Feeding Habits

By Medea

Chapter Two

Spike spent the following five days as a bunny rabbit.

When he and Willow had returned from the park just before dawn, a very angry sire awaited him. Without so much as a gentle reassurance to Willow, Angel had yanked his childe away from her and threw the blond vampire halfway across the lobby. After roughing him up for the trouble he had caused during Buffy's brief visit, Angel had ordered Willow to cast the spell.

Willow complied, knowing that Spike was getting off easy. Although Angel might not take pleasure in disciplining his childe the way that Angelus had, he nonetheless had no qualms about employing brutality when the blond vampire crossed the line. It was only for Willow's sake that the elder vampire refrained from delving deeply into the repertoire of techniques that he knew, from extensive experience, would cause Spike the greatest pain.

And so...a bunny rabbit.

Willow had left some lettuce leaves out for him on the floor of his room, but Spike disdained the greenery and took to hunting the few mice that infested the old hotel. The redheaded minion fell into fits of giggles when she saw him pounce on a diminutive gray mouse and struggle to sink his rodent-blunt teeth into its neck. Rabbits really weren't equipped to feed as carnivores. For a brief moment, Willow considered taking some photographs with which to tease him later, but then she wondered whether or not the inability of camera film to capture vampires still held when the vampire had been conjured into another form. Not wanting to be left with snapshots of nothing more than a bloodless mouse, she abandoned the idea.

In the meantime, Willow dealt with the fallout from Spike's lack of discretion about her feeding.

Two days after Buffy's visit, Willow ventured an e-mail message to Tara and found that, yes, the news was out to the entire gang. Tara's reply was brief and somewhat awkward. She wasn't sure how to respond to the knowledge that Willow took life in order to sustain herself, although she didn't want to cut off all ties. Indeed, she mentioned that Hannah and Cyrene, the Wiccans Willow had met at a conference on that fateful weekend, were still interested in forming a coven -- albeit an unconventional one, since no coven in recorded memory had ever included a vampire. However, Tara thought that they should be told everything about Willow's behavior before things proceeded any further. Willow agreed.

The remainder of Tara's message was vague, but hinted that Giles had been particularly crushed by the revelation of Willow's killing. Willow felt a slight twinge of regret at this, knowing from her memories of human life how dear the proper, dignified Watcher had been to her old self -- to the point that he had come to serve as a stand-in for her own absent father.

But she knew that she would have to give them all time. And although she cared, she was still a vampire. She couldn't mope...not like her mentor. For his part, Angel kept her busy with the usual sparring routines, and enlisted her research skills on a new investigation into some mysterious deaths at L.A. hospitals that might involve demon activity.

On the fifth evening after Willow had cast her spell, Angel conceded that his childe had done sufficient penance and allowed her to restore him. With his clothes and duster draped over one arm Willow transformed Spike back into his original form and, knowing the hunger that was likely to grip him after a diet of nothing but mice, she bared her neck to him. Without hesitation he reached for her and drank ravenously from her vein, pulling back after several swallows so as not to take so much that he left her seriously weakened. Quickly donning his clothes, the peroxide vampire graced Willow with a brief yet sensuous kiss before dashing for the door.

Unable to resist the urge to tease him just a little, Willow called after his retreating form, "You're late, you're late, for a very important date!"

Not even breaking his stride, Spike hollered back at her, "Don't push me, little minion, or I'll give you a particularly ugly hickey!"

And with that, the blond vampire ventured out into the night to sate his needs with a very bloody hunt.

While Spike was feeding and Angel was over at the other office working with Wesley, Cordelia and Gunn, Willow logged on and checked her e-mail. A message from Cyrene was waiting for her. It was brief, and not at all what she had expected.

Subject: About the coven

Date: Wed, 21 Nov 2001

From: Cyrene Matthias <cmatthias@dharma.net>

To: Willow Rosenberg <redwillow@aurora.net>

Willow,

I'm pretty big on speaking from the heart. So I'll be honest and say that Hannah and I are sad to learn that your need for blood has led you to take lives, although it doesn't necessarily surprise us. We know it is in your nature. This makes our plans for a coven more complicated, but we've been talking with Tara and we'd still like to give it a try.

