There was something about summer that always seemed to bring about a lull in demon-y action in Sunnydale. Buffy wasn’t sure why that was. Maybe the demons and vampires decided to vacation somewhere less… sunshine-y during California’s hot and sunny summer months.

This year the summer had been even deader than most, although not in the literal sense thankfully. The cemeteries were particularly quiet that night as the Slayer rounded rows of headstones hoping for some evil nasty to jump out so that she could vent some of her pent up irritation. Buffy sighed at the lack of action. She was bored and she really needed to kill something. It wasn’t that she was frustrated…it was just that she craved the hunt. She was a Slayer, so it was in her blood.

And okay, maybe she was a teeny tiny bit frustrated too.

Well, of course she was frustrated! There were only two things that could really relieve the frustrations of a Slayer. One of those things was slaying and clearly there wasn’t a lot happening in that department.

And the other? Well, as her sister-Slayer, Faith, had once pointed out, the other thing was sex. Raunchy, hot, unrestrained sex that dripped with passion as thoroughly as it dripped with sweat. That rough, no holds barred sex was what really satisfied a Slayer but unfortunately, Buffy was never able to let loose when it came to her bedroom activities.

For the past several months Buffy had been dating Riley Finn. She’d thrown herself into a relationship with the commando not longer after Willow’s spell. He’d been a glimmer of normality in a screwed up world and she clung to him like barnacles to the bottom a boat. Despite his unsavory connections to the Initiative, he’d come across as a nice guy, sweet and steady, without any of the bad-boy tendencies that she knew she had to avoid. Maybe it wasn’t love, but he gave her what she thought she’d always wanted…a little taste of normal. However, sometimes the taste of normal wasn’t exactly the sweetest thing.

Although the guy was an attentive boyfriend, letting her inner sex-kitten out to play with a human wasn’t something she was able to do without injuring said human. Sure, the sex with her boyfriend, Riley, was nice. But juxtaposing ‘nice’ and ‘sex’ in the same sentence is usually a recipe for disaster.

Buffy wanted more than nice: she wanted ‘mind-blowing.’ And she’d only been on the receiving end of a mind-blowing fuck one time before. However, that little dalliance was something that she studiously avoided thinking about, because it could only result in things that would be seriously of the bad.

If she allowed herself to dwell on her night of passion with Spike, she feared it would unleash something within her. A something that should most definitely be kept leashed.

And so those kind of thoughts were solely kept to the dead of night when she was alone and horny in bed. Reaching down with nimble fingers between her thighs to her sopping wet center as her mind curled and swayed with memories of her night in paradise relieved some of the pressure.

But after every climax it was like she was refilled with uninhibited lust immediately and when she finally drifted off to sleep those same thoughts danced through her subconscious. Alas, they had been leaking through to the daylight hours too recently.

It crept on her unexpectedly, in the shower, out on patrol, even when she was sharing pizza with her friends. A tightening of her stomach, puckering of her nipples, and the moistening of her panties would follow when the image of him pounding away inside of her flitted through her brain. In some ways it was as if she had no control over it, like the passion she’d shared with Spike was a conscious entity that could live and breathe. Live and breathe and control her.

The rush of wanting and desire that would flood through her senses so often was almost unbearable. She could close her eyes and picture the way he felt when he was thrusting relentlessly into the hot cavern of her center. She could smell the earth scent that lingered on his neck when she buried her face in the crook of his shoulder as they came together in unadulterated passion. A part of her wanted to jump him, pin him down, and relive their time during the Will Be Done spell. But if she did, she wasn’t sure it would be an addiction she could ever break.

Because she couldn’t break the addiction to dwelling on thoughts of him.

However, she was still able to temper those thoughts to some extent with the memories of a certain blond vampire’s recent betrayal. It stung that Spike had banded together with Adam to try and break up the Scoobies, just so he could be free of his chip. She knew he would love to be unleashed again, but she did believe after all the help that she and her friends had given him, he might not side with the baddies.

Oh who was she kidding?

Of course he was going to side with the bad guys. He was still evil. No matter how much spell-induced sweet nothings haunted her, he was a soulless vampire and therefore definitely not of the trustworthy. She had to keep reminding herself of that fact otherwise she would let her guard down.

And when she let her guard down around vampires people died.

She’d seen that for herself more than once.

However, since he was caught in the act of betraying them, he’d been somewhat trying to make amends for what he’d done. The vampire had taken to joining her on patrol several nights a week. She was surprised that he took such sincere pleasure in killing his own kind, but he was a demon and demons didn’t have the same scruples that souled beings possessed. At least that was what experience had always taught her.

Buffy didn’t trust him as far as Xander could throw him, but sometimes it was nice to have an equally strong supernatural being out on patrol with her. Although patrolling with her friends was fun, she always felt like she had to babysit them in case they bit off more than they could chew in the demon stakes.

And it wasn’t just that he was strong and a good fighter that made her enjoy his presence on patrol sometimes. It was also that he was able to banter with her like a true champ. Buffy hadn’t found that kind of symbiosis with anyone else in her life. Not her Watcher, or friends, or Riley. Hell not even with Angel. It was a weird thing to think that only her mortal enemy could provide that essential dichotomy for her.

Buffy was so lost in her reflections that she didn’t even sense the fledgling that was crawling out of its grave in back of her. Her first awareness that it was there was when it clawed at the back of her coat and yanked her down to the ground.

With incomparable reflexes Buffy kicked him off of her and leaped to her feet. She poised her body in fighting position and delivered a sharp round kick to the vampire’s midsection. Although he stumbled it didn’t fell him. Like a wild animal the vampire bayed and growled at the Slayer. He was clearly chomping at the bit to chomp at her neck and once again launched an attack.

However, it wasn’t Growly that ended up striking her but a very different vampire.

She didn’t see him approaching so it was a shock to the system when the peroxide blond vamp went sailing into her, sending the pair of them flying into an open grave. He landed on top of her, pressed against her hot little body in the most inappropriate of manners.

He stayed on top of her, his body pinning her to the bottom of the open grave in which they were lying, without making any effort to move.

“What the hell are you doing, Spike?” Buffy demanded with a scowl marring her face.

“Could ask you the same thing, pet,” Spike replied testily. “You’re the one who’s in my bloody backyard.”

“I don’t mean that!” she sighed desperately ignoring the protrusive bulge that was digging into her hip. “I mean, why are you on top of me?”

Spike smirked. Buffy could see his white teeth gleaming in the moonlight and she felt the urge to growl at him. “If you’d prefer to be the one on top…” he said suggestively grinding the bulge in his pants against her with vigor. “Well, you know I love a lady who likes to take control.”

“Spike!” Buffy snarled in a manner that would put even a vampire to shame.

“I was saving you, pet. That newborn git looked like he was about to tear your head off. I’m a hero really,” he finally said. “Ready to give me my reward?”

Suddenly all the reasons why she hated Spike swept over her like a tidal wave and she used the full force of her Slayer strength to push him off. Buffy clambered out of the hole in the ground and brushed the dirt off her new outfit, sighing as she realized that as a Slayer, she would never be able to keep her clothes nice for long.

However, the dirt covered fledgling vampire had not quite given up on his quest for dinner, and came barreling into her once again.

“Don’t you creatures know when you’re beat?” she asked through gritted teeth, punching the chubby vamp in the stomach.

He flew back and she surged forward, ready to plunge a stake into him when he dissolved into dust. Spike appeared through the fog of what used to be chubby-vamp and she glowered at him.

“You just stole my slay,” she pouted, stomping her foot on the ground like a child.

“I was helping out,” he defended. “Your heartfelt gratitude would go far.”

Buffy raised one perfectly shaped eyebrow.

“I expect I’ll be getting that anytime soon, Slayer,” Spike sighed.

“Keep on waiting, Vampire.” She suddenly remembered his proximity and sighed, turning her face away from his invasive gaze. “And for the record, I didn’t need you to save me. I never need you, Spike. Ever.”

Spike deftly concealed the pain that her words evoked and swiftly changed the subject. “So what you doing here, love?” he asked, openly admiring her slender form.

Still annoyed by his actions, she glared at him. “I’m patrolling. Slayer here, remember?” She twirled her stake for effect. “Or if you forgot, I can always give you a little reminder.”

“There’s other things about you I’d much rather have a little reminder about if you’re offering, Slayer,” he responded, cupping the protuberance in his pants. “Smelled like you were enjoying it a minute ago.”

He lit a cigarette and leered at her with a raised eyebrow. Buffy hoped and prayed that he couldn’t detect the way her heartbeat starting racing at that gesture. It brought back a flood of memories of the Night That Shall Not Be Mentioned.

Or as Spike seemed to think of it: The Night That Shall Be Sneakily Referenced Whenever Possible. Ever since it happened Spike tried to work it into any of the awkward conversations that they shared. There weren’t a lot of conversations, mostly because Buffy avoided seeing him at all costs when it was possible, but sometimes it seemed like Spike just popped up everywhere. She briefly considered the fact that he might actually be stalking her just to torment her with the forbidden memories of that passion-filled night.

Maybe she should have taken Willow up on the offer of a forgetting spell.

The worst thing was that it would be so easy to just give in to the crackling sexual tension that hung between them. That way she could finally satisfy her burning sexual cravings with someone other than her own right hand.

It didn’t matter that they hated each other…or strongly disliked each other at best. Okay, maybe even that was a little bit too strong. Maybe causal indifference was a better way of putting it. Although, Buffy wasn’t sure she felt indifferent toward the vamp. She had strong feelings, but she couldn’t quite identify them. Nevertheless, she was sure that one good fuck would surely relieve all of her tension and a tamed vampire was much better than a vibrator for that kind of thing.

But that would be wrong! Aside from the fact that she had a loving boyfriend, having sex with a dead thing is never the right thing to do.

Ever.

No matter how sexy he looked in leather it didn’t make those carnal desires right. But boy, did he look sexy that evening. With mussed hair and slightly shuttered eyes, he looked like a fallen angel.

A very evil and snarky fallen angel.

However, seeing as jumping his bones wasn’t a viable option, Buffy decided to choose her favorite way of avoiding the sexual tension that had developed between her and Spike.

Be aggressive and rude.

Planting her hands firmly on her hips she glared at him with her patented Summers’ glare. “You’re a pig, Spike. I’m not offering anything to you. Not ever,” she said firmly. “You can keep dreaming though. In fact why don’t you head on back to your dank hole for one of those dreamy naps and I can finish up my job in peace.”

“Don’t think so, Slayer. I’m staying out here. Need a spot of violence tonight.”

“Why don’t you go to Willie’s and beat on some demons there?” Buffy growled, growing frustrated that he wouldn’t just give up and leave already. Damn vamp was sticking to her like red on blood.

“Hmm, I could bugger off to Willies but I’d rather stick it out with you right here. Because I love helping people so much,” he responded, his voice dripping with sarcasm. At her glower he laughed. “What? I can’t be nice? I love saving Christmas and puppies and babies and all that jazz.”

“I thought you eat babies, not save them. Or at least you did before you were neutered,” Buffy retorted harshly.

“Eating babies is more your ex-honey’s bag, pet. Always had himself a yen for young, juicy meat,” Spike smirked. “Ponce liked to torture them first though, usually in front of their folks. Then he and Darla would fuck on top of their corpses. Good times.”

He sighed wistfully and lit a cigarette but it dropped from his hand when he found his back smashed against a nearby crypt door and a hand wrapped around his throat.

“I swear to God, Spike, you must have a death wish,” Buffy hissed through clenched teeth. Her eyes were shooting daggers at him and for a moment he wondered if he’d really pushed her too far this time. “Do you think I wanna hear that crap? Are you that dumb?”

Instead of cowering, Spike choked out a mocking laugh that made Buffy want to tear his head off. The only thing that stopped her from taking such drastic action was that she knew his words were the truth.

Buffy often tried to forget what her first love had been, but in truth he had been a murderer, a vicious soulless killer. Well, it was actually Angelus and not Angel that was the murderer. But Angelus was a part of Angel, no matter how profusely she rejected that fact in the cold light of day.

“Can’t handle the truth, pet?” he asked snidely, smirking nastily at her.

She thrust the blond away from her, throwing him one more contemptuous glare before starting to walk away.

“Quitting on me already, Slayer?” he asked, following after her. “Bit of a poor show.” The bleached haired vamp rubbed his abused throat absently as he studied her tense form.

“I’m not quitting but I don’t have any more time to waste on a useless, impotent vampire. Got better things to do,” she called over her shoulder, stopping in her tracks when the vampire in question rounded on her.

