit. After all, they had told him, they didn’t want him ending up dead from lung cancer. The irony hadn’t occur to her ‘til now.
<What’s the point of worrying about your health in Sunnydale where “suspicious circumstances” is the second leading cause of death? > “Because if you aren’t healthy, you can’t outrun that cause,” she murmured to herself. She had to nip this in the bud. After closing her eyes for a moment of concentration, she began to quietly recite the incantation she’d shown Spike.
When Dawn took her next drag, she immediately realized that the cloud of smoke she let out was much denser—in fact, it partly obscured her vision. When it cleared, the sight which greeted her was horrifying: all of her friends seemed to have aged forty years. They now looked back at her with red and tired eyes. Their teeth were stained as were their fingers. Dawn gasped.
Her friends, seeing her change in expression, moved toward her in concern, but when she saw them begin to approach, she threw the cigarette down and turned away, quickly moving toward the magic shop. Halfway there, she was intercepted by Willow.
“Hey, Dawn,” Willow called out to her in greeting, careful to look as un- witchlike as possible. “What’s up?”
“Nothing.” Dawn quickly retrieved a mint from her pocket and popped it into her mouth. “Just hanging out with some friends.”
“Staying out of trouble?”
Dawn looked at her for a moment before answering. “As if I could get into trouble in this town. Nobody lets the sis of the slayer out of their sight long enough for me to get into any trouble.” Willow sensed some real frustration behind the sarcasm and humor, but decided to let it go.
“Wanna help me out in the shop? I wanted to work on the website I’m setting up for Giles and I could sure use someone who’s good with a digital camera.”
“After you, Red,” Dawn said, beaming at Willow as she opened the door to the shop for the both of them. She was equally grateful for having dodged the getting-caught-smoking bullet and being asked to participate in something important.
“Someone’s been spending too much time hanging out with Spike,” Willow rejoined. “Want me to start calling you ‘Niblet’?”
“Don’t you dare—he’s the only one that’s allowed to…” her words and the laughter of the two girls were swallowed up as the door to the shop swung closed behind them.
Spike heard their voices accompanying the bell on the door to the shop as they entered and had to force himself not to stride across the room and take her in his arms. No, now that she had gotten away from him, he’d have to win her back—force might have worked on Dru for a time, but Willow was different. He was thankful that he had been standing partially obscured by one of the shelving units when she came in; she hadn’t seen him yet, so he didn’t have to hide his reaction to seeing her again. Instead, he’d been able to melt further into the background.
Willow was thankful as well, glad to be back in the magic shop. She had been dreading see her friends, but now standing here with Giles and Dawn, she felt safe, although she wasn’t entirely sure what danger she had thought she was in. Spike wasn’t about to tell Buffy what had happened, at least not while he was in his chipped state; after all, he wanted to stay among the ranks of the undead rather than joining those of the merely deceased. This also meant that he could never use their night together against her without putting himself in danger.
It was hardly the way she was used to thinking about a former lover. It made her feel a little naughty, and she smiled in guilty pleasure at knowing that she had had her very first secret affair. Her initial alarm at what had happened between her and Spike had faded somewhat. Here among her friends, she had begun to gain a little distance on last night.
Logically, the pros of her night with Spike outweighed the cons. She felt better about her breakup with Tara—less lonely and unattractive--and the sex itself, well, that had been nothing short of amazing. For her at least. The one downside was that she hadn’t been able to return the favor for him. Her forehead crinkled in disappointment at herself—she wasn’t used to failing at things; she hated the feeling that she hadn’t lived up to someone’s expectation. Her one glimmer of redemption was the thought that, if the sex itself had not been everything a vampire might want or need, at least he might have found the same kind of comfort in their coupling that she had—maybe she had eased his loneliness a little, made it more bearable.
Spike watched her face from the shadows in the corner of the room as it melted from anxious to mischievous before finally settling into a kind of distant sadness. He knew he was the cause of the first, hoped he was the reason for the second, and feared that he had brought about the third. Well, if her sadness was a result of her obvious decision to disappear this morning without so much as a by-your-leave, he’d fix that. Red was not going anywhere if he could do anything about it.
Giles had finished consulting with Willow about the look of the developing webpage and was instructing Dawn for what Spike knew was the fiftieth time on what she was absolutely not to touch in the shop while he was gone. The blond used this momentary distraction to quietly walk around and up behind the witch who was utterly absorbed in whatever was on her computer screen. So much so that she remained oblivious to her surroundings when Spike leaned over her until his mouth was only a few inches above her shoulder and he said quietly, “Sleep well, pet?”
Whatever Willow might have been telling herself about her ability to deal rationally with last night, it was all belied by her reaction to the sound of his voice, low and intimate, near her ear. She jerked upright, slamming her shoulder into Spike’s nose, and then shot out of her chair and backed up against the nearby wall a couple of feet away.
The sound of bodily collision and books crashing down off the table combined with the witch’s proximity to the vampire immediately brought Giles and the young teen running.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Giles demanded, instinctively pulling a stake from somewhere within the tweed cocoon in which he was always covered and immediately dropping it clumsily to the floor. He quickly retrieved it and brandished it in what he hoped was a menacing way. Dawn interposed herself between the two men, giving Spike the chance to back away, holding his nose.
“Musnd you awways thiung thad I’m trwying do kiwl sumbuddy?” Spike demanded.
“Perhaps, I’ve learned from…” Giles began, but Dawn silenced them both with a stern look.
