Disclaimer: Not my characters, Joss Whedon’s. Never owned ‘em, never will. No copyright infringement intended. This is, as ever, femfanfic, impure and simple. I should note this was written in the early summer of 1998 after the events of Becoming, Part II but well before the premier ep of season three, Anne aired.
Warning: Not only is this not for those under 18, this is not for the fainthearted. "We’re talking…adult content here," as Buffy said in WTTHM. The warnings are meant to keep the underaged and those who might be offended from this page. If you somehow managed to circumvent the warnings before your 18th birthday, or if you are uncomfortable with explicit material, Turn Back Now!
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...on the Highway of...
of
Buffy and Spike Redux
part 5
She began the hunt that night, after her shift at the bar ended. Spike and Xander went along. She didn't need them, and they knew it, but she smiled at them as if grateful for the company. A soothing falsehood. They didn't call her on it.
Dressed in another pair of jeans, a sleeveless T-shirt and a pair of her more moderate platforms, Buffy prowled around the edges of the neighborhood, restlessly, until some unknown signal set her off. They watched as she stiffened and headed down a particular street, walking quickly, then breaking into a run. Spike and Xander followed her down the street, across it, over two more blocks until she stopped in front of the middle door in a row of three abandoned houses, and kicked open the boarded-up entrance.
The group that had made this place their nest were all assembled in the living room, about to gorge on a couple of terrified runaways picked up off the street. The kids, a boy and girl, looked thin, tired, hungry, and fifteen years old at best. They had doubtless been lured here with a promise of hot food. Buffy found her anger surging. The vampires did not welcome the interruption. Buffy did not care.
"When will you learn?" she told them, shaking her head. "Eating on the run --or, on the runaway-- is not of the good. Sorta begs for a case of indigestion."
"Who the hell are you?" demanded one of the vamps, a guy whose long, stringy hair, multiple strands of beads, and flared bell-bottoms made him look like a refugee from a '60's love in. Which, doubtless, he was.
"Your case of indigestion," she smiled, whipping out her stake.
Buffy dove into the center of the group, pulling the girl out of a deadly embrace, and sending the first vamp into the two demons holding the boy between them. Spike went after a third who was attacking Buffy from behind, while Xander dodged in and tried to get the two kids on their feet and out the door. A few of the vampires objected to this. Xander knocked then out, and got them away.
By the time Spike finished off the two opponents who had targeted him, and Xander returned from hustling the living banquet down the block and on the way to a shelter for homeless teens, Buffy had finished off the others. Spike and Xander exchanged uneasy glances. It was the human who spoke.
"So, um, you found this place, how?" Xander asked. "The Triple A for Vampires lists boarding houses these days?"
"I listened to my instincts, Xander," she told him coolly. "That's all." Buffy tucked her stake into her belt and cast a quick glance around, assuring herself that nothing had been overlooked. "C'mon," she said then. "Let's get out of here. Some of the neighbors might bother to call the police."
"Not in this area," Spike opined. "But, yeah. Let's leave."
She called it a night, after that, as far as slaying went. But she took both of them to bed again, demanding from them a performance to meet and surpass the one they had first given her.
Spike remained awake after the others had fallen asleep, cursing himself for a fool. He had known her strength from the first, even when he thought his own a match for it. But he had also known her reluctance, and hesitation and fear. Even in their training bouts, he had realized that she just wasn't at her peak. Last night, she had had her hands full with three vamps, although she hadn't needed his assistance then, either.
Tonight had been different. Tonight she had been death incarnate to her enemies. God alone knew what she would be to her friends. Or lovers.
Because Spike was certain that there was a connection to the fact that she had allowed herself to be made love to by himself and Xander at the same time and this new, unlooked for power. Something deep within the Slayer had been unleashed with the unleashing of her darkest passions. The nest she had destroyed tonight was merely the first that would learn to its cost what it was like to go up against the raw force of an untrammeled Slayer, even one in the dainty package presented by Buffy Summers.
Spike wondered if he himself would survive the experience.
The next weeks established new patterns. With some unexpected assistance from Spike, Xander bullied, argued and cajoled Buffy into making two quick phone calls. With Spike waiting out the daylight in the dark sanctuary of the loft, Xander drove her to one of the small towns outside L.A., at the other end of the city from where she was living. From a public phone, she spoke with Giles and Joyce just long enough to tell them she was well, and didn't need anything. That she missed them. That she loved her mother. That she could not come home just yet. She hung up the phone when they pressed for more information, fairly sure the calls had been too brief for an operator to trace, confident that her misdirection would help if they hadn't been.
Relieved on that score, Xander took steps to reassure his own parents. For their sake, he kept up the polite fiction that he was house sitting, calling each day, once or twice letting them speak to the gardener or housekeeper both of whom assured Mr. and Mrs. Harris that Xander was behaving himself. But he slipped away every evening, first to practice combat with Spike and Buffy, before her shift, then joining them afterward, on patrol.