If your heart is still in it, we should all meet some time to discuss this. Maybe your place, since we're a little more mobile? The most important thing we need to focus on is balance, since your killing pretty much tips the scales toward darkness and that isn't what we're looking for. But we still think this could be worth the effort.

Let us know what you think.

Cyrene

Willow sat back, as surprised at the lack of judgment in Cyrene's tone as she was by the fact that the two Wiccans were still willing to join in communion with her. Their sadness at her killing was much easier for Willow to understand, as it went against the principle "an ye harm none, do as you will". Why would they want to form a coven with her when they knew that her methods of feeding caused about as much harm as it was possible to cause? Talk about an oxymoron...or, whatever.... Although Willow had every intention of trying to learn to meet her needs without killing, she wasn't sure how much she could promise right now.

Maybe they needed to understand that. Willow typed a quick reply.

Subject: Re: About the coven

Date: Thurs 22 Nov 2001

From: Willow Rosenberg <redwillow@aurora.net>

To: Cyrene Matthias <cmatthias@dharma.net>

Hi Cyrene,

I'm kind of surprised by your response. Not that you're sad about the killing. That I understand. But since you know it's part of my nature, I'm not sure why you want to join with me in a coven. I know I told Buffy that I would try to find new ways to feed without killing, but right now I don't know what kind of promises I can make.

Maybe we should wait until I've worked that out? Just don't want to get your hopes up yet.

Hi to Hannah...

Willow

After she sent the message, Willow spent another hour or so hacking into a the databases of the hospitals that Angel was currently researching. She found autopsy reports on fourteen patients who had died of unusual circumstances in the past three weeks. Interesting...all of them were missing substantial amounts of bone marrow. Willow copied and saved the reports, and then e-mailed them to Cordelia's account with a note for Angel suggesting that what they were looking for were Lei-ach demons. The missing bone marrow certainly fit the profile of demons that Buffy had fought in Sunnydale not too long ago.

A familiar presence hit her senses, and Willow looked up.

Spike was back from his hunt.

"Feeling better?" Willow asked him nonchalantly as he strolled over to her.

"Much," Spike replied jovially. As always, the hunt lifted his spirits. He eyed Willow curiously and remarked, "You're looking a tad paler than usual, though. Haven't you done anything to replace the blood I nicked off you?"

"Oh..." Willow realized with some surprise, "I guess I forgot. I got caught up in some other things."

"Such as?" he prompted her.

"A little research for a case Angel is working on," Willow explained, "And an e-mail from one of the Wiccans I met at the conference the night I was turned."

"Let me guess. Slayer's spread the word that your diet comes in warm, living packages instead of plastic bags, and the witch wrote to say 'don't call us, we'll call you...when hell freezes over...'. That about sum it up?" Spike surmised blithely.

"Actually, no. They're interested in forming a coven. I'm still not quite sure why. Especially after..." Willow countered, although she was unable to bring herself to mention the confrontation with Buffy.

Spike shrugged, and held out his hand to Willow to lead her back toward his room. "So they're more open-minded than the Slayer. Not saying much, really. Come on, then, let's get some blood in you."

"Let me just grab a bag from the fridge out here," Willow said, holding back, "I think Angel's supply in our suite is running low."

"Why bother, luv? I'm here," he offered.

"Are you sure? I mean, you haven't really been able to keep up your own strength for the past few days, and tonight was the first chance you've had to hunt. I can make do with bagged," Willow insisted, concerned that Spike wasn't in any condition to give of his own blood.

"There'll be enough time for 'making do' when you try your hand at skimming," Spike snorted derisively, "And you're underestimating the strength of a master vampire. I'm as good as ever."

Willow relented and slipped her hand in his, teasing him as they walked across the lobby, "You were *never* good, Spike." She squeezed his hand when this elicited a grin from her companion, and then asked, "So what do you mean by 'skimming'?"