“Oh, come now, pet,” he drawled in a low baritone. “We both know that I’m anything but impotent. Remember?”

In spite of the heat that filled her tummy at the memory she scoffed meanly. “Not really,” she lied. “You were pretty forgettable.”

Spike growled menacingly, continuing to block her path. “Slayer! I made you scream and cry and beg that night. Don’t pretend that it wasn’t the best bloody shag you ever had. Don’t imagine Captain Cardboard can keep it up like that. Actually I can’t imagine his pin-dick can do much to please your sweet cunny at all.”

Anger flared as Spike’s words mimicked her own earlier thoughts and she rolled her eyes at him. “Riley does just fine. He knows how to get to all those hard to reach places, thank you very much.”

Spike snorted at her words but didn’t say anything else. He wasn’t sure why but it niggled at him to think of the Slayer bedding a loser like Riley Finn. He knew from firsthand experience that she was a raw mass of untamed sexual energy, and he didn’t believe that a useless moron like Finn could keep up with her.

It wasn’t jealousy though. Or at least that’s what he was telling himself. He just didn’t want someone other than himself to be privy to the wonders of the Slayer’s body. He’d had the ride of his life when the supernatural pair had been under the influence of Willow’s little spell and a large part of him wanted to experience it again. In fact, the part of him that he liked to think of as very large was often the dominant thinker for Spike.

Realizing she wouldn’t be inviting him back between her lily white sheets any time soon, he glared at her again, his demeanor shifting. Blue eyes grew icy when they met her green ones. “Well, if you’re so loved up, why don’t you bugger off back to Missing Link?”

“Do you have to call him that?”

“Call it as I see it. The boy’s as thick as two short planks, Goldilocks.”

“Okay, I don’t even know what that means,” Buffy sighed. “But it sounds insult-y and you don’t get to insult Riley.”

“It doesn’t matter what it means,” Spike hissed. “All that matters is that you’ll never have it as good with anyone, living or dead, as you did with me.”

“But that’s just it, Spike. You’re not good.”

She met his eyes, an unidentifiable sorrow lacing her gaze. He knew she was no longer talking about his prowess in bed. But there was nothing he could do to change his nature. Even his attraction to the Slayer wouldn’t magically reform him into a White Hat. Green eyes implored him to understand her position and although he wanted to beat some sense into her he just stood by like the impotent moron she’d accused him of being.

When she turned on her heel and began to depart from Restfield he didn’t try to stop her.

He knew there was nothing else to say.

Sitting alone in his crypt, Spike gulped down several mouthfuls of the fortified wine, ignoring the nasty aftertaste. He’d tasted worse in his life. To be truthful, he tasted worse on a regular basis, in the form of cold, congealed pigs blood.

How he missed the sticky, velvety flavor of human blood, straight from the source. How beautiful it was when spiced with fear or passion. Of the two, he preferred the latter. Nothing could compare to sinking his teeth into a human at the height of their climax and drinking down the source of their life. He let out a wistful sigh and took another swallow of the wine.

He did believe there was probably one thing that could actually surpass the feeling of drinking a human during a passionate tryst. And that would be drinking a Slayer during a passionate tryst. Having his cock and his fangs buried in the sweet cunt and throat of a Slayer…of the Slayer…of Buffy.

The clash against his door sent his head spinning around only to see the girl herself appear. She looked mad, although that was just the patented ‘Buffy-look’ whenever she was around him. He wasn’t sure why that fact caused a nagging hurt within his chest.

She looked even better than usual today. The young woman was clad in a tight black leather bustier and a fitted red leather skirt. He idly noted the fact that she was wearing his two favorite colors to absolute perfection. Her blonde mane hung loosely in waves around her toned, tanned shoulders. She looked every inch the warrior that she truly was. However, no matter what she wore, Spike could vouch for the fact that she always looked better without any clothes at all.

“To what do I owe the displeasure, Slayer?” Spike asked, pushing down the thoughts of a naked Slayer, and adjusting the burgeoning bulge that was forming in his pants. He busied himself, setting the wine bottle on the ground and lighting up a cigarette. For some reason, he always felt the need to smoke around Buffy, mostly because he knew that it annoyed her. And he would never pass up a chance to rile the Slayer.

“Do I need a reason to be here, Spike?” she asked with an eye roll.

“Well…yeah,” the vampire responded, a little perplexed. “Unless you’ve gone barmy and you just wander into crypts aimlessly these days.”

Uncharacteristically the Slayer didn’t offer any nasty retort to his quip. Her strange behavior piqued Spike’s curiosity and he stood up from the chair and sauntered over to her.

“I…I’ve been thinking,” she said softly, almost shyly.

“About what?” he asked, standing only a few feet away from her.

“You shouldn’t stay in town,” she sighed. “There’s no reason for you to stick around. I really don’t need your help and the Initiative is gone now so there’s no way that you’re getting chipless anytime soon. So why don’t you leave?”

Spike frowned at her. He was so used to the Slayer demanding things from him or commanding him to do something that her softly spoken request fazed him.

“There some other reason you want me run out of town, pet?” he inquired, tucking his tongue behind his teeth and leering at the girl.

She raised her big green eyes to his cerulean ones and he saw the shine of tears in them. “You have to leave, Spike! Please!”

And then he knew exactly why she wanted him gone. Blondie was apparently feeling the exact same lustiness as he was. There was definite sparkage. Spike rolled his eyes at his reflective use of the Slayer’s terminology.

Every time he saw Buffy, it was getting increasingly difficult to forget the night they took each other to heaven. And she obviously felt the same. The Slayer was the queen of denial and she thought that if he was out of sight, then he really would be out of mind.

However, Spike had a lot more experience in those kinds of matters than Buffy did. And he knew. He knew that even if they weren’t around each other, they would still fill each other’s thoughts and hearts.

His blue eyes flickered to her lips. They were so plump and succulent. He wanted to yank her to him and kiss her breath away. The temptation was just too great to resist, like two magnets being pulled together by a force they couldn’t control. It was too much and it swallowed him whole. Before he could stop himself, he gave into the temptations that overwhelmed him, and grabbed her forearms, pulling her to him and sealing their lips together.

Buffy momentarily resisted Spike’s kiss but when he tongue wriggled between her parted lips, she melted into the kiss, responding with equal vigor.

“What are we doing?” she gasped, even as her little hands tore his T-shirt down the center so she could find access to the taut muscles of his torso.

“Makin’ love,” Spike replied. His eyes rolled back in his head as her fingers teased the small nubs of his nipples. For the blond vampire they were one of his primary erogenous zones and the barest stimulation of them could bring him to the brink.

“I want you to make love to me, right now!” she demanded, her hands straying to the buckle of his belt. She snapped it open and pulled down his zipper, freeing the engorged column of his cock. It was like a velvety rock, carved from the finest marble. As he hand closed around him her lips sealed themselves on the juncture of his neck and shoulder, little blunt teeth sinking harmlessly into his skin.

“Fuck Slayer!” he yelled, pleasure coursing through his veins. He grabbed her biceps pulling her even closer. “You should bloody know what sinkin’ those teeth in does to a vamp.”

Buffy pulled back and flashed him a sly smile. “And what does this do to you?” Before he could ask what she meant, Buffy removed her top and shimmied out of her skirt, leaving her standing only in her heels and underwear.

Spike felt all the moisture leave his mouth as he gawked at the vision in front of him. His erection swelled so much he thought it might actually burst. He couldn’t ever remember being this hard before.

“How do I look?” she asked coyly, whirling around.

“I-I…bloody fuck, but you’re a stunner, Slayer. I can’t wait to shag you senseless.”

“So why are you waiting?” she asked, eyes twinkling with mirth-tinged arousal.

She was right. Why was he waiting? He couldn’t wait another moment and tackled the Slayer, shoving her up against the rough stone wall and grinding his bare dick into her. With one fluid motion he ripped off her bra and panties, leaving her bare to his gaze.

Keeping his eyes pinned on her face, he ran his dick sensually over the wet folds of her cunt. He was elated to find that she was already so ready from him. He wasn’t surprised though. He vividly remembered just how responsive the Slayer had been during their passionate tryst when they were under Willow’s spell. “Tell me you want me, pet.”

“Oh! Oh, Spike!” she gasped, unable to annunciate her needs.

She bucked and writhed, trying to capture his dick with her wet hole, but he avoided plunging into her just yet. He needed to hear her tell him that she wanted him…that she needed him. The head of his cock collided with the swollen nub of her clit causing them both to cry out again.

Panting with lust, he choked out the request again. “Tell me you want me, Buffy. Bloody tell me!”

Finally finding her voice, Buffy locked her gaze with him. Her eyes were dancing with passion and need, but there was an edge of seriousness to them. “I want you, Spike. Make love to me. Please.”

Always happy to oblige a lady he slowly sank himself into her until he was fully seated within her heated channel. Dual moans filled the crypt and Spike had to rest his forehead against Buffy’s. He felt like his whole body had turned to jell-o at the feeling of being inside of her. She fitted him like a velvet glove, gripping him with her strong inner muscles.

“Gotta move, lamb,” he warned her, experimentally thrusting into her. Buffy cried out at the feeling of the tip of his cock connecting with her G-spot. She wrapped her legs around him more tightly, urging him to speed up his thrusts with contented little mewls.

Spike let out a mewl of his own when he felt the Slayer’s sharp nails rake a track down his back. He scented his own blood thanks to her little claws but it only added to the pleasure. As a vampire, pleasure infused with pain was the most delicious temptation.

“Bloody hell, love. You feel so good. You’re such a naughty little girl. Love shagging you, Buffy. God, I love the way you feel wrapped around me.” He lifted her higher, allowing him to penetrate her more deeply. “Yeah, that’s it baby. Fuck me back. Give it to me good, Slayer. Give me everything you got!”

He knew that he couldn’t take much more. She felt too good. Her moans, her scent, her skin…it was all overwhelming him. Realizing he was so close he reached down and twisted her clit between his fingers, sending her spiraling into an earth shattering climax. Seconds later he felt his balls tighten and he followed her down into the rabbit hole of pleasure.

“Fuck, I’m cummin’. God, Slayer! Fuck!”

“Oh, Spike! Yes, Spike. Never been like this…oh!”

Shudders wracked both their bodies as the ecstasy of their climaxes thoroughly engulfed them.

“I love you, Buffy,” he gasped as he spilled himself inside of her. “God, I love you so much!”

++++++++++

Spike’s eyes snapped open, his breath coming in quick, shallow pants.

It took him a moment to get his bearings and to realize that he was alone in his crypt. Cold spendings covered the insides of his thighs, and his softening cock lay flaccid against his cool skin.

It only took him a moment to realize that had all been a dream. Even though he could almost feel the warm imprint of the Slayer on his skin, none of it had been real. It was a fantasy conjured by his heart and mind. But something lingered…something real and tangible…his feelings.

I love you, Buffy. God, I love you so much!

Oh God!

He really did love the Slayer.

In that moment of perfect clarity he knew that he was in love with Buffy Summers.

No, he couldn’t be in love with her!

Obviously that was ridiculous. Spike was a vampire and she was the girl chosen to kill his kind. To love her would be like a rat falling in love with the exterminator. And that’s just how he felt. Like a rat in a wheel that the Powers manipulated. He couldn’t run that gauntlet again.

Loving someone who would never love him back just didn’t feature high on the list of things he ever wanted to repeat. As a human William had always found himself on the rejected end of romantic advances, and his relationship with Drusilla was always dominated by her overwhelming craving to be with her elusive Daddy.

Treading the path of pain wasn’t a venture he could embark on.

And yet…she’d wormed her way into the deepest recesses of his heart without him even noticing. Sneaky little bitch. Wasn’t this just like her? Always fucking up his plans, ever since he’d stepped onto Sunnydale soil almost three years earlier. She was there in every single part of his life, destroying him from the center outward.

This was just the proverbial cherry on the top of a very shitty cake.

What he needed right now was something to drink, something to beat and someone to fuck. Maybe a nice lady vamp would do the trick and get his mind firmly off the Slayer’s luscious little body. He could even dust her afterward and that way he’d be killing two birds with one stone. Not that it would actually help though. The memories were too strong. Even if he lived until the end of the world, he would never forget the way that Buffy’s lithe body moved underneath his in perfect sync.

God, now he really needed to beat up something.