“Come on, Giles, it’s pretty obvious that it’s Spike that’s hurt, so unless Willow slugged him for something he did, I think it’s safe to put that thing away,” she said, pointing at the stake in the Watcher’s hand. Giles’ look was dubious, so the young teen turned to the redhead for support. “Willow?”
Willow had used the distraction to take a deep breath and clamp down on her feeling of panic. She drew herself up and reassured Giles, “No, he didn’t do anything to me—just startled me, that’s all. I was just feeling a little tense and he caught me off-guard.”
“Now or last night?” Spike murmured softly to himself.
Willow gasped. “What did you say?” Giles demanded, having missed Spike’s muttered response.
Spike turned to face the redhead. “Nothing, pet. It was just an accident, okay? Nothing to get all worked up over.”
He knew the minute the words were out that he had screwed up; she had heard what he’d said under his breath and thought he was still talking about last night. Tears formed in the witch’s eyes and threatened to run down her cheeks. <Fucking hell!> Spike turned his fury on the Watcher. “She jumped and slammed into me, all right? That’s all that happened. Now bugger off!” The Watcher still looked a little concerned, but Dawn intervened and pulled Giles’ attention away by asking him which book covers he wanted her and Willow to scan into the computer for the website, dragging him bodily away behind her. When the vampire turned back toward the witch, the tears had been wiped away but the pain still filled her beautiful eyes.
“Willow, I didn’t mean…” he started, but she cut him off.
“It’s okay, Spike,” she said sharply. “I’m an adult. I can deal.”
He moved toward her, anxious to comfort her in some way, to tell her that she’d misunderstood him—that his words had been meant for the Watcher and not for her. But she responded only by bending over to retrieve the books that had fallen from the table as a result of their mishap. Resigned that this was not going to be worked out in front of their current audience, Spike knelt beside her and began gathering up books.
He placed his books back on the table and then turned to pull hers from her arms and arranged them in a stack next to her computer. Then he turned to her. He recognized her look at once—what the Scoobies called her “resolve face.” The set of her mouth allowed no argument—she wasn’t letting him in right now--but the pain in her eyes still gave her away. So he had to try. He guided her back into her chair. “Pet,” he whispered, moving around to face her. “I never meant to hurt you. I would never, will never, try to hurt you ever again. Trust me. Please?”
The seemingly honest entreaty nearly broke her. She knew if she looked up at him, she’d lose this battle for self-control. Instead, she lifted her eyes to the computer screen and pulled the keyboard toward her.
“I know it was an accident, Spike and that it won’t happen again.” She took a breath. “I need to get to work on this if I’m gonna have any Bronzing time tonight.” Her fingers began to fly over the keyboard as she entered HTML code.
Spike knew he had to withdraw—one did not spend a century in a relationship (even if it with an insane vampire) without learning something about women—Willow had dismissed him, and pressing his case now would do no good. She needed some time, and besides, she had just given him an idea.
“I’ll leave you to it then, pet.” With a look towards the Watcher and Dawn first, he lean forward and brushed a kiss against Willow’s forehead. Before she could muster a response, he was out the door.
~Part: 12~
Willow had managed to avoid thinking about Spike for hours by completely burying herself in the task at hand. Dawn had deftly managed the cash register, consulting with the redhead from time to time about various items in the shop and then sharing her newfound knowledge with customers, leaving Willow to concentrate on the website. Eventually, the sound of the lock on the front door falling into place as Dawn turned the knob and flipped over the sign to read "Closed" made Willow look up in surprise.
"Oh, I'm sorry, Dawn. I was supposed to be running the shop."
Dawn grinned at her. "Hey, I already balanced the cash register, and no one was turned into a frog, so as long as you don't tell Giles." Dawn paused in thought. "Actually, maybe you should tell him. Mom hasn't raised my allowance in two years, so I could really use some extra cash. What do you think?"
"Well, as often as Anya needs an afternoon off for shopping, Giles might actually need someone." Dawn's smile widened, and Willow saw an opening. "Tell you what.I'll talk to Giles about hiring you to cover any extra hours-on one condition."
"Really? Anything! What do I have to do?" Dawn was bobbing up and down in excitement.
Willow looked at the teenager with her resolve face securely in place. "I don't ever want to see or hear about you smoking again. If you so much as touch a cigarette, I'll tell Giles about our agreement and he will fire you, understand?
Dawn's smile disappeared as her face fell. "Ummm." was all she could think to say. Then she remembered what had happened earlier. "YOU! That was you! You scared me, with that spell. I thought the cigarettes had really made me sick and I was seeing things." She glared a little at her friend.
Willow kept herself from smiling. "You were seeing the future-I may have created an illusion, but if your friends don't stop smoking, they will end up looking like that." She stuck her hand out. "So do we have a deal?"
Dawn bounded forward to shake Willow's hand. "Deal! Maybe he'll let me start next week." The two girls gathered their things and headed out the door, locking it carefully.
As much as Dawn may have made it seem like she lived on her allowance alone, it turned out that she had a babysitting job that evening, and Willow decided to go with her to pick up the little girl from the house down the block-evidently the parents wanted an evening alone and were paying the teenager to host a little sleepover for their daughter. When they returned to the Summers' house, Willow made popcorn while Dawn helped Sarah pick a video.
Less than an hour later, Sarah was asleep on the couch and Dawn had convinced Willow to let her experiment with the hairstyles in one of the fashion magazines that Buffy subscribed to. After a few aborted attempts, Dawn had managed to pile Willow's hair in soft curls on top of her head, and had secured them with two bobby pins and a ribbon. Belatedly, Willow realized that Dawn had been working from the magazine issue devoted to dressing for the prom and that her hair was a little over-the-top for a night of dancing at the Bronze. But she reassured herself that she could take down her hair on the way to the club so that Dawn's feelings would not be hurt, and she had to admit that, with the glittery, dark green tank she was wearing, her hair looked nice up away from her face.