******

Willow settled herself in at the bar in the crowded college hot-spot she had chosen for her first foray into what Spike had referred to as "skimming", or taking no more than a pint from several different humans. She almost wished he was here to coach her, since she had never attempted to drink from someone while surrounded by witnesses, and she had seen him do it with practiced ease. Yet after their last fiasco, she had firmly told him that this was something she needed to do alone.

It had been all she could do *not* to turn him back into a bunny rabbit right there on the street corner after he had sabotaged her first efforts.

What a disaster.

Instead of helping her develop the control needed to resist siphoning out every last drop of living blood, Spike had egged her on mercilessly, then quipped "oops, killed that one, too" as she discarded one man after another. Despite the guidelines Spike had offered her, as well as several demonstrations he had willingly supplied with a few unsuspecting prostitutes, Willow couldn't master the technique.

Of course, it didn't help that Spike stood by at a safe distance, yet close enough to whisper seductive descriptions of the rush he felt at a fading heartbeat. Or that he "accidentally" bit his lip once, clouding Willow's mind with the scent of his blood so that she bled one of her victims completely dry before she realized what she was doing.

And so she had refused to let him accompany her this evening and undermine her endeavor yet again. If he was actively attempting to subvert her plans to adopt a more human-friendly diet, she would be better off figuring things out on her own.

When the bartender leaned over to her she ordered a glass of red wine and then turned to survey the house. First, she took in the layout of the interior. There were pool tables up on a well-lit mezzanine level. Not a prime spot for her purposes. A myriad of sturdy wooden tables cluttered the main floor, also too open. There were several high-backed booths along one wall which might afford some privacy. But what intrigued Willow was a slightly-darkened alcove on the far side of the bar where a handful of couples danced to music while others merely groped each other against the wall. That seemed most promising of all.

Then she turned her attention to the people. As she perused the tables with the measured patience of a predator, she observed animated conversations between large groups of friends, a yearning tete-a-tete or two, drunken flirtation...

Wait a minute. What was this?

Her eyes narrowed critically on one of the tables close to the restrooms where four men who had the look of fraternity brothers about them sat cajoling two young women who seemed to have had far too much to drink. She watched the men's eyes, saw how they observed the young women expectantly, and her suspicions were confirmed.

And it absolutely irked her, as an authentic predator, to see such disgusting *human* amateurs at work in a territory that she had claimed as her own hunting grounds. Not to mention that they all reminded her of her sire.

A wicked smile stretched across her face as she decided her strategy.

Turning to flag down the bartender, she replaced her smile with an artful look of concern. He strained across the bar to hear her over the din as she gestured discreetly toward the table and commented, "Doesn't your bar have a policy about not serving alcohol to people once they've reached their limit? Those girls over there look like they're about to fall down."

The bartender frowned as he assessed the situation. One of the girls knocked over her beer as her head lolled against the man sitting next to her. The bartender's frown deepened: this was serious. Anyone in this business knew about the potential for lawsuits or criminal liability if patrons continued to be served once they were as drunk as those girls seemed to be. He waved the waitress assigned to that table over to the bar. When she finally made her way over, he demanded, "Why are you still serving them? Those girls are way past their limit."

"What do you mean, still?" the waitress defended herself, "That's the first round of beers they've ordered. Maybe they started before they got here."

"Whether they did or not isn't our concern. But don't serve them any more alcohol. Water, soft drinks, yes. Nothing more," the bartender ordered, and the waitress nodded in agreement.

By now, Willow had learned all she needed to know. Nobody got *that* drunk on one beer. One of the girls was practically comatose. And yet, strangely, none of the men seemed to have more than a slight buzz. She wondered which of the many date-rape drugs the men had used. Rohypnol? GHB? It mattered little. Willow was about to throw a serious wrench into their plans. Grasping her wine glass loosely in one hand, the redheaded vampire strolled somewhat dizzily over toward their table.

"Excuse me, Paula?" Willow addressed one of the girls, counting on the fact that she would be unable to reply.