Buffy was no longer satisfied with taking the vamps out one at a time as they rose from their graves or cornered an unsuspecting victim, although she continued to do so. But she no longer stopped at that. She sought vampires out in their nests and lairs and dens, taking on five or ten or more of them at a time, with the uneasy, but determined, assistance of her two lovers.
It struck Xander as odd, at first, that Spike joined her against his fellows, that he ruthlessly made sure no witnesses survived to carry tales of his unorthodox alliance with the Slayer. Until Xander understood that vampires had absolutely no loyalty to their own kind, that Spike was indifferent to the fate of any vampire with whom he did not have an established relationship.
So if they found Drusilla, there would be a problem. Spike told them that she had left him as soon as they got to L.A. and that he was sure she was still around. But the psychic madwoman seemed to have been swallowed by the city as completely as a starving man would swallow a loaf of bread: no crumbs of information gave a hint as to her precise whereabouts. Not that Buffy seemed inclined to pursue the matter. There were enough other battles to fight without taking on one that would inevitably lead to a conflict with Spike. Spike appreciated her forbearance.
Xander did not join Spike and Buffy in the loft after patrols, not every night. He couldn't bear making love to Buffy without her love, and yet, having experienced what it could be like in her arms, he couldn't bear not to. Watching her with Spike was, somehow, more difficult than watching her with Angel had been. Xander couldn't delude himself that she was blinded by love and would someday wake up to see the guy for the bloodsucking scum he was. Buffy knew exactly what kind of bloodsucking scum Spike was. As long as he continued to forego killing and torturing people, it didn't seem to matter to her, right now.
Sharing her with the vampire was its own circle of hell: Xander found himself participating in acts which brought him intense physical gratification even as they lacerated his soul. That Xander needed to take contraceptive precautions the vampire had no need to practice added another level of torture. Xander would stay away from them for hours, sometimes an entire day, until his need drove him back to her. Sometimes, he had her to himself, and he could forget, for a while, that he never really had her at all.
He lived for those moments when they were alone. Buffy denied him nothing, as if, unable to give him her heart, she set no limits on his use of her flesh. She drew out his fantasies, things he was almost ashamed to tell himself. Somehow, Buffy coaxed out a litany of his desires. And then she tried to become them for him.
Some of them were silly, like the time she surprised him with a half-gallon of his favorite ice-cream, a jar of cherries, a bottle of chocolate syrup, and a can of whipped cream. All of which ended up on her body before finding their way to his mouth. She had begun by placing a small scoop of ice cream on each breast, and inviting him to make his own sundae. At one point his mouth was full of candied cherry and Buffy's nipple, and he couldn't decide which to bite first.
Using the whipped cream between her thighs was a delight, the soft, cool texture of the cream against the heat of her body sensuous on his skin as he gently massaged it into her flesh. It began to liquefy into rivulets and she was moaning softly, the way he loved, her hips beginning to rise and fall rhythmically as she ground against his fingers. Xander grinned down at her, loving her heated response. He pinched her whipped-cream covered clit between his thumb and forefinger, rolling it with gentle force, watching the confection dissolve around her heat, watching her eyes widen and her pouting mouth open to drag in breath as her pleasure began to peak and she began to scream. Then he moved swiftly, parting her thighs wider to accommodate his broad shoulders, lifting her hips in his large, strong hands, devouring the Buffy-flavored cream, making her scream even more. As she climaxed for him, Xander savored his ability to make her lose control. They were both sticky-sweet when he finished, covered with sugar and chocolate and cherry flavored residues, but she held out her arms to him, uncaring of the mess, and he proceeded to make things stickier and sweeter for both of them.
Another time, she sat him in the deep well of the unshuttered window, and stripped him naked. It was late at night, but a full moon let in enough light to illuminate their activities. She set her hands inside his shirt, caressing his chest, stroking her hands down his ribs and over his abs. She pulled off the shirt, then went for his pants. When he tried to reach for the buttons of her dress, she laughed, and slapped his hands away.
"Not yet, Xand. I get to go first." Her smile was wicked and knowing, and he had to smile back.
Buffy took her time disrobing him, knowing things would be better, later, if she went slowly now. She had learned that from Spike. A moment’s melancholy gripped her. She had learned so much from Spike, and from Xander both. All about technique, and skill, and pleasure. She enjoyed what they shared, still without guilt. But she knew better than to mistake it for what had been between herself and Angel. She shook off her sad mood. The least she could give Xander was her full attention.
When she had him naked, she made him turn his back to her, and reached for the bottle of massage oil she'd slipped into the large pocket of her dress. She smiled at his appreciative groan when the stream of cool liquid hit his spine, then she proceeded to massage his shoulders and back. With another, louder, groan, Xander gave himself up to her ministrations. She enjoyed the feel of his smooth, oiled skin beneath her palms, although she could tell by the knots in his muscles that he was not as much at his ease as he would have her believe. That wasn't really surprising. Their present situation had to be tough on him.
Buffy wished, fleetingly, that things could be different. But they weren't. Could never be. So she did what she could, her clever, strong hands kneading away tension he'd barely acknowledged, stress he had tried to ignore, and when she was through, she persuaded him to turn back around and sit facing her on the sill, his back to the street beneath them.