With an animalistic roar, he leapt from the bed and smashed his hand into the stone wall of his crypt. Pain seared through his bones, radiating along the length of his arm. For a moment it helped him to forget the horror that was dominating his mind. But when the pain in his body started to recede, the pain in his heart returned.

As he watched the blood trickling down his injured hand, he barely noticed the crystalline tears trickling down his cheeks.

When the sun finally set, Spike left his crypt, intending to drink himself into a coma while staying far away from the Slayer. After his dream he hadn’t been able to fall back to sleep and had spent several hours obsessing about kicking his dream-self’s ass.

However, despite his intentions about avoiding the Slayer, here he was, standing outside the Summers’ home, spying on Buffy.

He felt so stupid, lurking in the shadows waiting for scraps. It went against everything that he was, but he was craving her now.

A noise alerted him to her presence and he stamped out the glowing cigarette in his hand, not wanting her to sense him. However, the girl looked preoccupied and she trudged off in the direction of the town’s cemeteries without realizing her was there.

Now, Spike had never been the most sensible of vampires. He always followed his blood, rushing into situations where logic would dictate that he should show some restraint.

However, he knew that Mrs. Summers was out of town and Buffy wasn’t home which meant that the house was empty. And that was just too big a temptation for a vamp like Spike. He could already feel the blood rushing to his loins at the thought of entering her room and surrounding himself with her scent.

Before he could talk himself out of it, he surged forward to the house.

Getting into the Summers’ house proved to be relatively simple. Spike shimmied up the tree outside of Buffy’s bedroom and hopped through the unlocked window into her inner sanctum. His nostrils were immediately filled with her musky aroma and he breathed deeply, sucking her scent into his lungs.

She smelled like a combination of power, strength and a womanly base that was just pure Buffy.

The blond picked up a discarded sweater and held it to his face, inhaling the droplets of her fragrance that clung to the material.

Still clutching the fluffy purple sweater, Spike flopped down onto her bed, recalling the night they spent there together. As much as he’d despised her afterward, it had been one of the best nights of his life. He felt so warm and loved, more so than he ever had during his life or death. When the spell had been broken and they found out that it wasn’t real it had damn near killed him over again. Perhaps it would have been kinder to put a stake clean through his chest.

And now…now the feelings were real and tangible, like live entities living inside his breast, animating him. But unlike when they were under the spell, this time Buffy didn’t feel the same way. To her, Spike was just the annoying vampire who tried to kill her and betrayed her to Adam. However, Spike didn’t doubt that there was a seed of attraction toward him underneath her open hostility. It was just a case of finding the best way to cultivate that seed and help it blossom into something beautiful.

He was about to leave when something on the ground in the corner caught his eye.

A pile of dirty underwear.

Almost falling off the bed in his haste to reach it, he dived for the panties and picked up a pair, sniffing it. His eyes rolled back in his head as the pungent aroma of her womanly juices flooded his senses. The panties couldn’t have been worn too long ago as they were still a little damp. Spike wondered if he ever featured in the fantasies that moistened her panties.

God, he hoped so.

He lifted the panties and rubbed them against his face, letting his tongue dart out to taste the damp crotch of the silky material. The vampire purred in pleasure as her tangy juices hit his taste buds and his eyes rolled back in his head.

There was nothing that he desired more right then than to be able to sample right from the source. He could picture her spread-eagled and writhing on the bed, begging for his ministrations as he dipped his head to lick the core of her womanhood. His ears still rang with the way she’d moaned underneath him during Willow’s spell, cries of pleasure echoing in the void where his soul should have been.

The images of the object of his affections only heightened his already saturated arousal and his cock felt like it might explode in his pants at any moment. No other woman had ever had this kind of power to make him lose control so wildly. Especially when she wasn’t even in the same room as him. Buffy Summers was something special and there was no denying it.

He wanted her. He craved her even more deeply than he craved blood.

He wanted to sink down inside of her, dick and fangs buried deep within her flesh, and never let her go.

Unable to resist any longer, he freed his engorged cock from his pants and let it eagerly spring out into his waiting palm.

It was like hard steel in his cool fingers. But in his mind the fingers holding his rod were hotter, smaller and slenderer. He was flooded with the memory of how Buffy had sucked him into the heated cavern of her mouth during Willow’s spell.

He worked his own hand up and down his length, periodically moistening it with his own saliva.

Holding Buffy’s panties in one hand he wrapped them around the purplish head of his penis, the satiny material feeling heavenly against his throbbing organ. Although he had no natural body heat, he felt like a furnace was burning deep within him at that moment.

As the pleasure became more intense, he speeded up his rhythm, pumping faster and faster, biting down on his tongue to keep from roaring in bliss when he felt the throes of his orgasm wrack his body mercilessly. His white seed spurted into his hands, covering the lower part of his torso with thick, sticky sperm.

“Buffy!” he yelled, wishing that he was filling her moist cunt with his spending, before falling back against the soft coverlet.

Vampire stamina meant that a vamp could fuck ceaselessly, in spite of exhaustion, and Spike was no exception. Only moments after he finished his little solo session, the residual Buffy scent was already causing him to harden again. However, this time he resisted and reluctantly tucked himself back into the prison of his denim jeans, carefully ensuring that he didn’t catch himself on the perilous teeth of his zipper.

He knew that he should leave. It was late and she would be back soon. He was lucky that she hadn’t walked in on him jerking off. Spike knew that if she had caught him doing that then it would have warranted a stake through his chest without any hesitation on her part.

However, he couldn’t resist a little snooping in the Slayer’s inner sanctum. Spike had a feeling that his girl had a soft center inside of that hard outer shell and he was determined to find it. Opening and closing her closet and several drawers he riffled through some of her possessions. At first the search didn’t turn up anything interesting and he was starting to doubt his earlier assertions about her closet naughtiness. However, a small pink object in one of her drawers caught his eye, and the vamp smirked as he stared at it.

A little pink vibrator stared back at him and Spike couldn’t help but smile.

“Well, well, well,” he chuckled. “So she is a naughty little Slayer isn’t she?”

Curiously he plucked the vibrator out of the drawer and held it to his nose. It seemed this little toy was in regular use judging by the aroma that lingered.

“Bet Soldier Boy isn’t giving her what she needs,” he said aloud, “My Slayer needs to get off and that bloody poofter can’t get her off. Little wildcat like her needs more than some Vanilla Slice Peaches wannabe.”

Spike ran a finger over the soft rubber of the toy and shuddered with arousal as he thought about her plunging it in and out of her tight hole.

“I’d give you what you need, pet. Oh yeah, you’d get just what you deserve with me. You’ll forget your own bloody name when I shag you into the bloody ground.”

Still tightly holding Buffy’s toy, he debated whether or not to put it back in her drawer but decided that he wanted it more than she needed it. If she wanted sexual gratification without the small toy then maybe she would come to his crypt looking for what she desired. It was unlikely as hell but a vamp had to keep on hoping. Right?

He tucked the dirty panties that he’d jerked off with into his back jeans pocket and pushed the pink vibrator into the deep side pocket of his duster. Taking one last deep breath, he inhaled her scent, savoring the deep richness of Slayer musk. He felt torn when he left the room. He could happily stay here forever. Of course, it would be even better if the Slayer was in the room too. And totally naked.

He turned around, clearing the stairs in a leap and reached for the front door when a hand sailed out in front on him, blocking his path.

The vampire spun around to see a suspicious looking Buffy staring at him with bemusement.

“What are you doing?” Buffy glared at the vampire. “And here?” Spike opened his mouth to speak but Buffy held up a hand to stall him. “Five words or less.”

Thinking on his feet, Spike counted off the words on his fingers. “Wanted us to patrol…bitch!” he spit with venom lacing his voice.

“And you thought I was patrolling inside my house?” She narrowed her eyes at the vampire and he squared his shoulders. “Cut the crap, Spike.”

“Uh, well I thought you might be up for a spot of patrolling. So I came here looking for you, in case you hadn’t left yet,” he fudged, trying to look as innocent as possible.

She stared at him for another moment. Seeing Spike in her house had fazed her. For the past few months, her inappropriate thoughts about the vampire had tormented her, but being alone with him in her house…well that was like returning to the scene of a crime.

And it brought back all the memories of the night of passion they spent there.

Wanting to get him out, she waved him away with a hand. “I’m done with patrolling,” she said with a sigh. “So you can go be someplace else now. Preferably as soon as possible.”

“Done already?” he asked.

“Uh huh,” she nodded, ignoring the heat that built in her gut as she regarded his profile swathed in shadow. “The vamps out there just aren’t the same caliber they used to be.”

“Villains these days!” he sneered in agreement. “Bloody town is going to the dogs.”

Buffy wrinkled her nose and frowned. “Yes, as opposed to the halcyon days when the baddies got themselves caught by the even bigger government baddies and became chipped not-quite-so-baddies anymore.”

“Hey! That could have happened to anyone,” he protested, upset that his competency was being challenged.

“And yet it happened to you,” she smirked, before pausing and staring at him. “Why are you still here?”

“’Cause you were talking to me, you barmy chit,” he replied with a hefty groan. He always picked the crazy ones!

Buffy licked her lips and nodded. “Well you can go now.” She flicked her hand in the general direction of the doorway.

“Oi, I’m not some bloody dog you can dismiss when you’re done with him.”

“Assume that I’m always done with you, Spike,” she bit back nastily. “And don’t come into my house. Ever. Got it?”

“Got it…bitch!”

He was gone before she could utter a retort and she shook her head in confusion.

Damn vampire got weirder every single day.

Sometimes patrols were a lot of fun for Buffy. Sunnydale offered a plethora of monsters with highly kickable asses. And other times patrols were about as interesting as watching paint dry.

Unfortunately, so far this night had definitely fallen firmly into the latter category. Aside from two inept fledglings that were easily dispatched, there was no sign of any other vampires or demons to fight with.

She hadn’t even caught side of the bleached, vampire-shaped thorn in her side.

Not that she wanted to see him, of course.

For the past few days her fantasies about the bleached pest had been becoming increasingly more intense. Even when she shared a bed with her sweet, normal boyfriend they wormed their way into her imagination.

Guilt festered in her heart over those little faux pas. Although she was finally coming to terms with the fact that she really wasn’t in love with Riley, she still didn’t want to hurt the man. After all, she’d been on the receiving end of heartbreak in the past and she would never wish that on someone else.

She figured that if Riley ever knew that Spike was the name in her heart when she was in bed with him, the ex-commando wouldn’t react well.

A noise from behind the bushes startled her out of her thoughts and she immediately dropped into a fighting stance. Her neck tingled alerting her to the proximity of a vampire.

“Who’s there?” she called, glancing around for anyone.

“I guess you caught me, Slayer,” a familiar voice drawled, and she relaxed slightly as Spike stepped out of the shadows.

However, his nearness caused her to tense up in a different way. Right now he looked incredibly…lickable. Clad in tight leather with his blond hair slicked back, he was the epitome of sexy bad boy. Buffy swallowed rapidly as her mouth flooded with saliva at the thought of tasting his cool skin. She could still recall just how delicious it tasted under her tongue from under Willow’s spell.

“What are you doing here, Spike?” she inquired coolly, trying to maintain an air of detachment.

“Live here, don’t I?” he responded in a mocking tone.

“I mean here, with me?” She was already heating up with his nearness. She needed to get away from him.

And why was he approaching her?

“Maybe I fancied spendin’ some time around your precious self,” he said lightly. However, his intense gaze belied the laughter in his tone.

“I’m just about to finish up with patrolling anyway,” she said, licking her dry lips. “No more dead things around to stick with wood. Unless you’re volunteering to become fodder for Mr. Pointy.”

“Seems to me that you’re just makin’ excuses, love. Got a reason that I might make you uncomfortable?” Spike sniffed, scenting the delicious aroma of Slayer juices on the balmy night air. “My my, Slayer!” he leered. “Am I makin’ you all creamy and wantin’?”

Blushing she tried to step away but Spike’s hands closed around her waist. She knew she should shake him off of her but instead she almost melted into his touch.

“I don’t want you, Spike,” she groaned half heartedly.

“Your body says different.”

“My body’s dumb.”

“Beg to disagree, love. Your body’s a bloody work of art. All those lovely toned muscles, sweet curves, those luscious little tittles, and that bitable ass. God, love, don’t you see how wonderful you are?” She shrugged, feeling embarrassed under the scrutiny. “And your body knows that it wants me. It remembers just how I can make it feel.”

“Even if that’s true and my dumb body does want you, I don’t want you. I have a boyfriend!”