"Her name isn't Paula," one of the men answered, obviously wary at Willow's unwelcome intrusion, "You must be mistaking her for someone else."

"Oh, gosh, that's too bad," Willow pouted, swaying until she had to prop herself up on one of the men's shoulders, "She looked like a girl from my dorm, and I was hoping to get a ride."

At Willow's inebriated display and casual mention about needing a ride the four males perked up and exchanged crafty glances that were sorely wanting in subtlety. One of them, who sported a baseball cap that he wore backwards, prompted her, "What happened to the people you came with?"

"I don't know. I think they went to another bar, and I feel soooooooo drunk, I just don't think I can stay any longer..." Willow sighed with what she hoped was a convincingly forlorn tone of voice.

The baseball-cap man grinned indulgently and said, "Tell you what. We were just about to take these ladies home. If you like, we can give you a lift."

"Well, I don't know..." Willow replied groggily and then wobbled on her feet, reeling them in.

"Come on, it won't be any trouble, and you look like you're ready to go," insisted the baseball cap.

"Totally ready," the blond seated across from him murmured with a smirk. No doubt he had expected his remark to pass unnoticed, not realizing that he was dealing with hyper-sensitive vampire hearing.

"Thanks, I really appre..." Willow let her expression of gratitude trail off into a drunken yawn, and put up no protest when one of the men stood up, draped her arm over his shoulder and began guiding her toward the door. The others followed, similarly supporting the two nearly-unconscious women.

As they staggered out onto the street and down the block toward the SUV in which the men had arrived, Willow sensed a familiar presence behind them, maintaining a safe distance. So, Spike had decided to follow her. She didn't mind, but only hoped that she could signal him somehow so that he wouldn't dash to the rescue and ruin her plan. Her chance came as they paused for the driver to unlock the doors. Turning her face away from the men and in the direction she sensed Spike, Willow flashed her demon visage briefly, knowing he would see the amber glow of her eyes. Then, she allowed herself to be coaxed into the SUV, and in minutes they were on the road.

It wasn't long before the SUV pulled to a stop in front of a large fraternity house in the university district. The baseball cap now coaxed her out of the vehicle, and half-walked-half-dragged her toward the door.

The threshold...her final hurdle.

"Wait a minute," Willow slurred her protest, "Where are we? This isn't my dorm...I'm not going in there!"

"Sshh, it's okay," came soothing lies from the baseball cap, "You passed out in the car, so we couldn't get you to tell us where you lived. We figured we could make you some coffee here, and when you sober up enough we can take you home."

"Oh...are you sure?" Willow asked.

"Yeah, come on in. It will only be for a little while."

Willow laughed inwardly. This was too easy.

They entered the house and walked past a spacious living room where some of the other male residents were watching a movie with the lights out. No one really acknowledged their passage through the common areas, even those who passed by with beers in their hands and saw clearly that their housemates had returned with incapacitated females. With disgust, Willow surmised that this had occurred more than once before in this house.

After making their way up the stairs, the group arrived in a large bedroom that looked like it was shared by the four men. There were two single beds near the door and a bunk bed over by the far wall. Even before the door had closed behind them, Willow saw one of the men lower one of the women, who was by now fully unconscious, to the bed and begin fumbling with his belt. The baseball cap was likewise trying to ease Willow down onto a bed, urging her to "sleep it off".

And that was when she struck. In the dimly-lit room she was able to sink her fangs into his neck and drink nearly a pint and a half without calling attention to herself. When the baseball cap passed out, she stopped.

Swift as death, she delivered a succession of blows to the skulls of the remaining three men, not hard enough to kill them but sufficient to knock them out. Just as the last one slumped to the bed, Willow heard the doorknob turning and readied herself to attack whoever stepped through the door.

She grinned, slightly taken aback, when Spike let himself into the room, surveyed the fallen humans with amusement, and shut the door behind him.

"How on earth did you get in here?" Willow asked curiously.

"Told the bloke at the front door I was here to buy some cocaine, and he waved me right in," Spike shrugged nonchalantly. Seeing the incredulous look in her eyes, he added, "Oh, come on, luv, don't look surprised. This is a bloody frat house. And might I say, I'm not terribly impressed with your taste in companions this evening."