Then Buffy stood in front of Xander and began, oh so slowly, to take off her own clothing, an ankle length floral print dress that buttoned down the front. She took her time with each tiny button, revealing a hint of lace here, a scrap of nylon there. She watched him watching her, his avid desire --so clear in his brown eyes, so evident in the totally rapt expression with which her regarded her-- only stoking her own heat.
Xander could tell by the slumberous look in her eyes, by the sultry pout of her mouth that her own arousal was escalating, and that fed his own needs. By the time Buffy allowed the garment to slide from her shoulders and pool at her feet, Xander was so hard he ached.
And then he grew harder, because she wasn't wearing her normal undergarments at all.
The white slip was pristine, virginal, as spotless as the white high-heeled pumps and stockings beneath. But just under it, he could see the darker fabric of other garments, garments that told him the pristine image was illusion, hiding deeper truths. Buffy slipped the straps off her shoulders, so that the slip followed the dress to the floor. Xander's breath caught in his throat.
The red lace bra had no nipples, so the naked tips of her breasts, already turgid and enticing, jutted towards his mouth. Her torso was bare, but about her hips was a garter belt in the same red lace as the bra, holding up the white stockings that matched her white heels, and which, by adding a touch of innocence, merely highlighted the wantonness of her costume. Panties were not a part of the ensemble.
"Buffy," Xander breathed. She smiled, leant forward, and brushed the nipple of one breast gently across his lips...then pulled away before he could open his mouth for it. His eyes narrowed. "Buffy," he said again, his tone very different. She laughed and set her own hands on her breasts, plumping them, brushing her fingers across the nipples so that they hardened even farther. She sighed softly, and let her head fall back. Teasing Xander was so much fun. And caressing herself as a way of arousing him was heightening her own arousal in a way that was new to her...and more stimulating than she had expected. He apparently agreed: Xander growled and reached for her. Buffy slipped beyond his grasp.
"Not just yet," she whispered again, reaching out a hand to push him back onto his seat on the windowsill. "I want you to watch."
"And how the hell long do you think I can stand to do that?" he demanded, passion roughening his voice.
"Let's find out," she suggested, returning her hand to the gentle massaging motion on her breasts.
He stood it longer than he expected, mesmerized by the swelling tips of her breasts, the sight of her pale hands against the red lace, the gentle swaying of her petite body, balanced on the high, high heels. She opened her green-brown eyes again, tilting her head so that her gaze met the gaze of his deep brown eyes, and then she reached out with her right hand for one of his hands, setting it on her stocking-encased thigh. The feel of her flesh through the silky fabric of the stocking was so smooth, so sensual. Xander caressed her thigh, but began to move higher, to the bare flesh above. She shook her head, guiding his hand back down. Then she moved her own hand back to her breast, but only for a moment, after which she let it trail over her naked ribs and belly, down to the nest of curls between her thighs, still holding his gaze with her own.
He watched her eyes, but could see the movement of her hand, as it gently caressed her mons, before she used two fingers to spread her secrets for his view, revealing the swelling bit of flesh hidden there. His gaze fell to that part of her.
"Can you see how wet I am for you?" she asked softly, and indeed, he could see creamy moisture bedewing her sweet body. She slipped a finger deeply inside herself, sighing, but then removed it, holding it out to him. But not too close. He thought she meant to tease him again, and decided it was time to turn the tables. He held perfectly still, luring her closer, and then moved too quickly for her to escape.
Buffy gave a soft laugh as Xander pulled her forward with his free arm about her waist, sucking the finger rich with her taste into his hungry mouth, his other hand abandoning her stockinged thigh and reaching around to cup one bare, plump buttock. He drew her up against him, crushing her breasts against his face, releasing her finger so that he could tongue each of her nipples in turn, all the while kneading the smooth flesh of her bottom with one hand, while pressing the other firmly against her back to bring her breasts within nibbling distance. Buffy began to moan, her bottom flexing against his hand.
Xander twisted to the side as he pulled her farther forward, onto his lap, forcing her legs up and around his waist, as he sat in the window seat, braced against the wall. He pulled her wet, heated center over his swollen, aching manhood, and eased her slowly down.
They were in profile to the window. The street below was dark, empty, save for an occasional car. Only one street lamp, just outside their window, remained unbroken. Pedestrians were rare. But the idea that anyone could come by, could look up, could see them, made Xander voracious for her. He drove into her swiftly, forcefully, dispensing with finesse in favor of raw power. Xander took her mouth with fierce, devouring kisses, demanding her response. Buffy clung to him, moving as urgently upon him as he moved within her. Pleasure crested for both of them with the heat and speed of lightening.
He cradled her spent body in his arms, savoring the satiny feel of her sweat-slick skin against his own damp, heated flesh. The build-up had been so intense, it wasn't surprising that neither of them had lasted long. But he knew that they were a long way from finished.