Of course, after seeing the clock and realizing she was forty-five minutes late to meet her friends, she had promptly forgotten about her hair and arrived at the Bronze with it still precariously balanced on her head. When she pushed open the door to the place, one of her favorite songs was pounding across the dance floor and Xander, Anya, Buffy, and Riley were already out dancing. When they saw her, Buffy motioned to the table where they had taken up residence earlier, and after Willow had added her sweater to the pile of belongings sitting on the booth's seat, Xander came over to pull her onto the dance floor. The five were soon gyrating wildly, dancing in singles, couples, trios, and all together. None of them noticed a yellow pair of eyes trained on them from the darkness around the edges of the dance floor.
Spike watched the witch move with the music. While from an objective point of view, Buffy was clearly a better dancer than her friend, Spike much preferred Willow's movements. The Slayer always danced with great attention to how she looked-to her, dancing was a performance-but the red- head, unaware of her own attractiveness, danced only for herself. Right now, she was tangled up with Riley, her arms around Buffy's new toy and his own wrapped around her waist. Their hips moved in time and she was leaning into him, her head resting on his shoulder and her eyes closed as she concentrated on the music. Spike's rising jealousy at the sight of his lover in the arms of another man was abated when, after a moment, Riley bent down and said something to Willow, causing her eyes to open again, filled with amusement as she scanned the crowd. She began to laugh. Xander, the source of their humor, was jerking about the dance floor, doing his best circa-1984 Michael Jackson moves. Willow and Riley's combined laughter broke the rhythm they had been keeping, and giving up any pretense of dancing together, Riley took her hand and spun her back out into the middle of the floor and joined Xander in busting a move.
The girls stood back and watched the two young men, giggling hysterically as Xander threw himself down and "wormed" across the dance floor while Riley did a passable moonwalk. Riley and Xander quickly exhausted and each returned to his lover and swept her back out to dance. Unperturbed, Willow began to dance as well, her hands moving in lazy patterns about her as her hips began to sway once more. Spike watched her as she moved, remembering the motion of those same sweet hips under him. With the secret familiar knowledge of a lover, he could see, in her dancing, the hints of how she had moved when they had made love--her hands running down her sides in mimicry of the way she had touched him, her eyes closed as she shut out everything else in the world but pleasure, the same circular grind of her pelvis that preceded her release. He couldn't wait any longer.
Willow's own reticence worked in his favor, as she unconsciously moved from the center of the dancefloor to its far edge. He shadowed her, circling the floor until he stood a few feet from her. Left entirely to her own devices, her movements had turned more overtly sensuous, and he had to look away for a moment to get his body under control. Luck was with him again as the newest Brittney Spears tune gave way to the slower strains of "Eternal Flame." Spike thrust his hands in his pockets and grinned in pleasure; and then quickly muttering a few words under his breath, he stepped out onto the floor.
Despite her earlier apprehensions, Willow was enjoying herself immensely. This afternoon, she had been desperate to block out any possible thought of Spike and their night together. And while she had been hurt by his denial of her at the magic shop, the net result had been good. She now knew two things for certain-Spike had no intention of sharing their secret, nor would he consciously cause her any harm. Objectively, she knew that she shouldn't trust his promise never to hurt her, but then when she had ignored him by returning to her work at the computer, she had seen his face reflected on the monitor screen, and it had erased her doubts. Spike's face had shown earnest concern, and he simply had never been that good an actor. When he sealed his promise with a kiss to her forehead, she knew-they might never again be lovers, but he really was her friend.
Of course that didn't in any way erase what had happened between them. She still had very enjoyable memories of their hours together, and there was no need for those to go to waste. She had spent the last half hour blocking out the rest of the world as she danced and replayed the sight, taste, and feel of Spike in her head, becoming more and more lost in those sensations with every beat of the music. Even now, she could almost feel him moving with her.
Spike eased up behind her, until he was so close he could feel the heat pouring off of her. More than that, he could detect the scent of her excitement. Once again jealousy reared its head and the formerly banished image of the redhead moving against Riley made him want to simultaneously rip the boy scout's heart out and throw her down on the nearest table and shag the thought of any mortal man right out of her. But as his fingers, reaching out in quest of her, came in contact with the naked skin at her waist revealed by her short tank top, his anger stilled at her reaction. Surprisingly, she didn't flinch or move away from his touch-instead, she smiled slightly and murmured something so softly that even his sensitive hearing strained to decipher it.
"Mmmm..Ssspiiike." hissed softly from her lips.
William the Bloody, the scourge of Europe and the Far East, master vamp with the best Slayer kill record in four hundred years, froze.
~Part: 13~
Willow had a talent for fantasy, hardly surprising considering her childhood. Saddled with parents who couldn't be bothered to play with their daughter themselves and who were too self-absorbed to create opportunities for their daughter to socialize with other children, Willow had turned inward for companionship. If Xander hadn't fallen out of the tree where he was hiding from Jessie and into her back yard all those years ago, Willow's only friends might have continued to be imaginary ones.
