[Reviews - 468]
-
Table of Contents [Report This]
Microsoft Word Chapter or Story | ePub eBook Chapter or Story | Printer Chapter or Story

Has been viewed 5077 times

- Text Size +




Author's Chapter Notes:
Aw, you are all so sweet! The response thus far has been so great and a huge boost to my ego. Keep on reading, the story will start to heat up soon.
Spike was going to pretend it hadn’t happened.

Because, really, nothing had. Nothing at all. And maybe she wouldn’t even remember, she had been tipsy. Just like he had been. Or even if she did remember, as long as she didn’t mention it either, it was fine.

He knew it was a bad idea. Despite the fact that his track record with women said otherwise, he didn’t always think with the other head. Buffy was his employee, and a new one at that, who was living with her boyfriend right under his roof. And he had no business getting involved with anyone at this point in the game.

He knew all this in his head, but in his gut, each time he saw Buffy he could think of nothing other than all the reasons he SHOULD pursue her. Beauty, grace, intelligence and humor were things the woman had in spades. If he was this enamored after less than a week of knowing her, who knows what could happen between them.

But he couldn’t, and he knew it. There was too much danger involved for both of them. So he wasn’t going to mention it. And he was going to stay far away from her lips.

When Buffy greeted him the next morning with a bright smile on her face on the way to her new office, he breathed a sigh, a mixture of relief and disappointment. Whether she remembered or not, she wasn’t going to be awkward about their near-kiss. It was fine. It was all fine.

“Sleep well?” she ventured casually as she hovered at the entrance to his office.

“Yeah, great,” he lied. He’d wanked off twice before bed, and then drifted in and out of sleep for the rest of the night.

“Good,” she nodded. “Okay, I should get to work. Have a good morning.”

Even just seeing Spike had set off a flurry of butterflies in Buffy’s stomach. Angry, sexually frustrated butterflies.

She had almost managed to convince herself that the situation out by the pool was entirely created in her own sick, twisted mind. That there had been no almost kiss with the criminal she was investigating. That she hadn’t had wild, crazy sex dreams about that man all night, dreams that had led to a desperate need for sexual release, which she’d given into in the shower that morning. That she wasn’t totally and completely immoral and quickly approaching the line of impropriety and unprofessionalism. She could get fired. She could get MURDERED. And at that thought, she decided she was officially going crazy.

Gunn had told her about Fred’s comment, a comment she knew was driven by the other woman’s burgeoning crush on the guy who was supposed to be her loving boyfriend. He’d said they’d really need to make more of a show of being together, and Buffy reluctantly agreed. Yes, be a fake loving couple with Gunn, so Spike wouldn’t get any ideas. Not that he had any, since the whole situation was in her head anyway.

She groaned in frustration as she flung herself into her desk chair, allowing herself one more moment of obsession about the gorgeous man a few doors down before she turned to the computer in front of her.


When she emerged to make herself some lunch a few hours later, pleased with her discovery of some suspicious transfers in one of the bank accounts, she ran into an unfamiliar man in the kitchen.

“Well this must be Buffy!” The man said happily. “Aren’t you just sugar on a stick? Love the hair. Heard so much about you. I’m Lorne Swath, so glad to finally make your acquaintance.”

“Likewise, Lorne,” Buffy smiled, instantly at ease with this cheery, affable man. “I was just going to have lunch, care to join me?”

“Of course!” He responded, then instantly began telling her about his short vacation up to Santa Barbara, where he’d “swam the days away, lived on lobster and Seabreezes, and found a great karaoke bar on the water”.

Fred came into the kitchen a bit later to join them, and the three took their lunches out to the back deck to eat in the warm California sunshine.

Buffy was surprised at how nice all the people working for Spike were. She’d wrongly assumed they’d all be evil, considering this was a criminal enterprise and all. But no one’s attitude screamed “moral-free murderer”, and if it weren’t for her previous knowledge of the situation, she probably wouldn’t even know anything illegal was going on behind the scenes.

As they were finishing up their meals, Fred’s cell phone rang, and she frowned at the number on the caller ID. “Hello?” she answered. “Hi, Darla…Really? That’s unexpected…well, of course….Don’t we always?...Thanks so much.” As the conversation proceeded, tightness began to spread across the woman’s pretty features

“What did the Dragon Lady want?” Lorne asked when Fred hung up. Buffy feigned ignorance about the identity of the caller, although she knew Darla to be Liam Angelus’s personal secretary and longtime mistress.

Fred sighed, “Guess who’s coming to town?”


“Bloody HELL!” was Spike’s response when Fred informed him of the news. “He was just HERE three MONTHS ago!”

He was pacing by his desk, while Fred, Buffy and Lorne watched him cautiously from the door, Buffy wide-eyed, Fred and Lorne looking as if they’d seen it all before.

“Fucking prick,” Spike muttered once he was done with his outburst, leaning forward on his desk and lowering his head. “Fred, Lorne, you know what to do. Fuck. Three days. Use the same guest list as last time. Buffy, would you call Gunn and Xander and let them know what’s up? Tell them they need tuxes.”

“Tuxedos?” Buffy asked curiously.

“His Royal Badness fancies himself to be quite a big deal,” Lorne explained. “Always wants a celebration when he comes into town.”

“Magnificent poof thinks he’s the bloody prince of the bloody world,” their boss muttered.

“We don’t have to rent out the hotel ballroom again, do we Spike?” Fred asked. “That seems pretty ridiculous.”

“No, we’ll just do it here,” he sighed, rubbing his temples and frowning, then grumbled, “I hate parties.”





You must login (register) to review.