After a few moments, Xander coaxed her off his lap and back onto her feet. He moved her so that she stood in front of the window, balanced on those white high heels, had her brace her hands on the ledge, and then stood behind her. Petite as she was, this position would have been difficult, had not the heels lifted her to a most convenient angle. Xander stared at the enticing line of her back, the flair of her hips, the generous curves of her bottom, the lovely shape of her legs. Her intimate flesh was visible between her parted thighs, the difference in the angle from which he viewed them making them seem even more erotic than he always found them. And the sight of his own seed on those erotic vistas made lust burst through his brain and race along nerve endings that out to be quiescent with satisfaction.
What was it about this position that seemed to drive men mad, Buffy wondered. She remembered how heated things had been between herself and Spike when he'd made her put on a pair of platforms and had stood behind her while she faced the mirror. There had been other occasions that had been similarly torrid. Now, Xander seemed to be getting turned on again, mere minutes after they had both experienced an explosive completion, and all because she was standing with her back to him in a pair of high heels, stockings, and a garter belt. Not that this was a bad thing. Not a bad thing at all.
Xander smiled in anticipation, then found his gaze returning to the smooth, beautiful curves of her buttocks. An image of his seed lingering there raised the temperature for him immeasurably. Maybe, he thought heatedly, he should take a page from Spike's book. Why not? Why not explore one more taboo with the woman he adored?
He reached down for the bottle of massage oil she had used earlier, pouring some onto the palm of his hand. Then he parted the firm globes of her bottom, and with one oil-covered finger, pressed against the forbidden opening hidden there. Buffy took a deep breath, but didn't protest. Rather, he felt the muscles relaxing, as if inviting him to explore further. He massaged some of the oil into the opening, the used the remainder on his cock. Parting her cheeks again, he pushed the head of his cock against the small, tight orifice he had never tried before. She gave a soft cry as he probed forward against the resistant ring of muscles, slowly entering a darker, narrower, tighter place than he had ever imagined.
"Oh, Buffy," he groaned. She sighed and pushed back slowly against him, until he was seated as deeply as he could get. Reaching behind her, she took his right hand from her hip, drawing if forward until his fingers were over her clit. Then she let go, bracing her hand against the windowsill once more. Xander began to stroke the pearl of flesh between her thighs as he withdrew gently, and eased back in.
This was something else she didn't understand. Not about men; about herself. She knew why men liked doing this, why they liked forcing their pricks inside something darker, and tighter than the normal passage, something that, when she climaxed, clasped them even more strongly than her silken sheath. She didn't know why she enjoyed it. But as she felt the gorgeous pressure of Xander filling her, and as his fingers began to move on her sensitive clit, building on the orgasm she had so recently sustained, such considerations seemed unimportant. Buffy relaxed, and pushed her hips back against his groin, accommodating his rampant flesh.
He would never have believed that anything that sounded so nasty could feel so sweet. It was different from being inside her in the normal way, but he couldn't describe the difference. All Xander knew was that he loved being inside Buffy, in whatever way, whatever manner she would allow. Her sweet heat and tender flesh gloved him tightly, providing exquisite friction, exquisite pleasure. He knew, logically, that he had to be careful about hurting her, that he couldn't be too rough. But Buffy herself seemed not to care about gentleness. She thrust her hips back into his forcefully, encouraging him to let go, to be as powerful inside her as he could. Xander was not proof against her demands.
He increased the stroking pressure of his fingers against her clit as he slowly increased his rhythm inside her. She groaned her approval, tossing back her head, her hair flicking against his chest in a silken caress. He drove yet harder inside her, his need always increased by her responsiveness. He knew he wasn't going to be able to last long with her gloving him so tightly, meeting him so completely. It was almost a relief to hear the familiar, breathy cries which always presaged her climax, to feel her grinding against his fingers then thrusting her hips back forcefully against his cock in her counter stroke. Xander gave her more, moving his other hand around, and slipping a finger inside her dripping wet sheath.
She gave a small high cry, increasing her rhythm yet again, and now he began to feel the contractions of the stronger muscles of her bottom beginning to ripple as she approached her peak, and that forced his own orgasm to mount, until he was gasping harshly, breathing a labor, all his effort focused on the sweet pearl of flesh beneath his fingers, the moist femininity surrounding his hand, the exotic darkness clasping his cock. Buffy screamed, shattering, orgasm ripping into her fiercely, setting off his own. Xander cried out with her, finishing as a single car drove slowly down the street below them.
Later, they showered off together in the bath, and he carried her back to the futon and made slow, sweet love to her in a more ordinary fashion. Though there was nothing, ever, ordinary about making love to her. They fell asleep together, but dawn came all too soon, and with it, Spike. Xander found he couldn't really bear to share her that morning, so he dressed swiftly and headed home.
Spike watched the boy leave, ignoring the urge to rip his throat out. The urge was fleeting, as always, and Xander was never in any real danger. It wasn't simply that Buffy could and would kill him if he harmed Xander --Spike was under no illusions on that score. It was that losing one more person she loved would hurt her too much, and Spike was no longer capable of hurting her. He knew his time with her would be brief, and didn't want to waste it on stupid things like jealousy. He'd rather make every hour, every moment, count. So he simply stripped off, joined her on the side of the bed that Xander had not previously used, and gathered her into his arms. She was tired and sated, barely waking when he embraced her, so he forced back his own needs, kissed her tenderly, and let her sleep.