When that first friendship later developed into something more for the young teenager, her penchant for fantasizing stood her in good stead: faced with a desire for someone who seemed to be interested in any girl who wasn't her, Willow had developed an extensive, if rather tame, set of fantasies starring her and her best friend. In a way, this talent had even paved the way for her and Tara's relationship. When the redhead recognized the true nature of the blonde witch's feelings for her, it had not been difficult for Willow to imagine the two of them together. Little had Tara known that night when Willow had come to her room bearing the gift of a candle and herself, she had been enacting a script she'd already rehearsed a hundred times in her head.
And Willow was caught up in a fairly realistic bit of fantasy right now. As she replayed her and Spike's moments together, she embellished: the sensation of his cool breath playing over the small of her back, the erotic combination of his soft lips and sharp canines working against her cunt, his hand wrapped possessively around her waist as he held her to him in the perfect moment of afterglow.
As the next song started, she started anew: they were dancing; he was behind her, holding her, stroking the curve of her hip as the two of them moved. Willow wrapped her arms around her waist in imitation of fantasy- Spike's embrace and began to grind her hips slowly. In her mind, she heard his groan of response and felt his grip on her tighten. A second arm encircled her, moving up and around to caress her breast. She could feel her nipples growing harder under the skilled fingers of her lover and let out a deep sigh of pleasure.
Spike recovered quickly from his surprise-he'd been certain that, if anything, Red was desperately trying to forget their night together. But it was fairly obvious from the way she had whispered his name and the perfume of her own sexual excitement that hung over them both that she was indulging the memory rather than denying it. Spike was almost disappointed-after all, he'd been planning his second seduction of her for hours. He'd pictured how she would try to resist him, shrinking from his touch and refusing to even meet his eyes. And he knew how to counter every objection, verbal and physical.
Spike had not kept Drusilla happy for all those years without certain skills. And one of the most useful had been an almost sixth sense for what his lover needed from him at any particular moment. He hadn't always been this way; it had been a matter of necessity-being insane, Drusilla was often completely unable to understand and communicate her own needs and desires, and he'd had to learn to hear what she could not say.
With so much practice, he was sure that it would not be long before he convinced the witch that her proper place was in his arms and bed. Once she was there, he wouldn't make the same mistake even if it meant he didn't sleep between now and Armageddon. But now it looked as though she might not need as much persuasion as he had been prepared to use.
At that moment, her arms wrapped around her waist, and she began to grind her ass back into his hips. He groaned and pulled her closer to him, bringing his other hand to her waist. He caressed its curve before giving in to his more carnal needs and cupping her breast. He waited for her resistance, but it never materialized. She moaned loudly, at least to his sensitive ears, and pressed back into him.
He couldn't stand it any longer-allowing her to think he was only a product of her own mind. He leaned down close to her ear and said to her over the music, "Penny for your thoughts, pet." He grinned as he felt her go rigid in his arms, but quickly suppressed it so when she spun around, all Willow saw was the blonde vampire's intense gaze.
"S-Spike?" Willow fought for a moment, struggling to bring herself out of the fantasy that had been dominating her senses in order to deal with the sudden reality of blonde vampire.
"In the flesh, luv," he responded, drawing out the third word and raising an eyebrow. He reached into his pocket and fumbled for a second before pulling his hand out and tossing something lightly into the air between them. Willow's eyes followed the glittering object as it arced up and then fell into the waiting palm of his hand. He reached forward to grab her own and pressed the copper coin into it. He looked at her expectantly. "Well, Red? That is the going price, isn't it?"
Willow took a deep breath, trying to force down the lingering arousal of a moment ago. She opened her mouth to respond but when her voice emerged, it was low and harsh. "Arrrhh." she began.
Spike grinned down at her and leaned in a bit. "Gone all pre-verbal, pet?" He wrapped one arm around her quickly, pinning her own between them. "I can do that one too, if you're of a mind." He brought his lips closer to hers, feeling her uneven breathing against his chest and pressing his advantage. He pretended to take her surprised silence as license. "I guess you are," he told her. He brought his free hand to her chin and firmly lifted it until her face was raised to his.
She didn't trust herself to meet his gaze, whether out of embarrassment over her little flight of fancy or fear that he might see the hurt and shame she felt in her eyes-she wasn't sure, but she couldn't do it. She closed her eyes.
He closed his own in response, taking a deep breath and inhaling her scent. Then he brought his lips within a hair's breadth of the witch's and released the breath slowly, letting it mix with hers.
Willow felt his mouth move over hers. She could almost taste him, the flavor of the kisses they had shared the night before so close..all she had to do was lean forward, just a tiny bit, and she could lose herself again in him.
He could feel her resistance and how little stood between everything he wanted and the same loneliness that had driven him for most of his life. He could close the gap between them, but he knew that unless he could get her to give herself freely, he'd never be able to hold on to her. As long as she could tell herself that he had forced her, even the tiniest bit, then she could continue to deny her desire for him.
He opened his eyes, watching her brow crinkle and a tear forming in the corner of her eye as she struggled internally. He was determined to make this as difficult as he possibly could for her-he wouldn't force her, but he wasn't above providing the greatest temptation he could muster. He brought one hand up and placed it gently on her eyelid, sliding it tenderly out to the wet corner and wiping the jewel away before slipping the hand behind her neck. Placing it at the base of her neck, he pulled her gently toward him, her head falling back and her lips widening. His mouth descended toward her uptilted mouth and he kissed first the left side and then, pulling back so that there were only millimeters between them, he slid his lips to the opposite corner of her sweet mouth. Try as hard as he could, however, he could not maintain the chastity of the kiss and his tongue darted out to taste her there.