“What? Bloody Captain Cardboard? That farm boy couldn’t arouse a houseplant!”

“Riley’s my boyfriend,” she told him without any guile in her voice. “He’s normal and human and…”

“Boring…”

“And sweet,” she finished, purposefully ignoring his interjection. “He has a soul and my friends like him. You…no matter what we shared…it can’t be more than what it was. Just a spell.”

Spike opened his mouth to reply but he closed it as his eyes fixed on something behind the Slayer. Turning around she saw Riley lumbering over to them, a stake wrapped firmly in his hand. She sighed internally, not sure if the sigh was from relief or disappointment. When Riley reached the two blonds, he shot a glare at Spike before grasping hold of Buffy’s hand.

“All done with patrolling for tonight?” he asked with a smile.

Spike made a choking noise that sounded like he might vomit, but Buffy ignored his antics. Her wonderfully sweet and normal boyfriend was standing at her side again, allowing her sanity to restore itself. When she was alone with Spike, holding out against his charms was increasingly difficult. Especially when all she wanted to do was jump his yummy bones like the naughty part of her brain was begging her to do.

Buffy locked those thoughts away immediately and smiled at Riley, turning away from Spike. “Sure,” she nodded. “Let’s go home.”

As she walked away with the ex-commando, she briefly glanced back over her shoulder at the sorrowful looking vampire. A pang of regret hit her. But she knew she was doing the right thing. Whatever had happened under the spell between her and Spike was in the past and nothing should change that.

She clasped Riley’s hand a little tighter, not noticing how he winced in pain from her monster grip and continued walking forward.

Walking toward her future.

The walk back to Revello Drive was mostly made in comfortable silence. Buffy could totally do silence. She didn’t need the constant yammer of a man to breach the void between them. It wasn’t as if Angel had ever been particularly vocal during their relationship. Well, Angelus was, but she tried not to think about that particular incarnation of her first love when she could avoid it.

So why did the constant chatter of the bleached vampire shaped pain in her ass make her wonder if she was making a mistake in settling for Riley? Riley was everything she wanted. The tall, handsome, strong silent type. He was normal and smart and sweet. He was always there for her when she needed him…like a puppy dog.

God, maybe Spike was right. Maybe he was a little dull and boring.

But Buffy didn’t want to be the girl who always wanted the bad boys. Sure, the allure of darkness was undeniable. She felt it inside of her, calling to her. However, she’d been there and done that with Angel and it ended in people dying horribly and the world almost getting sucked into hell. There was no way she was prepared to repeat the pain that she put everyone through by giving into her own selfish desires. Glancing over at Riley she sighed and steeled herself. She had to make this normal, human relationship work.

Because if she didn’t, if she couldn’t…well what would that say about her?

They reached Revello Drive and Riley bent to kiss his girlfriend goodnight. However, before he could walk away she tugged on his shirt sleeve.

“Stay,” she whispered seductively, batting her eyelashes in a way that felt unnaturally girlish. Riley looked pleasantly surprised at her request. She’d seemingly been pushing him away more and more in the past few months but he was always happy to oblige her. If he’d known her motives for asking him to stay he might have been less enthusiastic.

When he nodded in agreement, Buffy turned to open the door, averting her guilty eyes from the joyous orbs of her boyfriend. She knew that part of the reason why she wanted Riley to stay with her was so that she could prove a point. It wasn’t just that she needed to prove Spike wrong when he’d said Riley wasn’t enough for her. It was also that she needed to dissipate her own similar doubts that had been clouding her thoughts so often.

She led the pair of them inside, offering Riley a cursory drink, which he declined, before making her way upstairs. Riley followed like a faithful dog. He was docile and gentle.

But what if that wasn’t enough?

Was Buffy really the kind of girl who wanted to be fucked every which was from Sunday by a soulless demon? The flood of wetness between her thighs at the very thought indicated that maybe she was exactly that kind of girl.

But, putting all fantasies aside, the reality was that Buffy was here with her flesh and blood boyfriend right now. He was a real man with a beating heart and not an animated corpse. He could take her out into the sunshine and give her children…if she lived that long.

Maybe somewhere in the deepest recesses of her desires, Spike might possibly be what she wanted. But Riley was what she needed.

He was normal, wasn’t he?

And normality was what mattered.

Entering her room, Riley sat them both down on the bed and kissed her gently on her mouth and she wrapped her arms around his neck, trying to free her mind from her troubling musings. She sighed into his mouth.

“Can I make love to you?” he asked quietly, almost shyly. Buffy nodded and lay down, wincing as he climbed onto her. She tried to ignore how big and bulky he felt on top of her. He always felt like he was suffocating her, even though she could easily push him off if she wanted to. Nevertheless, there was something about it that unnerved her.

He pressed his lips to hers again. Riley always tasted so…tasteless. There was no whiskey or cigarette smoke on his breath, just the faint taste of toothpaste.

Not that that was a bad thing. No siree. She absolutely didn’t enjoy anyone that tasted like cigarettes and alcohol. And she was determined to keep repeating that thought in her mind.

“Mmm,” Riley sighed quietly, slipping a hand down her stomach.

Buffy kept her eyes firmly closed, trying to savor the sensations. But in her mind the hand was a little cooler, a little more slender, and adorned with thick, flashy rings. She knew it was wrong to think about it, but the Slayer couldn’t help but recall how, during her tryst with Spike, he’d played her like a fiddle, taking her higher until she thought she couldn’t feel any deeper pleasure and then raking it up a notch.

As her boyfriend’s hand dipped even lower, intoxicatingly close to her center, she cried out in need.

“Oh!” she gasped. “Lower! Oh Spike!”

The hand that was creeping down her body immediately froze. Time itself seemed to stop and that single moment lasted for an eternity.

The Slayer held her breath, willing Riley to ignore what he just heard, but the tangible silence in the room assured her that he was aware of the name she had just called out in passion.

“Riley?” she asked when the quiet finally overwhelmed her.

The large man had his eyes screwed firmly shut although he hadn’t yet removed his hands from her body. However, the sound of her voice startled him enough to make him yank his hands from her as if she were hot coal.

“Riley?” she repeated. “I didn’t…I mean…”

“What the hell is it with you and vampires?” he muttered, sitting up. His posture was stiff, his neck taut. “How can you feel anything for those disgusting dead things?”

“I…I don’t know where that even came from,” she said quietly, wringing her hands together. “I so don’t have feelings for…for him.”

“Really?” His voice was shaky as he choked out the single word.

“Really! I’m sorry!”

Riley didn’t look at her but rose from the bed and started pacing across the room. “I don’t think you would have said his name if there wasn’t…something between you.” His words were filled with pain and guilt gripped Buffy’s heart like an iron vice.

“The only thing between me and Spike is strong mutual loathing,” she insisted, rising to her knees on the bed.

“I wish I could believe that,” he muttered, before turning to face her. “Do you love me?”

“Huh? What?”

“Do you love me?” Riley asked again, his face an emotionless mask. The former soldier sighed when she hesitated. “It’s not a difficult question.”

“You know how I feel about you,” she said, not meeting his eyes. She didn’t want to lie to him and profess her love. But she didn’t want to admit that he just wasn’t enough for her either.

Hello Rock…meet Hard Place.

“Then why would you…why would you say that thing’s name?”

Buffy flinched. “I don’t know why! Spike’s been hanging around all of the time lately. I guess he was just on my mind. I wasn’t thinking about him!” the Slayer lied. “I only want you, Riley.”

“I wish I could believe that.”

Buffy felt another pang of guilt at the sorrowful insecurity in his voice but she knew there was nothing that would convince him. After all, how could she even start going about convincing him of a lie?

An uncomfortable silence stretched between them, neither meeting the other’s eyes. Eventually the awkwardness overwhelmed Buffy and she felt compelled to break through the silence.

“Can we just lay down? You can hold me if you want,” she finally said, offering the only olive branch that she could.

Riley nodded reluctantly and climbed into the bed beside her. However, he didn’t take her up on her offer of allowing him to hold her. Instead he lay down awkwardly on the pillow next to her, his body the very epitome of tension.

Buffy also lay down, feeling just as uncomfortable. When she fell asleep, her back facing the man lying next to her, it was blue eyes and bleached curls that haunted her dreams.

She slept so deeply that she didn’t feel Riley slip out of bed and out of the house into the velvety blanket of night.

He hated her.

Loathed and detested the little bitch with every fiber of his being. Spike felt the annoyance well up inside of him again at the thought of her sneering face as she’d walked away with her cardboard cutout of a boyfriend.

Stupid shampoo-commercial haired Buffy Summers with her bitchy little face and upturned little nose.

And her…perfect little body that he just wanted to grab a hold of and ravage with pleasure every time he was in a ten mile radius of her,

God, why couldn’t he stop thinking about her?

It was really all the witch’s fault. Ever since she’d cast her dumb spell the previous year, Spike hadn’t been able to purge the thoughts of making love with Buffy from his head.

And that was what it was. Making love.

No matter which way he tried to spin it, they’d done more than emotionlessly fuck that night. It had been warm and beautiful and absolutely the opposite of what a vampire like William the Bloody should indulge in. Especially with a Slayer.

Especially with Buffy.

He sighed again and rose to his feet. It was still several hours until dawn and he figured that he could get in a spot of violence or a game of poker before sunrise.

The vampire grabbed his duster and headed out into the muggy night. Vampires didn’t tend to feel the heat or the cold but Spike had a chill in his bones despite the warmth of the night. He knew why, of course.

The dream.

It was something that he’d studiously avoided thinking about since it had happened. Even when he’d come face to face with the object of his nightmares, he had somehow managed to pretend that he hadn’t caressed and tasted every inch of her body in his subconscious .

He planned to go to Willie’s. He really did. Yet somehow, before he realized what he was doing, his feet had carried him to Revello Drive. He glanced up at the darkly shadowed window of the front bedroom where he knew Buffy slept.

During the first days after he came to Sunnydale, he’d staked out her house a few times. He was obsessed with getting to know his enemy. So many nights he’d watched her sleeping from the tree outside her window. His mind was filled with images of tearing her throat out. However, he couldn’t deny that even back then he wanted to sink his cock into her at the same time as his fangs pierced her milky neck.

But since the Willow’s spell he’d thought less about sinking his fangs in and more about sinking his cock in. Oh, it wasn’t that he would turn down a taste of Slayer blood during a good fuck. After all he was a still a vampire and biting enhanced sex for his kind. But the thought of having access to his little cunny was almost an obsession for him.

And then the dream happened.

Since then every moment had been painful for him. His mind and heart felt like they were being torn into two. Part of him wanted Buffy so badly he couldn’t breathe and part of him wanted to wait for the sun at the thought of loving the Slayer.

Of course, Drusilla had known that he wanted the Slayer. Thinking back it was easy to see that she knew way before he did. His former paramour might have been mentally unhinged, but she was intuitive in many ways.

Before he could delve more deeply into his thoughts, Spike was distracted by the sound of a front door opening. Seeing that it was Buffy’s front door, Spike dived behind the large tree, keeping himself obscured in the shadows.

The blond’s eyes narrowed when he saw the Slayer’s oversized boyfriend stalk out of the house. He couldn’t help but wonder why Finn would be running around in the middle of the night. Something didn’t smell right to the vampire here. He knew that he probably shouldn’t care at all. Sense told him that things could only end badly if he interfered but something inside of him warned him to follow the boy. For a moment curiosity and common sense warred within in and finally curiosity won out.

Keeping to the shadows Spike stealthily tracked the younger man. Once again he started to get a bad feeling as the man descended to the bad side of town. This part of Sunnydale was mostly populated by the scum of the demon community as well as a few human lowlifes too.

Finally the former commando stopped and ducked into an old warehouse. A smirk formed on Spike’s face as recognition struck him. He knew exactly what that place was.

Not needing to see anymore, he turned back toward Revello Drive. There was something he needed to show the Slayer.

She was about to see just what her perfect boyfriend really was.

++++++++++

Buffy sat up with a start, clutching the cool white sheet to her chest and staring at the blonde vampire in front of her with an astonished expression.

“Spike?” she asked blearily, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

“Hello, love,” he smirked, lustful eyes caressing her half naked form.

Buffy tightened her hold around the top of the sheet and glared at the vampire. “What the hell are you doing? And here?”

“Needed to talk to you, pet.”

“So what? You just stopped by in the middle of the night to discuss the latest Paris fashions?”

Spike rolled his eyes at her. “No, Slayer. Got something important to show you. We have somewhere we need to be…and fast.”