Hours later, he was not as forbearing.
Buffy had woken to find the room oven hot as L.A.'s temperatures soared once more. Leaving Spike sleeping, she sighed and headed for the refrigerator, hoping that some ice water would help her deal with the heat. She hadn't even closed the door, when instinct gave her a warning. She smiled and leaned back against Spike's cool flesh.
"It's so hot," she told him. "I thought the water would help."
"Yeah," he agreed, lifting her hair off her neck and kissing the sensitive flesh there. "But ice is better."
"There's ice in--"
"I think you could use some more," he said, reaching beyond her to the small freezer compartment that only had room for two shallow ice trays. Spike lifted one out, removed several cubes, and replaced the tray, all the while keeping Buffy close against his chest.
"What are you up to?" she asked, amused.
"Keeping you cool, of course," he told her, then belied his words by delivering another heated kiss against her neck, letting his lips travel up to her temple.
"Mmmmmmm," she sighed leaning into him, returning her ice water to the refrigerator shelf and shutting the door. "Successful, not."
"Oh, but I haven't started," he said between kisses. She turned in his arms, and lifted her face to his.
"Haven't you?" she asked as she offered him her mouth. He reached a hand behind her neck to pull her closer, but also to keep his promise. Buffy gasped in pleased surprise as she felt the cool, wet caress of the ice cubes being drawn swiftly across the back of her neck. It did indeed help her deal with the heat in the room. But it raised the heat Spike was generating by several degrees.
Spike kissed her quickly, then lifted her in his arms, still managing to keep the ice cubes in one hand. He kept her mouth fastened to his, nibbling on her lips, as he carried her to the futon, and set her down on it. Buffy vaguely registered the feel of terrycloth beneath her hips before Spike ran his cool hands over her flesh while his tongue plunged into the wet cavern of her mouth, drawing her own tongue into a lover's dance, distracting her from thinking at all.
She opened her thighs to accommodate him, and, as he often did, he moved a hand between them to toy with her clit. But this time it wasn't his hand or fingers he used against her. Buffy nearly came off the bed in reaction as her sensitive flesh was fleetingly caressed by a shard of ice. She cried out against his mouth, but he wouldn't let her go.
And after a few seconds, she didn't really want him to. She could feel his erection along the length of her thigh, but he seemed in no hurry to take her. Then, the caress came again, just hard enough to stimulate, just long enough to register the shocking temperature, just skilled enough to peak arousal without crossing the line into discomfort.
Buffy groaned against Spike's mouth and tried to pull him closer. Her tongue swirled around his, carrying their dance from the warm cavern of her mouth to the cooler recesses of his own. Another shocking caress, this time moving from her clit down the secret cleft of her body. She moaned and lifted her hips as he swiftly pushed the half-melted cube deep inside her and as swiftly removed it.
The secret to this sort of love play, Spike knew, was to move rapidly, allowing the freezing temperature to do no more than barely register against her nerve endings. He also had to move quickly to avoid damaging the delicate tissues of her inner body. Exquisite pleasure, not damage, was always his aim when he made love to Buffy. And the irony that she had so long been the one creature on earth whose death he desired above all others was not lost on him. Now she was, simply, the one creature on earth he desired above all others.
Although Dru admittedly came close.
But it was Buffy who pressed her heated body against his chill flesh right now, Buffy moaning into his mouth, Buffy giving him her heat and her fire, and Buffy he wanted to bury himself inside. He drove another shard of ice within her, and her body engulfed it hungrily. He could feel water pouring out of her as her exquisite heat dissolved the ice, which flowed out into his waiting hand and spilled onto the thick terrycloth towel. He pushed another sliver back inside, reaching farther. Buffy screamed against his mouth. Spike gave her as much as she could handle, until the cubes were reduced to mere shards and she was writhing against him in pure, delicious need. Then he tossed the remaining scraps onto the floor and drove his own cold flesh deeply inside her, finding he had primed her so well with his foreplay that she began to climax as soon as he was fully seated.
Buffy couldn't believe how shockingly hot Spike felt after the invasion of ice. He felt hotter than Xander had been, and the pleasure of having him drive into her so quickly, so forcefully, so deeply after the tormenting, exquisite caress of the ice was too much for her. She surged against him as an incredibly forceful orgasm shook her.
Spike held her tight as she came for him, savoring the feel of her pulsing heat stroking his cock, the spicy taste of her tongue and lips against his own, the silk of her hair against his skin. He adored making love to her, adored her heated responses, her playfulness, her need and her fire.
And he wished for the thousandth time since they had come together, impossibly, once more, that she remembered what had been between them before he had unraveled time. He wished she remembered that once, she had loved him.
Fleeting regret: he had known when he set her free that he had ended things between them inalterably and forever. This brief interlude was an unlooked for blessing. He wouldn't waste it on regret. And this time, whatever else she forgot, she would remember that they had been lovers, and that she had found passion in his arms.