That did it. A shudder moved through the witch's body and Spike found his head clamped between her two small hands as she directed him to heaven, opening her mouth to him and pulling his own to join hers. The vamp moaned as he gave himself over to her new will and began to devour her. His pent-up passion surged through him and he could feel the demon roaring in triumph, the marks emerging at his brow. He wrapped his arms tighter around her, desperate to get closer to her.
She felt the sounds move through him and hard length of him against her belly. Somewhere, some part of her registered confusion at his response, but that more logical bit of her was quickly overwhelmed. All she could concentrate on was the feel of his body and the passion of the kiss. It deepened and lengthened until she could no longer remember a time when she wasn't kissing him.
Spike felt her body become heavy as a lack of oxygen caused her to cling to him for support. Inhaling through his own nose, he filled his lungs with air and then gently exhaled into her mouth, supplementing her supply. At first she gasped. But unwilling to give him up even for a second, her breathing quickly matched his and they breathed together as one, the symbiosis becoming intoxicating in its own right. She recovered quickly and used her strength to pull his t-shirt loose from his jeans and run her hands up inside it along the muscular plane of his abdomen.
The feel of her small hands on his body sent an uncontrollable shiver through him, causing him to break off the kiss. His body--unconsciously remembering his once-human need for oxygen--gasped, inhaling huge lungfuls of air and allowing Willow to do the same. Her eyes, some still-clinical part of him noted, were closed. What he needed was for her to open them, both literally and figuratively.
Steeling himself against the desire she provoked in him, he pulled away from the witch a little and watched her face. It took a moment for his withdrawal to register with her, and she moaned at the loss of his lips and body pressed to her. Spike remained strong, despite the effect the sound had on him, and waited.
The kiss had shaken Willow. She hadn't meant to kiss him-quite the opposite, she had spent the entire day adjusting to the reality that, as much as she had enjoyed Spike last night, there would never be a repeat performance. He wouldn't want her again, but she was not, as she knew from the past, above acting stupidly over someone she had a crush on. <Pretty juvenile word for something so, well, ADULT> she thought. But now she had gone and just that-kissed him. <He was just playing with you, teasing you like he always does, and you let yourself get carried away, and all that stuff this afternoon about how you could be strong or at least not get close enough to do anything, and then the next time you see him you go and..>. She stopped herself. <You even babble in your own head!> she chastised herself.
Her momentary tangent brought her back to the reality she was trying to keep shut out behind her closed eyes. She knew instincutally that he was looking right at her. He was waiting-probably for an explanation-and she'd have to face up to it. She opened her eyes slowly and met his icy blue and unfathomable gaze.
~Part: 14~
Just at the moment that he decided that she was never coming out from behind those closed eyes, he saw them open, not with the heaviness of the passion he could sense he provoked in her, but like those of an animal suddenly aware of a predator. He carefully allowed no sign of the pleasure her reaction caused to show on his own face. It felt so good to be thought of as dangerous again. He could also see in her face that she was desperately trying to think of a way out of what she had just done and he wasn't about to let her do that.
"Why, Red" he drawled into her ear as he pulled her closer to him, "I didn't know you cared..."
"I don't.... she began, "I mean..."
"You don't?" Spike pulled away again as if in surprise. He feigned a hurt look and then grinned lewdly at her. "So you weren't interested in me, just in this." He cupped her ass and squeezed it, crushing her hips against his. "Well, pet," he told her, "I might be up for that even if you don't really like me personally." He pressed himself against her so she had little question of his veracity.
Not that he planned to allow her any option other than giving in to the desire that had left her flushed and breathing deeply. It might be her decision, but it was still his game. He ran his hand down the back of her thigh and along a seam of her slit skirt. In order to continue more than a few inches, he needed to lean forward so he took advantage of this necessity by bringing his mouth next to her ear and nipping at her earlobe, closing his dull teeth over the soft flesh and growling as the scent of her hair filled his senses. His hand moved along the raised line, lifting her leg up along the outside of his own until the slit in the material finally parted and his searching fingers grazed the softness at the back of her knee. His movement caused her to lose her balance a bit, but he held her tightly, whispering into her ear, "I'm more than happy to oblige, luv, if this is what you want."
Willow could hear that voice in the back of her head, the one that told her what she should do, what she should want, but against the pounding of the music and her own heart, it was the weakest of signals and Spike's words served only to drown it out completely. None of it made sense-he didn't really want her and she knew this could not end well. When he had first stroked her thigh, she had gathered up every bit of her will to tell him to let her go, to stop playing with her, but his touch and the sound of his voice brought back the memory of last night's pleasure and she was lost. As the rush of heat moved through her, her body relaxed against his, her arms winding around him for support, and she gave herself over to that fire. Her lips parted and she again sealed her fate.
"Yes."
His sensitive hearing picked up her assent and he grinned against her neck. He used his grip on her leg to pull her up his body, lifting her up until her legs instinctively encircled his waist and the growl elicited by the contact of her hot liquid cunt against his newly bared stomach reverberated through them both. he thought to himself. He quickly backed her up against the nearest wall, careful not to crack her head against the mirror which covered the top half of it, but effectively pinning her to it. He looked up at her face. This time she met his eyes-but only for a moment. Then she brought her lips down on his and the warmth of her sex was mimicked by the heat of her mouth as it worked against his.
He answered her by bring his hands up under the cloth of the green tank and resting them under her breasts. His thumbs moved slowly up along the underside of each one, stopping short of the aureole. Digging his fingers into her sides, he began to tease her, his thumbs marking out gentle half- circles along the very edge of that softer flesh. Her response was immediate; she bit down on his top lip briefly before regaining some control, releasing it enough to suck on it.