“Why don’t we just not and said we did?”

“Summers!” Spike growled, his eyes flashing amber.

With a put upon sigh, Buffy finally nodded. “Uh, could you turn around?” she said as she picked up her sweater to slip on.

Spike leered at her. “Why? Naked under there are you? I’ve seen all your goodies before, Slayer. You shouldn’t bloody well forget that. In fact I’ve tasted them.” His voice was like molten chocolate as he spoke and Buffy had to take a moment to steady herself and resist being drawn in.

“Turn around or I will drop you out of that window, head-first.”

Reluctantly he complied but his dick had other ideas. It swelled in his pants, unhappily constricted by the tight denim. Oh how he would have loved to free it from its constraints right now and…

“Let’s go then.” Buffy hopped off of the bed, still sweeping her hair back into a makeshift ponytail.

“Bloody hell!” he muttered sotto voce, irritated that his daydream was just getting to the good bit when she’d interrupted. Still, he was determined that he would get to experience her again for real one day soon anyway.

Hopefully sooner than later once she saw what Mr. Not-So-Perfect was doing in his spare time.

The walk to the warehouse was made in tense silence. A part of Spike was incredibly excited about exposing Finn’s indiscretions. However, he was also fixating on the old adage of ‘don’t shoot the messenger’ which indicated that messengers could be in the line of fire. As messenger he really didn’t want to be in the firing line of a very angry, scorned Slayer. Especially one that he couldn’t fight back against.

“What is this place?” she asked, as Spike ushered her inside the old building. She threw him a suspicious look but the vampire merely rolled his eyes.

“Already told you, pet. Got something you need to see.”

She paused, studying him distrustfully. “How do I know it’s not a trap?”

“Bloody hell, Slayer! Give me some credit. I might not be the master of the diabolical plans but I have better planning skills than bringing you to a dirty old warehouse on the wrong side of the tracks to ambush you or whatever other nasty you’re thinking of.”

Buffy’s lips drew into a thin line but she nodded and allowed Spike to lead her up a flight of stairs. She kept herself fully on her guard though, refusing to trust the bleached vampire.

The inside of the warehouse was filled with what looked like crackheads. Except that they were seemingly of the undead persuasion. Buffy’s hand automatically drifted to the stake she’d tucked away in her waistband but Spike stilled her overeager slaying fingers.

“Not what we’re here for, pet,” he told her quietly. He didn’t want to start a massacre right now. Not when she had a difficult scene she would witness in only moments from now.

Buffy glared at him. “They’re vamps, Spike.”

“I know,” he hissed. “But you’re missing the bigger picture. Anyway, you might want to save them for something to kill soon,” he continued cryptically, urging her toward the rickety staircase.

Buffy shook her head but followed him to the upper level, walking down a dim corridor. The paint on the walls was peeling and the whole place had the feeling of desperation and desolation. The Slayer wondered exactly what kind of a place this was.

Moments later, she got her answer.

The supernatural pair peered through the partially open doorway to one of the rooms and they were confronted by the sight of what seemed to be a human allowing himself to be feasted on by two female vampires. She couldn’t really see his face properly because he was shrouded in shadows but it was clear from the man’s moans that he was thoroughly enjoying the experience.

The vampires that flanked him were both thin, almost emaciated looking. One had long dark locks that hung dully down her back. The other was an arrogant looking redhead with a pointed nose and thin lips.

The two female vamps were kneeling in front of the seated human. The brunette had her hands and mouth around his cock while the redhead’s fangs were embedded in his arm.

“Harder, bitch!” he commanded the redhead, grabbing her roughly by the hair.

At that moment she recognized him without question.

Her normal, sweet, loving farmboy of a boyfriend was allowing…no forcing two vampires to bite him.

Buffy thought that she might throw up right there and then.

“Oh my God!” gasped Buffy, unable to believe her eyes.

It had taken her several moments to really register what she was seeing, and even longer to actually process it. Riley was supposed to be normal. He was supposed to be the one thing in her life that wasn’t screwed up by vampires or sacred destinies.

How could he do this to her?

Spike’s eyes widened as he watched the two skinny vampire girls service the commando. Each one of them was sucking on a meaty part of his body and the boy was groaning in pleasure at the sensations. He’d seen this kind of thing before, of course, but when humans asked vampires to suck on their various body parts he couldn’t help but question their sanity. Only a fool would do such a thing.

The blond vampire glanced at Buffy, feeling a pang of regret when he noticed the tears glistening on her face in the dim light. He was sure that the Slayer wasn’t in love with the Giant Oaf, but that didn’t mean that his betrayal hadn’t stabbed her right in her heart.

Then before he could stop her she was marching forward, dispatching the two vamps. They turned to dust before her eyes and when the dust cleared she was still brandishing her stake as she loomed over her boyfriend.

“Buffy!” Riley exclaimed, shock evident in his hazy eyes. He glanced to the stake that she was still wielding and for a moment the former solider thought she might actually use it on him. “What…w-what are you doing here?”

Without taking her eyes off of Riley, Buffy pursed her lips. “Get out of here, Spike,” she called over her shoulder. “I need to have a private little chat with my boyfriend.”

“I don’t mind staying for the show,” Spike laughed in response but the glare that Buffy shot him over her shoulder told him that she was deadly serious. “Fine. Be that way! Deny a poor vamp the chance to see Cardboard here get his wankersome arse well and truly kicked.”

“Spike!” she growled, rapidly losing her temper. Although her anger was Riley-shaped, Spike had the unique skill of pissing her off more thoroughly than any other being on the planet and she could feel her ire rapidly growing.

“Fine! Fine, I’m going, love.” He held up his hands and surrender and walked out into the warm night, a smile tickling his lips.

Once the vampire was out of sight Buffy turned back to Riley with a deathly expression on her face. The large man hadn’t said a word since he’d gotten caught but the Slayer was determined to get some answers.

“So,” she started, her voice way too cheerful. “What the hell was that?” The hard glint in her eyes belied the jovial tone of her voice and Riley flinched. For the first time he actually feared this tiny slip of a woman.

“Does it matter?” he asked sullenly.

“Are you kidding? I see you getting your groove on with vampire whores and you ask me if it matters? What the hell is wrong with you?”

“You’re one to talk!” he exclaimed raking his hand through his sandy colored hair. “All you ever think about is vampires! First it was Angel and now you’re creaming your panties over Hostile 17!”

“I am not creaming anything over him. Spike is just a…” An enemy? An ally? A friend? A lover? “…Spike. He’s just Spike!”

“Is that why you call out ‘Just Spike’s’ name when we’re making love?”

“God Riley, that happened one time!” she exclaimed, relieved that she’d forced Spike to leave. That little tidbit was something that she never wanted the arrogant vampire to know. If he learned of it, she was sure she’d never hear the end of it. “You cannot blame this on me. You made the choice to be here, to let those girls do that to you. What if you’d gotten yourself dead? Or turned? How do you think it would have made me feel if I’d had to stake you?”

“Isn’t staking vampires in your job description? Not that you’d know it with all the evil little bloodsuckers you allow to stay undead. Or maybe you wouldn’t stake me. Maybe you’d finally want me then if I could chew on your neck with my fangs! That’s what you want, isn’t it? A cold dead body to hump?”

Her fists itched to punch him, to beat him into a bloody pulp but she restrained herself. After all, he was still a human and as such he was one of the creatures that she was meant to protect. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t unleash a verbal beating.

She looked at him with disgust in her eyes. “Don’t pin this on me. I do my job. I’m a damn good Slayer. I can’t understand what would make you do this.”

“I needed to know.”

“Needed to know what?”

“Needed to know why!” He drew in a deep breath. “I needed to know why you want those things. I needed to find out what it is that attracts you to undead flesh.”

This time the Slayer didn’t restrain herself, hurt by his brutal words. Buffy’s hand came up and slapped him across his face. She didn’t use her full strength but it still stung horribly. “How dare you! You don’t get to talk that way to me.”

“Why not?” He smirked nastily. “You’re just a whore for the undead. Why shouldn’t I talk that way?”

Buffy clenched her jaw. She had the urge to do her boyfriend some real damage but desperately reined in her temper. “You need to leave. Get out of town Riley, out of my life and I don’t want you to come back. Not ever!”

“I’m not leaving until that bleached piece of shit is dust!” he spit back earning himself another sharp glare.

“No!” Buffy cried, her heart clenching at the thought of Riley hurting Spike.

She wasn’t sure why the thought of anything happening to the vampire cut her so painfully, but it did. She should hate the vampire, but her mind flashed back to the tenderness he showed her as he rocked against her body under the Will Be Done spell, and a brief smile drifted over her lips. He wasn’t a normal vampire and he was defenseless against a human. In that moment Buffy decided that if anyone was ever going to slay the bleached vampire it would be her.

Because Spike was hers.

“You don’t touch him,” she warned.

“I see,” he spit nastily. “You’re protecting that evil piece of shit.”

“Yeah, I guess I am. And I swear to God, Riley, if you so much as harm one hair on his head, I will take you apart piece by piece. Don’t forget, I used to date the most notorious vampire in history and I saw him at his worst. A girl can pick up a few tricks along the way. So if you want to put yourself at my mercy then just try it.”

“You wouldn’t hurt me,” Riley said, although his confidence was faltering. “I’m human.”

“Barely human,” she muttered. “And if you keep on letting vamps suck on you then I’m gonna take a guess and say that you won’t stay human for much longer. But if you want to see how serious I am about you not making with the Spike-icide, then just try me.”

Riley drew back in fear, finally realizing that she was serious in her threats. He would have loved to unleash the worst kinds of torture on his peroxide nemesis but he really didn’t want to find out what Buffy would do to him if he disobeyed her.

“So that’s it then is it?” he asked. “We’re done?”

Buffy looked down sadly. “I don’t think we should ever have gotten started. I wanted something normal in my life but it was wrong. You and me…we don’t fit, no matter how much I wish we did. We’re wrong for each other, Riley. Because I’m not normal and I’m never gonna have a normal life. I’m the Slayer and that’s not just what I do, it’s who I am. You need to leave. Get as far away from here as possible.”

Riley nodded sadly. “Graham’s been asking me to go re-join the troops for a while,” he admitted. “I never thought about it until now because I thought you and me were…But clearly we’re over.”

“We are over,” she replied definitively, her tone brooking no room for discussion.

“Right. I guess I’ll go then.” He started to walk out of the room, and Buffy felt strangely emotionless about it. She was sure that when she awoke the next morning, the pain would no doubt set in over the loss of her one strand of normality. But right now it didn’t hurt at all.

“Goodbye, Riley,” she called. But he didn’t respond. He just walked out of her life.

A sense of sadness settled on her as she watched him leave. He wasn’t the first man who’d walked out on her and even though she’d told him to go, in some ways it felt like she’d just failed with another man yet again.

Her father had left, Angel had left, Parker hadn’t even stuck around for more than one night and now she’d managed to push away the sole morsel of normality in her life. Buffy gritted her teeth as several fat tears slipped from beneath her eyelids and rolled down her pallid cheeks.

Suddenly filled with the need to kill something, Buffy’s Slayer senses took over. In only seconds the crying little girl disappeared and was replaced by the fiery spirit of a warrior. She gripped her stake tightly and moved from room to room, slaying every animated corpse there as well as issuing a moral lecture to every human patron.

It didn’t take long before the whole of the warehouse was covered in a fine layer of vampire dust. Most of them hadn’t even gotten a chance to fight back and the ones that did only found themselves on the wrong end of a beating before they were consigned to Hell. When she was plunging stakes into unbeating hearts she could ignore the ache that throbbed deep within her own beating heart. She was learning that embracing her nature actually made things easier.

Twenty minutes later she watched with a grim smile as the whorehouse burned to the ground.

She couldn’t help but feel that any chance she’d ever had at normality burned along with it.

But worst of all, she wasn’t even sure that she wanted normality any longer.

She wanted something more.

Spike heard her before he saw her. The annoying patter of little Slayer feet darkening his door once again. A nervousness coursed through his dead veins, electrifying him as he thought of her. The last time he’d seen the Slayer had been the previous night, when he’d shown her just what her normalboyfriend was doing with his time. He hoped that she hadn’t decided to kill the messenger in the cold light of day.