"They irritated me. Pathetic little amateurs..." Willow spat contemptuously.

"Oh, I see...interrupted some stalking, eh?" Spike chuckled, "Well, hurry up, then. Do your thing so we can go someplace more interesting."

Willow drained a little over a pint-and-a-half from each of the three men -- just enough to ensure that they wouldn't awaken any time soon, and that when they did, they would have difficulty remembering the evening's events. As she looked down at their prone forms and licked the last traces of their blood from her lips, and idea came to her.

"Spike...give me a few more minutes..." she requested with an absolutely sinful gleam in her eyes.

He arched an eyebrow at her and leaned comfortably against the door, fully intrigued. As he watched her strip the four men naked and arrange them in compromising positions with each other on the beds, it was all the blond vampire could do to keep from laughing out loud. Willow cupped their hands on each other's balls, rested heads on shoulders, and draped arms intimately across naked torsos. It was a wickedly-beautiful sight to behold.

"And you told me *I* should be a sculptor," Spike grinned, "You're an artist in your own right, luv."

"This does have a certain pleasing aesthetic to it, doesn't it?" Willow agreed. As the two vampires moved to leave, Willow paused and, gesturing to the unconscious women, asked, "What about them?"

"Not really our concern, is it?" Spike shrugged indifferently.

Still, Willow hesitated, experiencing momentary flashbacks to a lone woman waiting at a bus stop late at night. Resolved, she told Spike, "We're taking them with us. We can drop them at any dorm in the area."

Hands on his hips, Spike stared in disbelief at the beautiful redheaded demon who had proven to be such a fascinating, if sometimes maddening, mix of contradictions. He didn't know whether to laugh or scream.

"You're joking, right?" he prodded her. When he received only her "resolve" face in reply, his eyes narrowed. "Willow, don't tell me that in addition to finding ways to feed without killing, you are going to *insist* on rescuing damsels in distress while you're at it."

"I'm not leaving them here," Willow insisted stubbornly.

"Why the hell do you even care?!" Spike hissed in frustration.

"Because they remind me of a situation I was in, not so long ago!" Willow snarled back at him.

Spike froze, and the fight seemed to drain out of him. After a few moments he murmured softly, "Are you really that unhappy, little minion? Do you return to that moment every night and wish that it could have turned out differently?"

Willow expelled an unnecessary sigh as the tension between them dissipated. "No...I don't dwell on the past. Honestly, I really don't know how I would change the events of that night if given the chance. But it's irrelevant because I *can't* change any of it, and I need to learn to deal with who I am now."

She stepped closer to Spike and took his hand in hers, stroking his palm gently with her thumb. "And I'm not unhappy, Spike. *You* make me happy. Angel makes me happy."

At the mention of his sire Spike scowled somewhat and grumbled, "I don't see how *he* can make you happy when it's because of him that you've got yourself all twisted up in knots, trying to be something other than what you are. You're a killer, luv. You'll never be able to please him, because you can never be what he is. He has a soul. You don't."

"And I'll never be able to please you," Willow rebuked him softly, "Your demon is strong. Mine isn't. And I don't know that I want it to be. We've argued enough about this already, Spike. I'm not like either of you. I just have to figure out what's right for me...and this is part of it..."

Gazing down at her, Spike raised their joined hands to his mouth and brushed a kiss against her palm. With his free hand, he caressed her cheek and proposed, "Enough. I'll help you with the two birds here if you'll agree to call it quits for the evening and come back with me. We can spend the rest of the night pleasing each other."

Willow smiled and just before she captured his mouth with hers in a slow, sensual kiss, she agreed, "Deal."

When Spike reluctantly pulled away, he conceded with resignation, "Come on, then. Let's get Sleeping Beauty and her sister to a hospital."

"Hospital?" Willow queried, caught off guard.