Willow felt his hands on her and groaned, caught between enjoyment of his caress and her need for the more intense pleasure she knew he could give her. She deepened her kiss again, burying her hands in his blonde hair and pulling him closer still as their tongues explored every corner of each others' mouths. She had never known passion like this; before it had always been about pleasing her lover or being pleased-what she was experiencing now bore almost no relation to what sex had been for her. With him, her body was almost completely out of her control, working single-minded to get closer to him. She wanted him in her, on her, against her; she wanted everything-his mouth, his hands, his cock-all at once and everywhere, and every other concern disappeared.
His thumbs began to move upward in their arcs, each one bringing him microscopically nearer to the tips of her breasts which were straining against the fabric of her shirt. Her breath had begun to speed up and the pounding of her heart was so loud, he half-expected it to give them away. But a quick glance around the room reassured him that the spell was holding so he returned to his teasing task. Willow had begun to grind herself down against him, and he was quickly nearing the point of no return. He tore his mouth from hers and attacked her neck, his fangs stopping just short of breaking skin as he savored the creamy smell and taste of her skin, alternately biting or suckling at it. He began working his way down her neck and chest as his thumbs brushed ever higher. Willow was moving herself against his shielded cock in earnest now, her juices soaking through his jeans. Her breathing had become reduced to sharp inhalations and shuddering releases. The smell of her hair, her skin, and her cunt were making it nearly impossible to maintain even a tiniest bit of control over himself; he needed to bury himself deeply in his warm and willing witch and hear the music of her pleasured cries--but this time, he had to make her stay.
He stilled for a moment, dropping one hand to her thigh and looking up at her lovely but flushed face. Her moan of frustration caused an answering echo in his own, but he had to resist it until he got what he needed. He again let his mouth move over her ear for a moment before whispering to her.
"So you want this, do you, pet?" he asked her, his hand moving lower to cup her round ass as he ground himself against her for emphasis.
Her body responded more than her mind, hissing out a single syllable.
"Pleassse..."
Her murmured consent unleashed him. One hand dropped to the fly of his jeans as the one holding her ass lifted her slightly out of the way. He had his jeans open and his cock at the gates of her sex before she even had time to register the absence of his hands on her breasts. Nevertheless, he wickedly waited until her eyes cleared a bit and she suddenly became aware of her surroundings.
Just as her eyes opened in shock at the realization of where she was and what she was doing, his hand came back up and covered her mouth. In the same moment, he buried himself in her searing center, her soft & wet cunt melting before & around him until he hit bottom. He saw and felt her initial cry of alarm, but as he began to stroke into her, he watched the expression on the redhead's face move quickly from shock to confusion and then to the dark look of desire that he had become addicted to in the last twenty-four hours.
Her world spun wildly. One moment she was nearly begging him to take her and the next she was suddenly aware that she was practically having sex in the corner of a dance club. This, that little voice insisted, was very wrong. It wasn't just that this was wrong for her, but it was wrong for anyone she knew--with the possible exception of Faith, a comparison she didn't even want to contemplate. She opened her mouth to protest, especially when Spike shifted her to open his jeans. But that cry of denial instead became one of surprise as he entered her and then animal lust as Spike sunk into her aching depths.
One last rational thought bubbled up from her superego.
Then her id took over.
Spike felt her hips begin to move to meet his thrusts just as her hands came up to grab handfuls of his blonde hair to pull his mouth to hers. The little witch was fucking him back in earnest now and he let himself get lost in her. The tight warmth of her cunt and the hunger of her kiss were overwhelming-he was approaching his peak too quickly and used his grasp on her hips to slow her. He began again, setting a slower pace and moving his hips in broad circles, each one bringing her clitoris against him. She began to suck at his tongue, moaning her response to him and tempting him to speed back up. Only when her body began to tense and shake did he begin to pound into her. She broke the kiss and threw her head back in ecstasy as the combination of blessed friction and fullness shrunk her universe to the single focal point of their joined bodies. Spike felt the first tiniest tremor ripple over his cock and brought his hand up to cut off the sounds he knew would accompany her peak. But the animal beauty of her lust-laden face distracted him in that instant and his fingers slipped into, rather than over her mouth.
Luckily, she welcomed them and bit down as the orgasm really took her, her cunt and mouth clamping down on him. The sharp pain of her teeth undid him completely, and he came violently, his hips bruising hers as he emptied himself in her. Her spasms outlasted his and he was able to drop his mouth forward to kiss her softly, both his hands sliding under her to cradle her thighs. Her arms went around his neck and he gently brought her down on a nearby stool which stood against the mirrored wall. Using the kiss to force her gently back against the mirror, he quickly pulled up and buttoned his jeans, keeping his mouth on hers in a decidedly distracting way. By the time his lips left hers, she had been swept up in his arms and he was out the back door of the Bronze.
<There he is again>, Buffy thought to herself as she caught sight of the blonde vampire and then lost him again in the crowd. It wasn't that she was particularly worried about him being around-after all, he wasn't able to cause any damage to anyone who mattered anymore-but it was still strange seeing him at the Bronze. He normally came here because he wanted to make contact with her or one of the gang, but everytime she'd seen him for a split-second through the crowd, he was moving as though to the music and his face showed the effort. <Spike dancing?!?> she grinned to herself. <I guess he has to work out his frustrations by doing something other than killing now.> He wasn't very good, she noted, not even keeping proper time if his head and shoulders-the only part of him she could see-were any indication. <Probably why he's dancing by himself in a corner> she concluded.