Ruffling his hair with an imperceptibly shaky hand, Spike climbed the ladder and peeked his head out of the trapdoor, glaring at the blonde. She was standing in front of the open crypt door with her hands perched on her hips. Sunlight streamed through the doorway, framing her so she resembled an angel and his dead heart clenched in his chest.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see her. That just wouldn’t be true because he’d spent all day longing to see her. No, it was because being around her and knowing that she was taken by a cheating son-of-a-bitch was like having his heart pecked out by a starved committee of vultures.

“If I’d have known you were coming, I’d have baked a cake,” he drawled, hopping up to the top floor.

“Why did you do it?” she asked, ignoring his comment. Oh, so she wasn’t going in for any preamble. That was his Slayer, straight to the heart of the issue, literally and figuratively. The fiery blonde in front of him was formidably magnificent. Standing with her arms crossed and one foot tapping a beat on the dirt floor, she cut a tremendous figure.

“Do what?” Spike lit a cigarette and reclined against the stone wall, keeping on his toes in case she decided to attack. He knew exactly what she was talking about but it was easier to play dumb. Plus it gave him a chance to needle her a little.

“Tell me about…what Riley was doing?”

“Oh, so you’re here about that little chestnut.” He exhaled a plume of smoke, shaking his head sadly. “You’d have preferred if I let him keep on making a fool out you?” Spike asked.

Her face fell and she ran her fingers through her hair.

“Why did it have to be you that told me? Why are you always there when something bad happens?” Her voice sounded so small that he wanted to take her in his arms. He immediately chastised himself for such a thought. The Slayer didn’t want him. And he shouldn’t want her.

It wasn’t natural.

“Happened that I found out what he was doing. Just by chance, pet. Cheating git should be kicked to the curb anyway, love.”

“Doesn’t matter now anyway. Riley’s gone,” she sighed, pulling herself up onto the stone sarcophagus.

“Yeah? Whitebread got caught with his hand in the cookie jar so he ran away like a little boy?”

“Yeah, that’s pretty much what happened,” Buffy said with a nod, before sighing. “He said I…I drove him to it. It was all my fault.”

“Yeah, right!” Spike scoffed. “He went to a vamp whorehouse to get suck jobs and the wanker’s trying to put all the bloody blame on your shoulders. Ignore him, pet.”

Buffy blinked at his attempt to comfort her. She didn’t mean to open up to Spike at all. She’d come here to kick his lily ass into next week. But for him to offer comfort to her instead of saturating her in the derision that she’d expected from him was totally disconcerting.

“Why are you being nice to be?” Buffy asked suspiciously, narrowed green eyes searching his azure gaze for an answer.

“Bloody hell,” he blustered. “I’m not being bloody nice. I’m bad to the bone, Baby. I don’t do nice.”

“Huh. You’re doing a pretty good impression of nice. What are you up to, Spike?”

“Up to?”

“Yeah. You plus nice equals evil scheme. Planning to sell me out to some rising Big Bad?”

“No, pet! I can’t soddin’ win, can I? If I’m a wanker to you then you’re kicking me in the bollocks, calling me a pig, and running away and if I’m nice to you then you’re still looking at me like you want to kick me in the bollocks, call me a pig, and run away. Bloody women, I could live forever and I’ll never understand you lot.”

Buffy smirked wryly. “Yeah, that’s nice Spike. Insult my whole gender. That’s gonna win me over.”

Flicking his cigarette to the ground and grinding it out under his heel Spike returned her smirk. “What makes you think I want to win you over, Goldilocks. You assume you’re actually worth my time.”

Hurt flickered over her face but she immediately pushed it away. This was Spike she was dealing with. For a moment she’d almost forgotten that. “I don’t want to be worth your time except for when I finally put a stake through your heart. Right now I don’t need to do that because a neutered vampire doesn’t even figure on my radar.”

She turned to leave but the sound of an apologetic voice halted her motion. “Buffy wait!” Spike called, sounding guilty and flustered.

The Slayer didn’t turn around. “What now, Spike?” she said tiredly. “Just let me go.”

“I didn’t mean what I said. I shouldn’t have been such a sod to you.”

She turned around slowly, studying him. “You’re apologizing to me? Did the world just flip flop onto its side?”

“Yeah,” he nodded, his fingers drumming a tune on the lid of the sarcophagus. “Must be because I’m sobering up.”

He lifted hopeful eyes to her, a shy smile on his face and Buffy giggled. She realized with a shock that it had been the first time she’d genuinely laughed in a long time. Riley had never made her laugh and Angel definitely wasn’t able to tickle her funny bone.

Of course, neither of them really understood the Slayer. It was a sad fact but she realized that it was true. But even when they were enemies Spike had somehow been able to connect to her on a deeper level than the other men in her life…both of the living and the dead varieties.

“So…want a drink?”

Buffy let a grin spread across her face.

++++++++++

Buffy slammed back another shot of whiskey, grimacing wildly at the taste as it burned the back of her throat. However, as soon as the taste faded, she was immediately hit with the delicious sensation of warm numbness trickling through her.

The Slayer wasn’t sure just how many shots she’d already consumed but judging by the wooziness she was guessing that it was somewhere between several and too many. However, the alcohol was helping so she wasn’t a caring-Slayer right now. For once she was letting herself be free to enjoy herself and so what if the enjoyment just happened to be taking place in the company of a vampire. A vampire that used to be but no longer might be her mortal enemy.

And when exactly had that happened? The blonde had gotten so used to having a defanged Spike in her life that their relationship had morphed from all out contempt to a grudging respect to…something else. Something unidentifiable and she honestly wasn’t sure that she wanted to identify that faint warmth in his face she saw so frequently these days when he let his guard drop.

Shaking herself from her confusing thoughts, she raised her eyes only to be confronted with Spike’s smirking face looming in front of her. “What?” she asked wondering why he suddenly had that tender look shining from his ever expressive eyes.

“Nothing. It’s just you’re bloody adorable when you take a drink.”

“Shut up,” she scowled. “I’m so not adorable. I’m the Slayer. Big and scary and grr.” She mimicked her words with hand gestures that only made Spike chuckle harder.

“Looking more cute and fluffy right now,” he responded, taking a sip of his own drink. “Like a fluffy Slayer-bunny.”

“You totally shouldn’t say that to Anya,” Buffy giggled. “Bunnies are scarier than slayers to her.”

“That bint is barmy,” Spike said seriously.

“Because she’s scared of rabbits?”

“No, because she’s dating that bloody git, Harris. You’ve got to be daft to let him near you.”

“Hey!” exclaimed Buffy. “That’s my friend you’re talking about.”

“You have my bloody sympathies then.”

“Spike! Xander’s a good guy. I guess sometimes he’s a little judgmental but he’s got a good heart.”

Spike wanted to argue with her, convince her that he saw something rotten within her friend but he knew that it was the wisest thing to let the subject drop. Harris was a blind spot for Buffy and she couldn’t see the darkness that lurked under his skin.

“Whatever you say, Slayer,” he shrugged. “Maybe the girl just needs someone to give her those much-touted orgasms she’s so obsessed with.”

Buffy giggled, a sound that warmed a vampire’s cold heart. “Anya is kinda orgasm obsessed. Makes Xander cringe.”

“Probably ‘cause the boy’s so inept at giving them,” he muttered under his breath before latching onto Buffy’s gaze. “Although…you know there’s a lot to be said about those orgasms when you’re getting them from someone who knows what they’re doing.”

“I-I uh…”

“You remember what that’s like, don’t you, pet?”

He stared at her from under hooded eyes and Buffy shivered, although it wasn’t from the cold. The Slayer knew exactly what he was referring to. Their spell-induced tryst had been filled with the heat and passion of a thousand suns. Never had she felt such pure bliss as she’d managed to find in his arms. No matter how much she tried to forget it, deep inside she craved a reprise of that feeling.

“I remember,” she gulped, the alcohol in her blood fuelling her with courage that she wouldn’t have had in her sober state. “It was…sensational.”

Spike grinned. “Now that’s more than a ringing endorsement from the Slayer. I think I like that…sensational.”

“Don’t let it feed your ego,” she chided playfully. “Your head so doesn’t need to get any bigger.”

“I believe both my heads are more than big enough.”

Buffy glanced down in the direction of his lower ‘head’ and swallowed in anticipation as she saw the bulge straining against the length of his zipper.

Reveling in her reaction to his lewd comments, Spike’s eyes flickered to her pouty lips and then back to her glazed eyes. She was gazing at him with wide eyed innocence, and he just couldn’t resist. He had to taste her. Giving in to his burgeoning passion, he seized Buffy by the shoulders and dragged his lips to hers.

He needed her.

And by the way she was starting to enthusiastically respond, she clearly needed him too.

He pulled away for a moment and scanned her reaction, but she just looked as if she was desperate for even more.

“There’s a bed downstairs,” he told her suggestively.

Buffy didn’t even hesitate. Forgotten were any of the reasons why she should say no to the soulless vampire. All that mattered was indulging her own needs and nothing was going to stop her from having him. She’d been strong for so long so why couldn’t she give in?

“What do you say, Buffy? Can I take you to bed?”

She nodded, licking her kiss-swollen lips.

“Yes,” she murmured. “Yes, you can.”

It was the cold that woke her up. A damp chill surrounded her, and her eyes snapped open with force. That was a move that he immediately regretted as the mother of all hangovers made its presence known.

She wasn’t in her room, as she’d been expecting. She was in a darkened crypt on a soft bed with a stabbing pain coursing through her skull.

This wasn’t good.

However, the pain in her head wasn’t anything compared to the feelings that flooded her when the memories of the previous night came rushing back.

They swept over her like a tsunami and she couldn’t clear her head of the image of Spike as he suckled hungrily at the apex of her spread-eagled thighs or as he moved relentlessly against her, over her, under her, behind her until she pulsated with unsurpassed ecstasy.

Reluctantly she glanced over her shoulder and saw the cool body lying on the pillow next to her.

“Fuck!” she swore under her breath as those memories slotted into context.

She’d had sex with Spike.

Again.

Fuck!

As amazing as it had felt, she knew it was wrong. She’d been drunk, vulnerable and needy. And as much as she had wanted him in the moment, it was a mistake. Even if it felt incredible, this couldn’t keep on happening.

She had to get the hell out of here.

Slipping out of the bed she hunted her underwear and the clothes that were strewn around the lower level of the crypt. They’d been shed in the unparalleled heat of passion, as Spike ripped them from her body before ravishing her. A frisson of pleasure raced through her when she remembered just what he’d done to that body when he released it from its prison of clothes.

As she bent over to retrieve the garments, she heard a voice pipe up from behind her.

“Now that’s a bloody view a bloke would be happy to wake up to every day for the rest of his unlife.”

Buffy sighed. She had hoped to get out of this less than comfortable situation before he awoke. But apparently the Powers that Be weren’t feeling that kind.

“Don’t get used to it,” she warned him sternly, refusing to turn and meet his eyes.

“Why not?” he asked pointedly. “Seems to be a regular occurrence nowadays.” The vampire let out a chuckle and the Slayer steadied herself to keep from punching the smile right off of his smug face.

“Well it’s never gonna happen again.”

“What the bloody hell does that mean?”

“Pretty self-explainy, Spike.” Buffy ran a shaky hand through her mussed hair. “What with the never happenings of this horrible mistake. Listen, I’ll keep this short and…bitter. You and me can never be together like this again. It’s wrong.”

“Bollocks!” He rose from the bed like an Adonis rising from a river. “What we shared was fucking fantastic. There was nothing wrong about it.”

He tried to catch her eyes but she refused to meet his gaze. She couldn’t allow herself that contact for fear that she might crumble into his arms.

Because the truth was that she had not only found solace in his arms, but she had found peace. In the midst of the throws of ecstasy she had truly found herself. The happiness that had been elusive for so long had finally saturated her entire being and her spirit had once again soared.

But with contentment of finding herself came the fear of losing herself again. The fear of losing herself in Spike’s heart. She just didn’t think she could go through the pain of being with a vampire again.

Swallowing hard, she pulled on her clothes as if the hounds of hell were on her heels, ignoring Spike’s piercing stare.

“So that’s it then?” he finally asked. “You’re just pissing off?”

“I have to go,” she said flatly, avoiding his eyes. She knew that if she looked at him then her resolve would immediately crack and she couldn’t risk that. She had to be strong.

“Thought you might be up for another round,” he leered.

“No! No more…rounds. I’ve just told you. We’re done with that.”

“You can try and convince yourself of that, sweetheart. But we both know that you couldn’t get enough of what I’ve got to offer you last night. You think you won’t want more?”

“I won’t.”