Even if, one day, she was forced to kill him. Again.
Spike pushed the melancholy reflections away. Buffy had recovered from her peak, and was gazing at him with drowsy contentment. He smiled down at her, and pulled back. Then plunged into her once more, making her arch her back and lift her hips, her eyes opening wide, the expression no longer the least drowsy. He set an achingly slow, steady rhythm, and she yielded to it, following him, meeting him, mating him.
It was always so good between them, she thought, as he stroked inside her, setting every nerve ending aflame once more, as if she hadn't just endured a consuming fulfillment moments ago. Spike seemed to have some sixth sense about what she would like, and what she wouldn't, where to touch her, how to move inside her, how to maximize the enjoyment she took in their lovemaking.
Lovemaking, she thought. But it wasn't, was it? Hadn't he told her, hadn't she agreed, that their enmity ran too deep for what was between them to be love? Wasn't it just sex? She had no real leisure to ponder the thought, for he moved inside her again, finding a yet more exquisite angle of penetration, rendering her incapable of thought at all.
Spike could tell by her breathing, by the soft cries that escaped her, that he was pushing her once more toward the precipice. He loved the feel of her surrounding him, loved the feel of her beneath him, loved the feel of her pleasure mounting. His own pleasure crested with hers, and this time when her cries became screams, his own cries joined hers. He spilled himself deeply inside her as she surged against him once more, both of them tumbling over the precipice and into rapture.
Afterward, they remained joined and unmoving for long moments, as he listened to her heart regain its normal rhythm. Eventually, she stirred.
"Spike?" she said softly.
"Yeah, baby?"
"The cooling off thing? You failed big-time," she told him.
He raised his head to look down at her, cocking his scarred eyebrow, incredulous.
"Did I really?" he drawled.
"Ummmm," she purred. "Would you like to try again?"
"It's a thought," he conceded, and kissed her. But then he surprised her by lifting her in his arms once more, kicking the now soaking towel off the futon, and heading across the loft. He carried her over to the linen closet, and had her open it and get out several towels and washrags. Then he carried her the rest of the way to the bathroom, setting her down, not on her feet, but seated in the tub.
"Maybe you should soak for a while," he said, kneeling beside the tub and reaching for the hose that turned it into a shower.
"Good idea," she said. "Join me?"
"The idea is to cool you off, pet," he teased, "not increase the heat."
"That's a first," she said, pouting playfully.
"Trust me, baby," Spike said in a voice that always made her melt. She smiled her agreement, and stretched out.
Spike turned on the spigots, swiftly adjusting the temperature to something cool enough to sooth without chilling, and plugged the drain. He would have to move quickly. What he had in mind would flood the entire room if he let it. Turning the nozzle to a soft spray, he began to play a stream of cool water over Buffy's heated flesh, starting from her toes, working up to her collarbone, and sweeping back down.
"Ummm," Buffy sighed appreciatively, her eyes closing as she leaned her head back against the rim of the tub. Spike allowed the stream of water to caress her whole body, drifting now over her shoulders, now over her beautifully muscled thighs.
Keeping an eye on the water level, which rose slowly in such a large bath, he began to move in on his target, gently lifting each ankle to rest on an opposite rim of the tub. Her eyes opened, and she gave him a sardonic look. He raised his scarred brow in the most innocent, "Who, me?" look he could manage --a look notable for it's lack of anything approaching innocence-- and she smiled, closing her eyes once more.
Spike turned the nozzle, as he continued to shower her down, so that the water went from being a soft, diffuse spray, to a hard, concentrated stream. He began to focus the stream in smaller, tighter areas, first from ankle to collarbone, then from knee to breast, finally from thigh to ribs. Buffy's breathing showed that she appreciated the change. Spike checked the water temperature, turning the spigots so that the stream increased in strength and power. When he got it flowing as hard as he could while still maintaining a temperature that was soothingly cool, he reached between her thighs to part her secret flesh, and aimed the powerful spray directly at her clit.
Buffy gasped, her eyes flying open. He grinned down at her as she moaned and gave herself up to the extraordinary sensation. The force of the water could bring her to climax very swiftly, he knew. But he always enjoyed tantalizing her, so he moved it away when she seemed too close, playing it over her turgid nipples, instead.
"Spike!" she wailed.
"What, baby?" he said teasingly. "Isn't this cooling you down?"
"You know," she gasped, "exactly what this is doing to me."
"Yeah, I do," he admitted, targeting her clit again with exquisite accuracy. She convulsed upward. "Shh," he soothed her, easing the water away.
"Don't!" she begged. He smiled his response, returning the pressure she wanted, then moving his other hand slightly, so that he could continue to hold her open for the water, while slipping first one, and then a second finger inside her hot little sheath.
"Spike!" she wailed again, as he moved them inside her in a ruthless stroking motion, and raised the hose just enough to increase the force with which the water fell upon her vulnerable flesh. She began to climax once more, tightening sweetly around his clever fingers, her hips lifting helplessly to the water's pounding pressure. He held her helpless, vulnerable, enthralled for long moments, until her body went limp for him, and he was sure he had given her as much pleasure as she was capable of accepting, for the time being. Then he eased his hand from her body, replacing the nozzle and hose in their holder.