After a while, his inexplicable presence and behavior began to annoy her, as virtually everything about him did, and she went to find him. He wasn't in the corner anymore, as she discovered when she went to where she had seen him. In fact, he didn't seem to be anywhere. She was just about to check outside when Riley found her, and she quickly decided that his invitation to slow dance to the song she had requested earlier in the evening was far more important than anything the toothless wonder might be doing. After thirty seconds in Riley's arms, Spike was the last thing on the Slayer's mind.
~Part: 15~
They had been well down the block before Willow had begun to stir. It didn't take her long to go from her initial re-entry into reality to an almost screaming panic. He had been prepared for this, although truthfully, he wasn't prepared for just how much her fear both turned him on and disturbed him. His enjoyment at least had made sense to him--after all, unlike any other animal, vampires took pleasure in terrifying their prey before devouring it.
But he was, at the same time, upset that Willow had been afraid enough that he'd had to quiet her. After all, it wasn't like he'd hurt the silly bint, or even done anything she hadn't wanted. If she got so worked up over something she herself had done, why should he feel bad? The truth was that it was the very fact that she wasn't the kind of girl to shag a bloke in public that he would turn to his advantage later. But still, the emotional distress that he'd had to quiet in her made him feel almost...guilty. That was a new one for him. As he'd forced her to meet his vampiric gaze and follow his command to sleep for a while, he internally wondered over the effect this little human had on him. >No time for that now< he'd quickly concluded. He tossed her lightly over one shoulder and headed for his apartment, making a short side trip to his old crypt to retrieve some things.
When Willow awoke, it had been like struggling through layers of cotton gauze. The feeling would normally have been frightening, but she had experience with this one. It was like coming out of general anesthesia-- she had to fight to stay awake at first, but eventually the clouds cleared and she sat up blinking at the light.
Or tried to, that is. At first she thought it was her intense sleepiness that kept her from sitting up completely, but as the fog began to clear, it because obvious that there was another reason she couldn't sit up. Her wrists were covered by broad black leather cuffs which were attached to the headboard of the bed by long matching leather straps. They were loose enough to allow some movement, enough even that she immediately tried to use one hand to undo the cuff on the opposite wrist, but in turning the cuff around, she discovered a small silver lock which secured the restraint. Sitting up as much as possible, she looked down the length of her body. Below her skirt, her ankles were secured in a similar fashion. It seemed she wasn't going anywhere immediately.
She scanned the room, beginning to feel a bit frightened. According to the clock on the side table and the lack of light around the edges of the heavy curtains on the window, it was two in the morning, and she was in Spike's bedroom. The comforter she had slept under two nights ago was thrown off to the floor on one side of the bed and his trench was draped over a chair in the opposite corner. It was obvious that he had brought her here and bound her to the bed, but why?
The last bit of the fog lifted and her panic caused her body to buck up in an attempt to escape as she remembered exactly what had happened at the Bronze. >Happened?< she corrected herself. >It didn't just happen.< She had wanted him, her body had needed him so much that she had let herself forget where she was and who she was. She had begged him to fuck her, up against a wall in the same dance club where she had spent her oh-so- innocent high school years.
And he had done it. Not that she was surprised by his answering lack of modesty or shame--Spike had none. But why he had been so willing to have sex with her again, especially after how disappointing she knew she'd been the first time, she just didn't understand it. He didn't lack for potential partners, she knew. He was a vampire after all, and while that certain seductive quality was missing in dozens of fledglings she'd helped to dust, the two master vampires she'd met practically embodied sex. Spike could have had any of a dozen girls at the club, and yet he had ended up with her. Since she wasn't his only option, he must have had a reason for being in the corner with her.
There were two possibilities. Either he was in that corner as her enemy or as her friend. Both options seemed questionable. She knew that the rest of the Scoobies would have no trouble in deciding the first was true, and even through her current jumble of feelings, she knew that Spike was still potentially their enemy. Until she could figure out how (or whether) to give him his soul back, he was still a demon, a predator with little or no conscience who acted according to his various lusts--for blood, for sex, for mayhem. He hated Buffy at a level which nearly rivaled Angelus' and had even developed a special loathing for Xander after having been forced to share a basement with him. So it was not beyond the realm of possibilities that Spike was up to something.
But on the other hand, his friendship for her had seemed genuine. It had been months since he had tried anything suspicious, and most of that time he had spent in her company. She had taught him how to use the internet and he had nurtured her magical skills. They had both helped one another in healing broken hearts, first his and then hers >Twice, in fact,< she reminded herself, thinking of the loss of both Oz and Tara. In these last few months, she had staunchly defended him to her friends, and he had bolstered her floundering confidence. It was difficult to imagine him having sex with her as a part of yet another plan to, if not end the world, at least make it a little more miserable. But, to be fair, it was equally difficult to imagine him having sex with her out of some sense of friendship.
Either he was an enemy who had somehow developed a sincere interest in the emotional well-being of someone he hated, or he was a friend who also just happened to be a demon. Neither seemed entirely satisfactory, although her current predicament made her lean toward a more sinister motive on the part of the blonde vampire.
Spike had heard her first waking movements from the kitchen and quietly slid just inside the door to his bedroom. The four-foot long stretch of hallway before the space opened up to the room proper shielded him from her gaze, and the mirrored surface of his closet allowed him to observe her from his position without her being able to do the same. He watched her fight off the effects of his command and then her stirring of consciousness as to where she was. He had to swallow his chuckle when he saw her memory of several hours ago come flooding back to her, the blush spreading from her face down her body until even her legs were slightly tinged with pink. The war of conflicting emotions which followed was clear on her face--her inability to hide anything made his task all the easier. And it was this moment which he had been counting on.
