TITLE:  In His Bed

AUTHOR:  Annalore

RATING:  NC-17

DISCLAIMER:  Needless to say, the characters in this story do not
belong to me.  They are the property of Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy
and 20th Century Fox, and I'm sure UPN has some sort of rights to
them... 

PART:  1/1

SPOILERS:  situational for Smashed and Wrecked

SUMMARY: Buffy tries to comes to terms with what's happened.

FEEDBACK: would be greatly appreciated.

DEDICATIONS: To Anna for inspiring me and Heller for helping me.


________________________________________

Buffy stood outside the crypt, debating whether or not she should go
through with it.  She had a plan.  A really good plan.  There was no
way he could find fault with it, no way he could pick apart her
reasoning.  Her face fell.  Spike always found a hole in her reasoning.
He could always see right through her.  It wasn't going to work.  She
turned to leave.  She stopped.  Maybe this time it would be different.
She really had thought this all through.  It made sense.  It was the
only thing that made sense.  He'd have to accept her terms.  He said he
wanted her.  He said he was waiting for her to come crawling back to
him.  Well, here she was, practically on her hands and knees.  And in
her brand new skirt, too.  She tugged open the door.  No going back
now.


Spike jumped up as Buffy walked into his crypt.  He hadn't expected to
see her for a while, and certainly hadn't expected her to look so calm.
He was about to throw out a customary sarcastic greeting, when she
shook her head slightly.  So that's how she wanted to play this.  He
could oblige.

She walked over to the chair he'd been sitting in, and perched herself
on the edge.  "I've been thinking, Spike.  One of the big reasons I
thought I had to avoid this thing with you is how it was putting the
people I love in danger."

He opened his mouth to protest that, and she held her hand out.

"Don't. Talk. I'm trying to say something.  I left Dawn all alone, that
night.  Anything could have happened to her.  I can't do that again."
She paused and took a deep breath.  "But I do want you.  I think, I can
have you.  I just have to be responsible about it."

He nodded slightly, not quite knowing what she was getting at.

"So, here are the rules.  I have to be home by 9.  I can't leave the
house before dark.  If you're not asleep, I might have some time during
the days.  Between 8 and 3.  You have to understand, Dawn's gotta come
first."

"I do understand," he responded, "I love 'er too.  I swore to protect
her til the end of the world, didn't I?"

"Yeah, you did," she said, realizing she had been holding her breath.
She smiled lightly.  This had turned out much better than she thought.
She'd expected it to be hard, or that he wouldn't listen to what she
had to say.  She thought he might be hurt by what she was offering him.
She knew he wanted more than that from her.  She'd almost started to
relax, but she got worried again.  He was letting her off easy.  Why
was he letting her off easy?  It wasn't like him, not at all.

"So, you wanna?" he asked, his trademark smirk in place.

For a second, she honestly didn't know what he was talking about, she'd
been so lost in her thoughts.  When she finally did get it, she
recoiled.  "Spike!  Why do you always have to...?"

"Bring having sex into your 'scheduling our sex lives' monologue?  How
inappropriate of me."

She glared at him with as much intensity as she could muster.  He only
laughed, and repeated "So?"

After a slight pause, she replied, "God, yes."


She threw her head back into the pillow, her moans reaching a fever
pitch as he moved over her, immersing her in the type of ecstasy she'd
only known on that one other night, with him.  She gulped in air
desperately, her voice rising in broken cries and half formed pleas,
and finally to a full out scream as she went over the precipice, wave
after wave of pleasure buffeting her, as the ground rushed up to meet
her falling body with dizzying speed.

She returned to herself slowly, her breath coming in gulps, trying to
steady frazzled nerves.  "Oh.  Wow." was all she could manage to get
out.  Her head was still rolled back on the pillow, her eyes directed
at the top of the headboard.  Her legs had slid out of the position
he'd forced them into and her arms lay limp at her sides.  Her skin was
covered in a sheen of sweat, and her face was flushed.  He was spread
out at her side, his arm strewn casually over her stomach, his head
tucked into the groove of her shoulder.