"Listen to their breathing, luv, you can barely detect it," Spike explained, and as they both paused and Willow strained to hear the familiar sounds of respiration she realized that he was right. He continued, "If we're going to play the bloody heroes tonight, we might as well do it proper."

"It must have been the drugs," Willow surmised.

Spike nodded as he reached to pick up one of the women. "The sorts of drugs these blokes most likely slipped them don't mix well with alcohol."

Willow pulled the other woman up and held her close as she and Spike made their way back down the stairs and toward the door. Once again, Willow observed that they attracted a few curious glances, but no one moved to stop them. She surveyed the indifferent human residents of the house with contempt. At least vampires cared about what went on in their own lairs.

*****

Down in the dojo, Angel sensed his childe and Willow as they entered the hotel and furrowed his brow, perplexed. He had thought that Willow was going out on her own this evening. Setting aside the sword with which he had been practicing, the dark vampire mounted the stairs to investigate. He found them just as they passed the suite he shared with Willow, evidently on their way to Spike's room. Angel experienced a twinge of concern, hoping that Spike hadn't caught up with her and persuaded her to kill.

"Willow?" Angel called after them, "How did it go?"

The couple paused and turned around to face him, hands still joined. Willow beamed proudly back at her mentor and proclaimed, "I didn't kill a single person, Angel...although it's been a rather *interesting* evening."

"That's putting it mildly," Spike chuckled, letting go of her hand so he could wrap his arms around her waist from behind and nuzzle the tender skin beneath her ear. "You couldn't just leave it at *not killing*, you had to save a life or two while you were at it. You're going to give us evil vamps a bad name..." he teased.

"What happened?" Angel asked, fully bewildered.

Before Willow could relate the events of their trip to the hospital emergency room, Spike tilted her chin up, shook his head and silenced her with a brief kiss. He then cast a provocative glance at his sire and quipped, "Sorry, mate, she'll have to fill you in tomorrow. I plan to have my tongue so far down her throat that she won't be doing much talking for the rest of the night. Don't worry, she was a real chip off the old Poof this evening."

With that, the blond vampire grabbed his startled companion, slung her over his shoulder, and started back toward his room. Willow half-giggled, half-squealed in protest, "Spike! Put me down! You're a vampire, not a Neanderthal!!"

"There's a difference, luv?" he teased coyly.

Angel stood dumbstruck as he watched them disappear behind Spike's door as it shut and then locked. Slowly, the elder vampire folded his arms across his chest and narrowed his eyes as he continued to stare at the closed door. His childe was up to something, of that he was certain. That possessive display had been entirely for his benefit, Angel knew, and he resolved to find out what was going on the next evening.

A loud thump rattled the door on its hinges, and Angel turned away in disgust.

<Thanks for sharing, Spike.>

The dark vampire wondered if his troublesome childe would ever discover that there was such a thing as finesse.

*****

Spike braced Willow against his closed door and ravaged her mouth. Determined to drive all thoughts of his sire out of her mind, he commenced an intimate onslaught on her body that he would continue well into the morning.

If only for this brief while, he wanted Willow to desire no one but him.

Still pressing her between the cold wood of the door and his firm chest, Spike nibbled his way to her ear and whispered harshly, "Fuck, you realize what you do to me?"

Willow tensed with pleasure as her lover sucked savagely at the tender skin of her neck, not drawing blood but causing just enough pain to make her groan. Shivering with desire, she croaked urgently, "Why don't you show me?"

Spike fixed her with a hungry stare. The feral grin that widened across his face left no doubt that he had picked up the gauntlet. Stepping away from the door, he let Willow slide down his body until her feet touched the floor. Gently but insistently, he pulled her toward the foot of the bed and left her standing there while he went to his closet and returned with a black silk scarf.

"What--?" Willow began to ask, before Spike cut her off. Swooping down on her like a hawk, he forced his tongue into her mouth, pulled her against him and thrust his leg between her thighs. He held her firmly, grinding her against his quad until the scent of her arousal permeated the room.

At last, Spike released her. As he tied the scarf tightly over her eyes he murmured, "No thinking. No questioning. Just feel."