As her breathing began to return to normal, he joined her, first making her scoot forward so that he could sit behind her, then, pulling her sated body back up against his, letting her lie there with her head against his chest as the water rose to lap them in it's cool embrace. When it reached to just above her breasts, he leaned forward to shut it off, then lay back to savor the feel of her body against his.
They were quiet for a few moments. Then he reached for the soap and washrag, lathered up, and began, with gentle, caressing strokes, to bathe her. She purred and allowed him. When he finished she insisted on returning the favor. He grinned, turned his back to her and gave himself up to the sweet pleasure of her touch. She grew quiet again, for a while. Her question, when it came, surprised him.
"Why are you so good to me?" she asked softly, as she stroked the washrag over his back and shoulders.
"What?" he responded.
"It's not just about keeping your enemies close, Spike. It hasn't been for a long time." She had him turn around, and began to soap his chest and arms.
"Sure about that, are you?" he said, letting his hands drift idly over her torso, until they found her breasts and began to gently caress them.
"Yes. And trying to distract me won't work."
"Ah," he said ruefully. Buffy smiled at him from under her lashes.
"Not that you should stop trying to distract me," she said languidly. He grinned back at her and tightened his grip on her nipples, drawing the sensitive buds out. Buffy arched into his hands, but after a moment, she laughed and pushed his hands away. She finished his torso, rinsed him off, then drew her hands beneath the water to lift one of his legs up for her attentions.
"It's different with you than it is with Xander," she said, going back to her earlier topic, as she continued bathing him. "I've always known he loves me. And he knows I can never really love him," she said it almost wistfully, and he understood that she wished she could return Xander's feelings, that her heart wasn't so wounded. Spike hurt for her. But he said nothing, waiting for her to go on. After a moment, she did.
"Each time we're together, it's like it's the last time for him," she said slowly, as she finished soaping Spike. "It's like he has to pour himself into every moment, and engrave it on his memory, because he will have to live on that memory for the rest of his life."
"Yeah, well, that sums it up pretty well," Spike agreed. "Loving a woman who doesn't love you will do that to you." Loving you has done that to me, he thought, but could not say. He reached forward to unplug the tub. As the water drained away, they finished with the soap and wash rag. Then Spike took the plastic hose, and began to rinse the soap film from their bodies. When they were done, instead of getting out of the tub, he settled back against the rim, and pulled her into his arms, so that she rested against his chest.
"I know that you love Drusilla, not me," she told him after a moment. "And I'm sorry," she said, "about her. I'm sorry that Angel--"
"Don't," he stopped her. "What happened...there's nothing either of us can do about it, now. I'm sorry about Angel, if it comes to that."
She said nothing for a moment, just letting herself rest against him. Then he heard her voice, barely above a whisper.
"I miss him...so much." Spike closed his eyes, accepting the pain her words brought, holding her tenderly as her tears fell once more. She wept, as she hadn't since the first time she had broken down with him, turning in toward him, sheltering in the cold retreat of his arms. He stroked back her hair, but he did not tell her it would be all right. He did not make soothing noises, or impossible promises, did not tell her comforting lies. He let her have her grief, let her mourn her loss, until grief and mourning turned, as they often did, to something else; a fierce need to deny the power of death over life, an urgency to reaffirm life in all its surging vitality and heated passion. And how better to reaffirm life than with someone who was death incarnate? Buffy lifted her face, still wet with tears, to Spike's.
"Make love to me," she said. "Don't have sex with me, Spike," she pleaded. "I need more. Make love to me...and make me forget..." she pressed her lips to his, before she uttered anything more, and his arms tightened around her. He didn't want to hear any more than she had said. Make love to her...it was all he wanted to do.
He kissed her deeply, with all the tenderness he had longed to show her, and hadn't dared. He drew her body yet tighter in his embrace, slipped one arm beneath her thighs, and stood up in the tub, lifting her clear of the rim. Her lips clung to his own, returning his ardor. Heedless of the water dripping on the floor, he stepped out of the tub, carrying her out of the bathroom, across the loft, and over to the futon. Not until they reached the bed did he break their kiss, and then only so he could lower her to the mattress.
"I love you," he said, knowing that it was safe to do so, that she would think he was merely acceding to her request. "I love your beauty, and your courage and your wit," he told her as he moved over her, easing his weight down on her, settling between her parted thighs. She regarded him solemnly as he continued. "I love the way your eyes go from brown to green, the way your mouth pouts, the way you smell and the way you taste and the way you feel in my arms." He kissed her again. Her arms came up around his neck, pulling him closer. When he let her breath again, he told her more. "I even love the fact that you were smart enough and strong enough to escape me," he said wryly, turning to nibble lightly on her ear. "In fact, I am devoutly grateful you escaped me. If I'd known how it would be between us, love, I'd have gone after you in a very different way."