She looked down at him, and was suprised when the panic didn't surface
immediately.  The badness and wrongness of this whole thing didn't
strike her all at once, like it had the first time.  She felt better
than she had in a long time, actually.  She felt peaceful.  Relaxed.
That's when she started to freak out.  Suddenly, lying entangled with
Spike wasn't comforting, it was suffocating.  She needed to get out of
there, and fast.  She pushed aside the hand that was languidly stroking
her and rolled out of the bed.  She could feel his eyes burning into
her back as she gathered her clothes and got dressed.  As she went to
the exit, it became too much for her, and she glanced back at him.  Big
mistake.  Her breath caught in her throat and her eyes started to
sting.  Tearing herself away, she left.  She only started breathing
again when she was out in the sunlight.


It had been a day.  A normal day, full of normal things to do: get Dawn
out to school, make sure Willow was okay, clean the house even though
it was spotless, pick up Dawn, check on Willow again.  A boring day.
Her mind kept drifting back to the night before.  Her attention kept
straying to Spike.  To Spike's lips, and the way he kissed her.
Spike's hands, and the way he touched her.  Spike's voice, as he
whispered sweet words and dirty phrases into her ear.  She managed to
last a day before going back to him.  But, to be fair, she hadn't
promised herself that she would stay away.  She hadn't told herself
that it would never happen again.

It was midnight by the time she finally crept into his crypt after a
grueling patrol.  She found him sitting in front of his television,
staring at the blank screen, cigarette butts and empty beer bottles
littering the ground around him.

"You're back," he observed.

"You let me leave," she shot back, surprised by the accusation in her
own words.

"We're playing by your rules now, or don't you remember?" he pointedly
asked.

"Willow's visiting her mother and Dawn's staying at a friend's for the
weekend."

"And, let me guess, you got bored?"

"No.  I got lonely."

He finally turned around to look at her.  "Come here, luv."  Despite
herself she walked over to his chair and stood in front of him.  He
beckoned her closer, and she obeyed yet again.

"Sit."

She sat down on his lap gingerly, folding her legs beneath her.
"What?"

He tenderly ran his hand through her hair, forgetting the harsh words
he'd been planning on confronting her with.  She completely disarmed
him.

"You don't have to be alone, Buffy."

"You know this isn't right, Spike."

"I thought we went over that already..."

"No, no...  not *that*... it's not right for me to use you like this."

Her statement gave him pause.  He'd known she was doing it, of course,
but for her to know it too, and admit it...  In a strangled whisper he
said, "Let me worry about that.  Everything I have, Buffy, everything I
am, is yours."

She leaned into him, the long golden hair that he loved so much falling
down to frame her face.  She placed one hand at the back of his neck,
and drawing his head closer to hers, she kissed him, her eyes never
leaving his.  She looked even younger than she usually did, so unsure
and vulnerable.  She kissed him as if it were her first ever, and she
was just learning how it all worked.  As the kiss went on and grew in
intensity, modesty was replaced by abandon.  When Spike's hands found
the hem of her shirt and traveled up her back, she gasped and then
murmured "It's okay.  It'll be okay..."


Afterwards, she lay on her stomach, her hands folded under her head,
which was turned sideways to face him.  He was lying on his side, one
arm stretched out across the pillows and the other draped over her
back, just above the gentle swell of her bottom.  She smiled slightly,
yawning.  He smiled back at her.

She opened her mouth, as if to speak, but closed it without saying
anything.  After a minute, she tried again, but getting no further she
arranged her face in an expression of defeat.

"What?" he asked.

"I don't want to ruin this," she admitted in a whisper.  "And I know
that one us will."

He ran his hand up her spine, caressing her silky smooth skin as he
went, and tangled his fingers in her hair.  He stayed in that position.

After a few minutes of silence, Buffy demanded, "Aren't you going to
say something?"

"I can't make it alright for you, luv.  You have to do that yourself."

"I don't know what I'm doing here, Spike.  I don't know why I suddenly
care...  Why I don't want to hurt you.  But I like this."

"Nice to know I'm still doing something right," he said, half
truthfully, half trying to raise a smile.