He sighed, deflated. “How can you say that after what we shared?”

Buffy steeled herself and flashed him her most fierce glare. “Shared? What did we share, Spikey? All it was for me was a drunken fuck.” She paused to swallow back the bile that her words brought up into her throat. “How many times do I need to say it? Last night was a mistake,” she said with faux confidence that she didn’t feel.

“It wasn’t a mistake! It was a bloody revelation. You can’t use the excuse of a spell this time. It was just you and me and sod all else.”

“There is no you and me. Not in any sense except the ‘you: vampire…me: slayer’ sense. That’s all there can be.”

“You’re an enormous bitch. You know that?” Spike shouted.

“Then you should be glad I don’t want more,” Buffy mumbled, turning to leave.

“I can’t be,” he said sadly. She paused and turned her head to look at him, a wave of horror washing over her at the pain in his eyes. “I can’t because I’m in lov…”

“No!” Buffy interjected, holding up a hand in front of his face. “Are you out of your mind?”

“No, just being honest.”

“Oh my God!” She shook her head disbelievingly. He couldn’t mean it. He couldn’t feel it…not without a soul. Buffy didn’t want to hear his twisted lies. “Don’t say it, Spike. Just please don’t. It’ll only make things harder than they already are.”

“I can’t help the way I feel,” he admitted.

“Neither can I,” she sighed. “Neither can I.”

“Then let yourself feel, love. Stop trying to be a bloody robot.”

“Why are you doing this to me?” Buffy yelled, tears running freely down her cheeks. “Why can’t you just leave me be?”

“I can’t do that because I love you, Buffy. I know I shouldn’t. It’s against the laws of nature for a vampire to fall in love with a bloody Slayer.”His mouth twisted wryly. “But that’s me. Never been one for following protocol.”

“Love? You can’t love, Spike. You have no soul, you idiot.”

“Well apparently my heart missed that memo because it won’t let me quit loving you.”

“You need to stop…l-loving me. It’s never gonna work.”

“Why not?” He crept closer to her causing her to back up against the wall. She felt trapped and cornered and her muscles tensed as if she was about to bolt out of there.

“It won’t work because…we’re too different.”

“We’re not all that different, pet.”

“Are you freakin’ kidding me? I’m the Chosen One and you’re an evil demon. That’s pretty much the definition of polar opposites, Spike.”

“Two halves of the same whole,” he disputed with a smirk that he knew would infuriate her.

“You’re wrong!”

“And am I wrong that deep down you feel the same way about me as I do about you?” he asked with hopeful eyes.

“That’s irrelevant.”

“I’ll take that as a no then,” he smiled. “I’m not wrong. You do have feelings for me. Just a guy and a girl wanting each other…let yourself feel, Buffy.”

She shuddered at the way her name rolled off of his tongue like velvety, molten chocolate and visibly steadied herself.

“My feelings for you are not important. All that matters is that we can’t be together. I’m not just some girl, Spike. I’m the Slayer. Remember her? Slayer comma the? One and only girl in the entire world? Chosen to protect the earth? My feelings aren’t important because when I get involved with vam…guys that I shouldn’t get involved with, people die and worlds almost end.”

“Aha! So it always comes back to this?” Spike started pacing, muttering nonsense to himself, before he spun back around to face her. “You won’t be with me because of the legacy that wanker of a grandsire of mine left during his not-so-soul having days.”

“People died,” Buffy murmured sadly. She still lived with the guilt of what happened with Angelus every single day of her life.

“Buffy, that ponce hurt you. I know that he did. But I’m not him. I don’t have a bloody soul to lose.”

“You don’t have a soul, period.”

“I don’t need one!”

“I can’t be with you, Spike!” Buffy declared decisively, waving her hand as if that was the end of the discussion. Spike’s face fell and he made no attempt to disguise the hurt that shone from his eyes. She sighed and scrubbed a shaky hand across her forehead. “Just forget me. Move on. You have to do that, Spike. For both of our sakes.”

With one final glance at him, she strode out of his crypt and into the sunlight.

Where he couldn’t follow.

Buffy spent the next day trying to figure out just what she was going to do. The Slayer had woken up resolute not to think of the blond vampire and she intended to follow through.

After all, how hard could it be to not think about that annoying bleached pest?

She started her day out with a long soapy shower, endeavoring to wash away any evidence of her tryst with a demon. Unfortunately, thoughts of said-demon sent her fingers wandering south and she ended up yelling his name out during her mammoth orgasm. She slumped against the cool tiles of the shower wall, panting hard and cursing the day that Spike bounded into her life.

When she finally stepped out of the shower, prune-y and depressed, she figured that little slip up was strike one.

One slip up was acceptable. In fact, it was to be expected. They’d enjoyed amazing sex together…probably the best sex that the Slayer had ever experienced in her life. And maybe the best that she would ever experience. There were likely very few men, human or supernatural, who could manipulate her body with Spike’s level of expertise. Of course, reflecting on that expertise led to strike two of the day. And to orgasm number two. Once again, Spike’s name was on her breath as she screamed out her pleasure.

Well no more Spike-thinkiness now.

Because three strikes and she was out.

Except that he was the peroxide elephant in the room. And the more she tried to refrain from allowing him to play (naked) in her mind, the more he dominated her thoughts. It was like a form of torture. She needed to get out of there and possibly kill something.

Right the fuck now.

She waited restlessly for the dusk to arrive, busying herself with mundane tasks to take her mind off of Spike and as soon as darkness started to settle over Sunnydale she grabbed some stakes and flew out of her house in the direction of the nearest cemetery.

Unfortunately, her feet carried her in the direction of a place she was telling herself she didn’t want to go. And before she knew it she was crossing the threshold of Restfield Cemetery.

Well, there were killable creatures here too.

Right?

“You are so not gonna go near Spike’s crypt,” she muttered to herself several times, in a kind of mantra, even as she headed in that direction.

But before she knew it, she was standing right outside the rotten old door that was the only barrier between her and the peroxide pain in her ass.

Buffy entered the crypt gingerly. Unlike her usual method of barging in, she crept into the old stone room, nervous about Spike’s reaction to her. After the things she’d said to him the previous morning, she knew she needed to tread carefully.

He smelled her before he saw her, his nose twitching as it caught scent of her creamy vanilla and fruity berry perfume with undertones of unadulterated Slayer blood. She smelled like the personification of heaven. Even when he’d hated her to her very core the vampire had always loved the way she smelled. The girl had an edible aroma in more ways than one.

“Hello Spike,” Buffy said simply, her voice barely venturing above a hushed whisper.

“So she’s back,” Spike commented as he sat sprawled in his easy chair, keeping his eyes focused on the television.

“I…I don’t know why I’m here,” she sighed, standing in the doorway. Her eyes wandered over his seated form. The vampire was slumped in his dirty old chair, legs akimbo, and hair curling out of control as he remained glued to some trashy television show.

But that wasn’t what grabbed her attention.

It was actually the fact that he wasn’t wearing a shirt that left her gaping at him.

Buffy had seen Spike in all his glory before…twice actually. But each of those times they had been lost in the heat of passion. During their first time together she was under a spell and the other she’d been drunk off her ass.

However, even from a distance she could see those tight muscles in their truly beautiful natural state and it made her mouth dry and her palms clammy. This wasn’t a normal reaction to seeing Spike half naked! She should be yelling disgustedly or punching him in the face for daring to be so lewd in the privacy of his own crypt. But she just remained frozen to the spot.

“Decide if you’re staying or going, pet,” he commanded her, more harshly than was necessary. His words startled her out of her self-induced trance and she snapped her mouth shut and shook herself. “You’re letting all the heat out.”

Buffy snorted a half-hearted laugh at his words and rolled her eyes. “Oh, sorry! I didn’t mean to let all the heat out of your dirty old hole in the ground. Silly me.”

The natural banter made her feel a little more comfortable. If she could just try and act natural around him, then it would all be okay.

She waited for her sparring buddy to verbally retaliate with some kind of witty quip like he usually did but she received a stony response that immediately deflated her.

Spike merely glared in her direction but still didn’t look directly at her. He felt like a child being tempted to look at the sun even though he knew it would be bad for him. Of course, for Spike, looking at the sun would prove fatal. But he couldn’t help but wonder if looking at Buffy would end with the same result. She was the killer of his kind after all.

Bridging the awkward silence that was stretching between them, Spike cleared his throat.

“So why are you here, Slayer?” he finally asked, shutting over the television and casually ambling over to the refrigerator.

“I thought you might want to patrol. You know…with me.”

“Any particular nasty that’s giving you trouble?” he inquired, trying to sound as disinterested as possible. No need to let her know that spending time in her company made his unbeating heart leap wildly in his chest.

He pulled a jar of blood from the refrigerator and gulped down several mouthfuls of the thick, congealed liquid, grimacing as it hit his taste buds.

God, he missed hot, human blood sometimes.

“What?” she asked distractedly. She’d already forgotten his question on account of his rippling muscles as he swallowed down the blood. His dietary habits should have been exceptionally off-putting but shirtless-Spike somehow managed to short-circuit her cerebral functions.

He turned slowly to look at her, his eyes raking over her flushed face. The sound of her pulsating heartbeat echoed in his ears causing a cat-like grin to spread across his face. This naughty little Slayer was aroused…by the Big Bad. Every single one of his senses alerted him to her rapidly increasing arousal. Of course, the knowledge was sweetened by the fact that she wasn’t under the influence of magic or the demon drink right now.

This was pure, unadulterated Buffy Summers and she wanted him.

Prowling toward her like a large cat, he curled his tongue behind his teeth. “I asked you what big…bad…nasties are after a taste of the Slayer.” His voice had dropped an octave and Buffy swallowed convulsively as her throat suddenly seemed parched.

“Nasties…” she repeated, clearly not in full control of her faculties. “Always some out there.”

“Not just out there though. Are they, pet? In here too.” She glanced away but Spike tsked and shook his head. “No, Buffy. Don’t look away. Look at this big bag right here who wants to…devour you.”

“We…w-we can’t,” she stuttered but made no move to get away from him.

“Why not?” he asked, his tone as sweet and creamy as caramel. “Tell me you don’t want it.”

“I-I do want you. I can’t deny that. But…I’m not ready to do this, Spike. Just give me time.”

He thought about pushing her. The vampire knew that he could probably capitalize on his charms and get her to fall into bed with him again. But his mind flashed back to the hellish morning-after they’d shared and he realized that he didn’t want a repeat of that. When they finally enjoyed each other’s bodies again he wanted it to be a mutual desire and a mutual acceptance. After years of always being second best, he wanted to be the first prize and not a consolation.

“Okay,” he acquiesced, moving away from her and slipping on his discarded shirt and duster.

“Huh?” She blinked, coming out of her lust-induced daze.

“I said…okay.” He spoke slowly as if she was a child, holding back a grin at her confusion. Clearly the Slayer hadn’t expected him to give up so easily. “We have some patrolling to do, right? Save the bloody morons in this town that don’t realize it’s not safe to toddle off out of their warm little beddie-byes after dark.”

“Oh…uh…yeah.” Buffy ran a hand through her hair. “Patrol. Let’s go.”

Wondering why she was actually patrolling right now instead of practicing her bedroom gymnastics with the vampire she was lusting after, Buffy sauntered out of the crypt with a very horny vampire hot on her heels. Yes, Spike was already regretting not finding a way to charm her into bed. Or at least the bulge in his pants was extremely regretful.

The patrol itself was less than eventful. Summer was always a quiet time in Sunnydale and it seemed like every demon on the planet had vacated the hellmouth that night. They only found one pathetic fledgling who’d managed to get himself wedged into his grave and a bug-eyed scaly demon that ran screaming when it saw the Slayer.

For both the Slayer and the vampire it was frustrating. They needed to kill something, it was innate to both of their natures and without the kill, their other instincts were taking over.

As Buffy looked over at her companion, she felt herself grow moist and prayed that he couldn’t pick up on the way that she was feeling. The Slayer was well aware of vampire senses and their unnatural ability to smell things. As gross as it was, it was also unnerving because she didn’t want Spike to know just how deep her desire for him was becoming. She might have hated him but that didn’t mean she didn’t want to jump his bones like a cat in heat.

“Something wrong, pet?” Spike asked, glancing askew at the petite blonde beside him. Her surreptitious peeks at him hadn’t gone unnoticed and neither had the aroma of her desire that was heavily scenting the balmy night air.

“Wrong?” she said, flinching as if she’d been shocked. “N-nope. Everything is as peachy as peaches and cream.”