With anyone else, he knew that time to think could lead to clarity of thought and perhaps even an escape attempt. But he now knew the witch well enough to know that the longer he left her alone, the more time she would have to tie herself into intellectual and emotional knots. He could see the evidence of this, as her face seemed to move between an expression of intense concentration to one of equal bewilderment and back again. He knew he should leave her alone for a while longer, but the image of her, clad only in a tank top and skirt and struggling in vain against his favorite restraints, was too much of a treat for him to pass up, so he stayed put for a moment, leaning against the wall as he watched her.
Willow continued to stew about Spike's motivations, as she stared at the ceiling. She couldn't make sense of his actions, and it was beginning to frustrate her. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught movement and her head turned to follow it. In the mirror on his closet, Willow could see Spike's reflection, letting her know that the vampire was just out of her line of sight in the alcove by the door to the room. It wasn't the first time that she seen her spell in action. In fact, she had been surprised when he had been able to sneak up on her earlier in the day as she worked on the computer. His face had, no doubt, been reflected on the computer's monitor, but she had obviously been too engrossed in her work and her own thoughts to see it. It had been over a month since she'd cast the spell on him which allowed her to see the vampire in this way, and three months before that to fully work out how to do it in the first place. When she had first started her research, she had been looking for safeguards in case something happened to the chip in his head--this way, she reasoned, they all stood a better chance of seeing him coming should something happen.
That part of the spell was easy. The difficult bit had been figuring out how to add the clause that would keep him from seeing himself whenever he walked past a reflective surface. After all, if he knew they could see him in this way, he would merely pay more attention to where such potential mirrors were, rendering her spell useless. By the time she was ready to cast the spell though, she felt a little guilty about doing so. For months his behavior had been above reproach, and besides he had become her friend--at least that's what she hoped--and it wasn't nice to cast spells on your friends without their permission. In the end, the decision had been a compromise: she cast the spell in order to make sure it worked so she'd be ready in case she needed it in the future. She had intended to reverse the spell the following week, but schoolwork and Scooby-stuff had gotten in the way, so she had penciled it in on her to-do list for next week when they had a long weekend off from school.
But for now, the spell was in full force, and she found herself locking eyes for just a moment with the reflective-Spike before forcing herself to look away as though she had never seen him in the first place.
Spike froze. She could see him! The girl had looked him full in the eyes in the mirror. But that was impossible! He wasn't _in_ the mirror, hadn't been for over a century. >What the bloody hell is going on?< he demanded of no one, before turning and making a quick exit.
By the time he got to the living room, he had a full head of steam. There was only one explanation--the little witch had put some kind of whammy on him, allowing her to see him in the mirror. How she had managed to do that while tied down to a bed, he couldn't figure out. Unless... He slammed his fist into the nearest wall. >That little bitch!< She couldn't have just done this, he realized. Which meant that she had cast this little spell a while ago--without telling him. She had taken away one of the few defense mechanisms he still had after the Initiative chipped him.
>So much for bloody friendship!< he decided. He didn't know why she'd done it, and for the moment, he didn't care. He had planned on spending the next few days making up for yesterday, keeping her in a state of erotic delirium until she finally admitted that she was his--making her feel things that her body, heart and soul had never imagined. But now, his red-hot anger drove away that desire.
Willow pretended not to see him leave the room, but as soon as he had, she turned her attention back to the cuffs that bound her. She had been so jumbled up trying to figure out why he brought her here that she had forgotten her own skills. But seeing him in the mirror reminded her of her power, and she began to gather herself together to focus that energy on the restraints. From the other room, she heard a muffled curse and then a crash, but her training allowed her to shut those out long enough to complete the spell. Her eyes closed as she created the necessary vision of the locks in her mind and uttered the necessary incantation. She opened her eyes as she finished, eager to undo the cuffs, but what she saw made any kind of action seem impossible.
Spike was standing over her with a look of fury on his transformed face that terrified her. He leaned down and grabbed one of her wrists and then turned it so she could see the still-fastened lock.
"Magic-proof, _pet_" he said, his voice giving the normally affectionate word a malevolent quality. "Used to be mine and Dru's, you see, and she did have a few tricks up her sleeve." He moved onto the bed and straddled her chest, looking down on her. "Just like you, it seems." He took the key out of his back pocket and undid the lock, tossing the cuff to one side and repeating the action on her other wrist. "If you wanted out of these things, all you had to do is ask." He moved back off of her and quickly unlocked both her ankles. "We are _friends_, after all, aren't we, _luv_?"
The tone of his voice made Willow shiver in terror. Only Angelus talked like that, turning an endearment into something evil, and only when he was about to do something unspeakable. Her body tensed as she watched him. But when the cuffs fell from her ankles, he only picked her shoes and put them on her feet, not even looking at her.
When he was finished, he turned back to her, and she scrambled back against the headboard into a defensive posture. He walked to the head of the bed and grabbed her, pulling her up off the bed to a standing position, his fingers digging into the flesh of her arms. He shook her once to get her attention, and when she looked up at him, he kissed her brutally, his mouth punishing hers. She could feel her lips bruising under his and she whimpered in pain and fear.
And then suddenly, it was over. He thrust her away from him and, in a low voice, uttered two words that cut through her soul.
"Get out."
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