"It doesn't matter," she said softly. "We're here, now."
"No. It doesn't matter," he agreed. "Because I love you, and I have you in my arms," and you will leave me so soon, so damnably soon, Spike thought as he bent once more to her mouth.
He entered her tenderly, with all the reverence he felt for her. She sighed her appreciation against his mouth, her hips lifting to engulf his most intimate flesh in her most intimate embrace. She was always so hot and wet and tight, always so perfectly matching him, it was like dying again to be inside her. Dark, compelling pleasure, before exquisite, soul-shattering release. Buffy owned his soul more surely than Lilith, to whom he had irrevocably bartered it in order to have the Slayer in his power in that long, long distant time when he thought he wanted revenge against her.
He didn't know how he would bear the eternity Lilith would make him endure after Buffy's fragile, too-brief human span ended. Perhaps by reliving moments like this one. Perhaps by taking every chance he could get to create such moments. At the apex of penetration, Spike grasped her hips, stilling her movement, then held himself still inside her, just savoring the feel of her silken sheath gloving him.
"Please," she breathed at him, a wealth of need in one whispered word. Spike relented. He moved, slowly, powerfully, deeply, and she sighed, arching toward him. Spike reached down again, lifting one of her legs over his arm, opening her wider, enabling himself to plunge yet deeper, with even more force. Buffy cried out softly, and yielded around him with a sweetness that broke his heart.
"I love you," he said again, and pressed his lips against her throat, to the pulsing life of her jugular. He remembered how incomparably delicious her blood was. It had been like wine against his tongue. He wished desperately that he dared taste it now. But that would be a betrayal she would never forgive.
Buffy was always amazed at the heat Spike could generate for her, when he was himself so cold. And she was amazed at how good it felt to have his mouth pressed against her vulnerable neck. She had long since ceased worrying about any temptation her blood presented to her demon lover. She trusted Spike not to violate what she was as a Slayer by crossing that particular line.
Then why, now, with him stroking so exquisitely inside her, with his flesh stretching her sheath to the limits she could endure, with passion rising inside her like a flood tide, did she suddenly feel the need to give him more of herself than she had ever dared? Why did it no longer seem a violation so much as a communion?
"Spike," she found herself whispering, as she pressed one hand to the back of his head, gently holding him closer to her neck. "It's okay."
She felt him stiffen. He went still inside her once more, lifting his head away from her neck, gazing down at her gravely.
"God, baby," he breathed, incredulous. "Do you know what you're offering me? Do you know how badly I want you?"
"I know I trust you not to hurt me," she told him softly her deeply green eyes meeting his night-black ones steadily. "And I need...to give myself to you."
He was not proof against so sweet an offer. With a groan Spike moved inside her again, using every skill learned in more than a century of love-making, or remembered from his millenium with her in Hell, to increase and enhance her pleasure. She was liquid heat around him, yielding and pliant. He wanted to stay inside her forever, but realized even that wouldn't be long enough.
Spike knew what felt good to her, knew how to move inside her, how quickly, how forcefully, how to make her shatter with rapture. He felt her breathing grow more labored, her caresses more abandoned, felt her hips rising to meet his with mounting urgency. He felt her begin to reach the pinnacle he wanted for her, felt the storm begin to take her. She was crying out her release when he pressed his lips once more against the arch of her throat, vamped out, and allowed himself to take the precious gift she offered.
For one moment, Buffy couldn't believe that the intense pleasure he gave her could be made yet more intense by something she had always regarded as utmost violation. But it did. Then she gave in to it, once again pressing her hand to his head, to hold him closer to the red fountain of her life's blood, as tenderly as a mother holding her babe to her breast.
And then, something came to her like a memory, or a dream. It seemed so familiar, suddenly, the feel of her blood burning along her veins and into his mouth, even as her pleasure built to an unimaginable peak. As if something deep inside her had yearned toward what they were doing, had welcomed it, continued to welcome it as her climax built higher, until she was nothing but sensation, all thought, all awareness reduced to the feel of her flesh meeting her lover's, her blood slaking his thirst.
"Spike," Buffy cried out his name in her passion and fulfillment, as once, she had cried it unfailingly in her release.
Buffy was as helpless within the storm taking her as any leaf, tempest torn from its branch to tumble in the wind. She felt Spike spill inside her, felt his cold seed once more flood her womb, enhancing the completion he always brought her. She shuddered against him in seemingly endless release, and for a moment, it seemed that she was but echoing a thousand, thousand similar occasions.
The storm crested, held, ebbed. The leaf floated to land, fetching up gently against the solid wall of Spike's body, stretched unmoving, protective, over and within her own. His lips were yet pressed against her neck, though her blood no longer flowed into his mouth. When all was said and done, he had taken less than she would have given in a blood drive. And she could not regret the gift.
Spike shifted his features back to human before he raised his head from her neck. He gazed down at her, tenderly. She smiled faintly in return. Words were utterly inadequate. So he bent toward her, pressing his lips to her own, before rolling over, keeping her in his arms. He drew the covers over them both, and let her settle down to sleep.