"Spike, you're a pig," she shot back. "You know that's not what I
meant.  Although, that is kinda nice too..."  She looked over at him
with fire in her eyes.  All the hesitence and languor had gone out of
her demeanor and he knew she wanted him again.  He liked that she let
herself relax and let go while she was with him.  It meant that she
trusted him.  He'd told her once that she'd be better off when she
realized what kind of girl she really was.  And he'd been right.


It was close to sunrise when she woke up.  She'd spent another night
with Spike, this time in his bed, having sought him out, rather than in
a collapsed building after a spur of the moment tryst.  And what a
night it had been, she recalled as she stretched her aching limbs.  Sex
with Spike didn't seem to be one of those things where the novelty wore
off.  As she got up and looked around for her clothes, he reached over
to the empty side of the bed and, not finding her there, his eyes
drifted open.

"Leaving so soon, luv?"

"I've been here all night, Spike."

"You said you were free for the weekend."

She turned to face him, letting her eyes flood with emotion.
Loneliness, resentment, regret, hurt, and finally desire swam across
those magnificant eyes of hers.

"I never said I'd stay."

"You have nowhere else to be."

Her eyes sparked with anger and she turned away again to pick up a
stray article of clothing.  "I have plenty of places to be, all of them
better than here."

A look of hurt flashed across his face, and she felt bad momentarily,
remembering her earlier words.

"Let me go, Spike," she whispered, "let me go."

"Right," he said hollowly, "the rules.  How could I have forgotten?"

He turned his head away from her and she dressed in silence, feeling
oddly disappointed.  She didn't see the pain in his eyes when he
finally returned his gaze to her.  This time, she didn't look back.


It was only a few hours later when she crept back into the crypt and
back down the ladder.  When she got to his 'bedroom' she paused.  He
was sitting on his bed, staring morosely at the opposite wall.  He
didn't move when she entered, but even though he didn't acknowledge
her, she knew that he was aware of her presence.  He always was.

She started to walk over to him but she stopped herself halfway to the
bed.  She didn't want to get into that again.  She knew what would
happen.  It was the same thing that always happened.

"I don't know... why... I do this, Spike."

"And you expect me to be sypmathetic, solve all your problems?"

"No, I..."  As she searched for the words, the right way to describe
what she was feeling, his voice cut harshly across her thoughts.

"We both know why you're here, Slayer.  Might as well just admit it."

She unconsciously lifted her hand, palm turned out, to reach for him.
A gesture of... what, exactly?  Did she want him to forgive her?

"And I'm not coming to you, either, so you can forget that."

She let her hand flutter back down to her side, chastened.  She didn't
know why she was back here again, if not for that.

"We're playing by your rules," his voice continued -- was he really
saying it?  She heard the words, but they didn't seem connected to
reality.  Her rules didn't resemble this.  Her rules didn't include
feeling bad when she left him and missing him afterwards.  Her rules
didn't have provisions for caring about him.

She took a step towards the bed.

"I'll give you anything, everything, you want.  You just have to tell
me what that is."

Another step.  She found her voice again, but just barely.

"When I figure that out..."  She left it open ended.  She didn't know
what she'd do if she ever really knew what she wanted.  It'd been so
long since she had.

There was a long pause, in both speech and movement, then he asked
expectantly, "Are you coming over here or what?"

He wasn't even fighting it anymore.  Neither was she.  In a flash, she
was standing between his legs, his arms wrapped loosely around her
hips, his face upturned to recieve her desperate kisses.  Her hands
closed convulsively over his shoulders, and when she finally pulled
away to catch her breath, he could see her eyes glistening in the soft
lighting.


Her eyes shut and her lips pressed tightly together, she concentrated
on the movement of her hips, pushing everything else out of her mind.
Up, down, just that way...  again, more, harder.  A bead of sweat
trickled down her face.  To think, that she could get off on this...
Muscles tighten, just so.  No time to look down at him... she had a
rhythm to keep up.  His hands made their way to where her knees were
braced against his sides, not restricting, not forcing, just touching.
She moved faster, inviting the almost pleasure/almost pain the motion
brought.  If she stopped, even for one second, it would all be... all
be... she swallowed the scream before it left her mouth.