If she had needed to breathe, Willow knew that she would have been reduced to shallow panting by now. Trapped in darkness, she waited, eager for touch. Wanting him. Aching for him.

She felt cool hands caress her face, glide down her neck, and across her shoulders as thumbs teasingly traced her collar bone. His hands continued down to fondle her breasts, tracing the erect nipples through the fabric of the simple tank dress she had worn for the hunt that evening. Hands and fingers were replaced by mouth, and wetness seeped from her center as Willow felt Spike's tongue tease first one nipple, and then the other, into hard peaks.

She gasped in anticipation when she felt his hands brush at the hem of her dress and slowly raise it up, his fingers dragging along her inner thighs. Leaving the material bunched up around her hips, his hands trailed sensuously across her belly and down to the juncture of her legs. Still suckling her through the now-soaked dress, Spike teased the peach-soft skin at the crease of her thigh briefly before slipping his fingers beneath the elastic of her panties. Suckling turned to biting, and Willow moaned as she felt blood pool at her nipple and stain her dress. Long, slender fingers stroked between her slick folds, thrusting languidly before plunging deeply into her core.

"Spike!" Willow howled, arching into him. She was so close.

"All yours," he purred back. His demon gloated triumphantly at the wanton need that his erotic play had aroused in her. Dispensing with tenderness, he ripped at her panties until they fell away in tatters, and then fucked her with his hand until she screamed his name again in release.

Pushing her down on the bed, Spike swiftly covered her body with his own and kissed her mercilessly. Willow felt him raise up long enough to slide her dress further up over her breasts, until it stretched taut across her shoulders. Lying blind beneath him, her arms pinned to her sides by the tension of the material bunched around her upper torso, Willow shivered at the sensation of cool fingers tugging gently at the satin panel of her bra. Fingertips slid feather-light over her skin as the fabric was peeled away, leaving her breasts naked but straining upward from the pressure of the underwire. Willow hissed her approval as lips closed around a sensitive, exposed nub and began a gentle, rhythmic suction.

She let out a strangle cry of frustration when the lips pulled away, leaving her glistening nipple to cool in the air. Unseen, phantom hands finished undressing her, and she quivered eagerly as she heard the sounds of Spike's clothes as they fell, piece by piece, to the floor.

But his familiar weight didn't return to press down on her right away. Instead, Willow strained to comprehend the faint sounds he made as he shuffled briefly through the drawer of the nightstand by the bed. She heard the distinctive scratch of a match being struck. She smelled a hint of orange-and-spice scented wax.

She waited.

An agonizing eternity seemed to pass. Willow lay tense upon the sheets, her body begging to be touched.

Fire.

A searing, white-hot bead of liquid stung the vulnerable skin just above her navel. Startled, Willow sucked in an unneeded breath. As it started to cool, another scalding drop fell on a nipple, ripping a passionate shriek from her mouth. Molten droplets continued to shower down on her, scattered in tortuously slow intervals. On her ankle. On the tender crease at her elbow. In the trembling hollow at the center of her collar bone. At the crest of her hip.

It was too much to bear.

Willow screamed, desperate with lust. "Spike!...Please...Oh, God, please!!!"

"What do you want, my sweet?" his voice caressed her seductively through the blindfold-imposed darkness.

"You...please...now...oh, God, if you don't take me soon--"

"Shh..." Spike soothed gently as he parted her thighs and positioned himself, "You only need ask, and you have me. Any time you want, Willow. I can give you what you need, tonight...every night...any time you want it."

He entered her with a forceful thrust and captured her lips in a ravenous kiss. Willow wrapped her legs around his hips and matched him with frenzied vigor. She kneaded his tight ass so greedily that her nails drew blood, eliciting a growl of pleasure from her lover. Their heated union built rapidly to its crescendo, until their ragged cries of ecstasy mingled in the room.

Willow lay shaking beneath him, licking and biting hungrily at his mouth as she eased down from her climax. "So good..." she moaned.

"So much to teach you..." Spike growled, his arms wrapped possessively around her.

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