Her muscles contracted in violent spasms as she struggled to keep the
motion going.  The intensity built to painful levels and she lost
herself in it, not noticing the tears sliding down her face or the
rawness of her throat as she gasped for air, not even noticing when his
fingers dug into her flesh, the nails breaking little cresents in the
soft skin at the back of her calves.  Sweet relief flooded her system
as the spasms receeded and she leaned against him, touching her
forehead to his chest, trying to come back to herself.  The steadying
breaths felt like fire in her windpipe, but calmed her nerves
considerably.  Intense night.  Way too intense for words.  She couldn't
just...  she moved off of him, rolling herself into a lying position at
his side.  Trouble moving.  Not good for walks through cemetaries.

He glanced over at her as if they had not just had some of the most
amazing sex of her life and said, "I expect you'll be leaving now."

How could he be so normal after that?  How could he be so *casual*?
She knew, though, that it was his way of defending himself, just as
running away was hers.  But she wasn't running now.  Couldn't if she
wanted do, probably.  She didn't want to run.  Finally.  Each time she
gave herself to him, she'd come nearer to the decision she was about to
make.  Every time she came here she thought, "Will this be the time I
give in?"  And now the answer was finally yes.  Would it really be that
bad?

"No, I'm not."  The shocked look on his face as she said it was almost
worth it.  The tremor in his voice as he told her he loved her was more
than worth it.  He never used to say it.  She'd known he did, of
course, but he hadn't ever reminded her.  Maybe he thought she wouldn't
want to hear it.  Maybe she hadn't wanted to.  But now...  Even though
she had no clue what she was doing with him, much less how she felt
about it, she loved that he he loved her.  And he knew it.  So he said
it, often.  She wasn't sure why.  Maybe it was like those silly little
things they whispered at each other every so often.  I've never wanted
anyone more than you.  I need you now.  Touch me there.  Your skin's
like fire.  Your lips are like ice.  I want you.  I hate you.  I love
you.

She moved closer to him, pillowing her head on his chest, to show the
veracity of her statement.  As she let her eyes drift closed, she felt
his arm slide around her.  Now that he knew she wasn't going right
away, he had dropped the act.  He was as spent, as completely and
utterly satisfied as she was.

Absently tracing random patterns on her skin with his fingers, he
asked, "Why're you staying?"

"It's nice, here, and..." she broke off, wishing she knew what her
reasons were.  She'd started this thing with Spike for the sex.  The
passionate, mindblowing sex, but still just the sex.  She'd come to his
crypt after patrol, hot under the skin and seeking the thrill that
killing vamps and demons used to give her.  She'd come after squaring
away the household chores.  She'd come after sneaking out in the middle
of the day.  She'd leave, after, telling herself that she'd gotten what
she wanted from him.  That the rules had been followed, and she was
happy.  But she always came back in desperation, seeking the thrill and
the release he never failed to give her.  She'd been lying to herself.
It never had been about the rules, this thing between them.  It was
about what they did when they were together, not when they met and how
they parted.  It was about this moment, here in his bed.  She liked
lying here.  She liked not feeling like she had to rush off right away.
She liked being able to sleep the rush off with him next to her,
instead having to lose something of what he'd given her on the walk to
her house, and the process of saying good night to Dawn, and seeing if
Willow was all right.  It's not that she resented those things, but she
wanted to have some time in between her two worlds.

"It's just so much to deal with," she settled on.

"And you're amazing for dealing with it all," he whispered, his hand
continuing the rhythmic motion on her back, "God, I love you Buffy."

She wanted so badly to have something to say back to him.  She felt he
deserved it, somehow.  But he didn't expect that from her.  He didn't
expect anything from her.  He took every little thing she gave him as a
gift, something precious.  For the first time, she thought it was wrong
that he had this attitude.  For the first time, she wanted him to
expect something out of her.  Maybe it meant nothing, she told herself
as she drifted to sleep.  Maybe none of this meant anything.  Maybe,
she thought, as his arm tightened around her waist, it meant
everything.

End.