“Is that so?”

Oh God! He was doing that sexy bedroom voice again. Buffy bit down on her lip until she tasted blood. Pain was good. It was an antidote for the lust. Except that suddenly it wasn’t working and it wasn’t dampening her desire for the forbidden vamp beside her.

“I’m fine,” she lied, breathing heavily. “Just fine.”

“You are…fine,” he agreed, his eyebrow raising pointedly as he inferred that her fineness wasn’t necessarily in the way that she meant. “I’ve seen just how fine you are in all your bloody glory. Like a goddess you are.”

“Spike…”

“When you rode me, you were more glorious than Lady Godiva. You were like an avenging Valkyrie, resolute and beautiful. So…beautiful.”

Buffy’s breath hitched in her chest at the intensity shining through his voice. His face was radiating the same extreme lust that she could feel inside of her own body and the young woman stopped walking as she tried to gather her senses.

Taking advantage of the opportunity, Spike quickly covered the distance between himself and Buffy and pushed the Slayer against the nearest hard surface, which happened to be the wall of a crypt.

“Sod waiting for the right time,” he muttered to himself as his hands closed around her biceps.

He pressed his body flush against her. She could feel the coolness of his body seeping through her own clothes and it was like being burned with ice. Although, the burning flame she felt could very well have been the one that had reignited in her chest.

And burn for him she did.

Every cell in her body strained for his touch, longing for him to bring her the pleasure that she knew he was capable of.

His lips moved against hers slowly at first, but the embers of their passion quickly ignited into a raging furnace. Tiny sparks of hunger for the vampire fizzed and bubbled in her veins. She wanted him closer and fisted her hands into his hair as she wrapped her legs around his waist. Even that wasn’t near enough though. She needed more.

She needed everything that he could give to her.

And then she heard that little voice in the back of her brain. She hated that voice. Sometimes she wondered if that was her soul, warning her away from the things that would hurt her.

Would Spike hurt her? He’d tried for so long but now he said he loved her.

It was very confusing.

Of course, it didn’t matter what he felt for her, because she couldn’t feel the same way about him. Even if he had changed, she didn’t believe she could let herself love another vampire.

With that thought at the forefront of her mind, she pushed him back slightly, reluctantly pulling away from him.

Their lips separated, both of them gasping for air. It was all too much. She felt too much and that wasn’t right. She told herself once again that she just couldn’t let herself fall for Spike.

He was evil and he didn’t have a soul.

He’d tried to murder her and her friends numerous times.

He wasn’t capable of real feelings so it didn’t matter anyway.

God, she wished she believed that. It would be so much easier if she truly did. But the pain was evident on his face. He felt just as deeply as any soulful being that she’d ever known, maybe even more so. However, the Slayer couldn’t dwell on that fact right now, because if she did then she wouldn’t be able to stop herself from launching right back into his strong, protective arms.

And wasn’t that just ironic as hell? The embrace of a serial killer made her feel safer than any man had ever made her feel before. Yet that simply heightened her fear. Because whenever Buffy felt even remotely safe something always happened to take that away. If she let herself fall for Spike, she had no doubt that the universe would throw every horrible thing her way just to make her suffer. Just to take him away from her.

She held his gaze for another moment before turning her eyes to the ground. Buffy knew that she could try to make him understand but he would never grasp why they couldn’t be together.

So she needed to leave.

Because right then, running away was all she knew how to do.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, apology etched onto her sorrowful face. “I…I can’t.”

“One day you will,” he assured her. “You’ll want it. You can’t stay away from the darkness, Slayer. The light’s too bright for you. It blinds you. You belong in the shadows, with me.”

She didn’t respond, conflict clear in her gaze as she turned to walk away.

Spike didn’t try to stop her. Trying to keep the Slayer with him when she didn’t want to be was like trying to teach a bear to tap-dance on a tightrope. He stayed staring after her, mourning the loss of her touch on his body. She felt so good against him, as if she was the missing part of him that he hadn’t even realized he’d lost until he found it.

Until her found her.

He silently vowed that one day she would be his and only his. One day she would let all her inhibitions float away and let him love her the way she was meant to be loved. Even if it took him the rest of his existence, he knew that one day it would happen.

He had to believe it, because if he didn’t he knew that he would fade away into the desolate abyss of hopeless despair.

On the gentle breeze that drifted toward him, he smelled the salty scent of the Slayer’s tears.

As she careered away from Spike, every footstep became harder. She felt like she was wading through thick tar and it physically hurt to leave him. She didn’t love him though. Of that, she was sure. It was just attraction, albeit an exceptionally strong one. But attraction was surmountable and she was sure she could easily recover from this. All she needed was some time. Oh and she definitely needed to stay as far away as possible from the peroxide blond.

She didn’t even notice the tears cascading down her cheeks as she ran away as fast as her legs could carry her.

Unfortunately, neither of the supernatural lovers noticed the two pairs of shocked eyes that stared at their antics.

“What the hell was that?” Xander gasped, turning to face an equally bemused Anya.

“It looks like Spike’s finally giving Buffy orgasms,” Anya replied with a shrug when she regained her composure. “Xander, you’re looking very pale! Xander!”

She rushed to his side as her boyfriend’s eyes rolled up in his head and he hit the ground cold.

++++++++++

When Buffy finally finished patrol, sunlight was already starting to bleed into the horizon. The Slayer had spent several hours just wandering around Sunnydale’s plethora of cemeteries, lost in her own silent reverie.

She’d kissed Spike again. Well, it was more of mutual jumping each other kind of thing. But still, it had happened, and Buffy couldn’t bring herself to regret it.

The only thing that she regretted was the fact that there was no regret attached to her feelings this time. And that was definitely not of the good. Because it meant…well she didn’t want to contemplate exactly what it meant. The possible connotations put ‘Spike’ and ‘falling in love with’ in the same sentence…and that would never go well.

Her thoughts were a jumble of contradictions and she didn’t want to consider any of them. However, in trying to avoid considering them, she’d ended up fixating on them even more.

Now she was finally home and all she wanted to do was take a long soak in a hot tub and curl up safe and warm in her bed.

She fumbled in her pocket for her key and turned it in the lock of her front door before stepping inside with a sigh of relief.

However, relief melted into confusion when she saw her friends and her Watcher gathered in her living room.

It immediately became obvious that something was wrong. The gang didn’t assemble in her house in the middle of the night for anything short of an apocalypse and her Slayer-senses ratcheted up a notch. If the world was ending then she needed to be on alert.

“What’s going on?” Buffy asked, glancing around at her friends, trying to gauge the situation.

Willow was keeping her eyes on the ground, Xander was looking furious, Giles was cleaning his glasses and Anya looked a cross between bored, amused and impatient. Tara was the only one who was looking even remotely sympathetic.

“Well, if we may, Buffy. We…that is to say…the people who care about you…we feel there may be some kind of problem,” Giles stammered, frantically rubbing at his spectacles.

“We do care about you, Buffy. This is blame free, okay?” Willow piped up, trying to look as reassuring as possible.

Oh God! Blame free? She’d heard Willow use a similar expression once before. Namely when her friends had staged an intervention to try and stamp out her relationship with Angel after his return from a hell dimension.

“Well, thanks,” Buffy replied arching a brow in confusion. “But can you guys cut through the crap because this is wiggin’ me out and right now it’s feeling a little intervention-y in here.”

“That’s because it is an intervention,” Anya said, inspecting her nails and confirming Buffy’s unsettling suspicion. “They think you need one because you’re boning Spike.”

“Ahn!” Xander exclaimed, jumping out of his seat on the couch. “This was about…kissing. As disgusting as that thought might be. But there is no boning. In fact, there’s a distinct lack of bonage…right Buff?”

Buffy frowned, glancing around at the stony faces of her friends. She suddenly felt isolated, as if she’d unwittingly ventured into hostile territory. The Slayer wrapped her arms around her chest defensively and met Xander’s dark gaze with her own sharp, green one.

“What I do or don’t do with Spike’s bones isn’t your concern, Xander,” Buffy spit out wearily. She was tired and confused and really not in the mood for this. A cranky Slayer is definitely not a friendly Slayer. “And how the hell would you know what I’ve been doing?”

“Oh God!” The brunet boy covered his face, ignoring her question. “I think I’m gonna be sick.”

“That makes two of us,” Giles said wryly, a look of concern blooming in his eyes.

Buffy screwed her eyes shut for a moment trying to collect herself. This was pretty much the last thing she needed. Okay, well an apocalypse would be a teeny bit worse, but this came close.

Finally managing to quiet his girlfriend, Xander approached the blonde, looking a little green around the gills and put his arm on her shoulder. “Listen, Buffy, we love you, okay? We’re your best friends and as such…it’s our job to tell you when you’ve clearly gone completely insane.”

Buffy rolled her eyes and shook his hand off of her. “I’m not insane, guys. I’m totally in control of my mind. And yeah, you guys are my best friends but I have my own mind.”

“Which apparently isn’t functioning right now,” Xander retorted irately.

“Maybe she just enjoys the orgasms?” Anya suggested with a smile and a wink at Buffy. “Vampires give excellent orgasms. They have incredible stamina. And I’m sure that a vampire as old and experienced as Spike really is a wonderful orgasm provider.”

“Oh, dear Lord!” Giles exclaimed, whipping his glasses off his face and polishing them so furiously that Buffy was sure he would rub right through the glass.

“Ahn!” Xander exclaimed, chastising his girlfriend with a glare. “Remember we talked about things we don’t say in public?”

“Yes,” Anya grinned, sticking out her fingers and counting off the list, “orgasms, penises…especially the size and girth of your penis, sex, blow jobs…mmmph!”

Xander clapped a hand over his girlfriend’s mouth, ignoring her protests as she clawed at his meaty paws. “Haha, sorry about that,” he said, his face as red as a tomato.

“Okay,” Buffy said, shaking her head at their antics. “I think that’s enough of this craziness. I’m going to bed.”

“Buffy,” Giles said sternly, making the Slayer stop in her tracks. “This really is something we need to talk about. It’s not a subject that can be avoided.”

“My love life isn’t up for discussion,” she said, her eyes turning hard.

“Wait…love huh?” Xander stammered. “We’re talking about Spike here! Spike and love do not belong in the same sentence, Buff.”

“I know,” Buffy said. “It’s a figure of speech. I-I don’t love Spike. But…if I did…it wouldn’t be any of your business.”

“It is our business because we’re your friends,” Willow piped up, finally finding her voice. Until then she’d remained silent but she felt that she had to help stop her friend from making a horrible mistake.

“Yeah, you are my friends, Wills. But you’re not…you’re not my keepers. I’m not a little kid that can’t make her own choices.”

“No, you’re not a child,” Giles agreed solemnly. “But you are the Slayer and as such you have a duty. Cavorting with soulless vampires in graveyards is not the way to uphold your duty.”

“How do you guys even know what happened?” Buffy asked through clenched teeth. “Do you spy on me through your crystal ball? Or is there some kind of special Slayer-GPS that keeps watch on me?”

“I saw what you did with that disgusting evil thing, Buffy,” Xander told her, his voice thick with disgust. “If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes then I wouldn’t have believed it. And trust me I wish I could burn that image away.”

“With your own eyes? You were spying on me?” Buffy felt the last threads of her already frayed temper snap. “What the hell did you think you were doing, Xan? Were you following me?”

“I was out with Anya!” Xander yelled, his own anger getting the better of him. “We thought you might be lonely on patrol, that you might like some company. But there you were. Clearly not lonely, letting Deadboy Junior mack on you!”

“You don’t even know all the facts. I wasn’t doing anything wrong!”

“Clearly you’re doing something wrong because you were kissing Spike!” he yelled, equally as mad as the Slayer now.

“I already told you, that’s not your business,” Buffy assured him coldly. She was so mad at them. She always did everything she could to make them happy. But apparently nothing was good enough. “You’re one of my best friends and I love you. I love all of you. But you so you need to keep out of my business now. And if I wanna get freakin’ married to Spike then that’s my choice, okay?”

“Dear Lord!” Giles exclaimed, interrupting their argument. “Didn’t Angel leave so you could have a normal life? And now you’re talking about marrying Spike? Have you gone quite mad?”

“Right! Because the whole hanging out in cemeteries and putting pointy sticks through the chests of animated corpses is really making with the normal, huh?” Buffy sneered.

The smirk that threatened to break through on her lips was eerily reminiscent of the smirk of a certain blond vampire. That thought terrified Giles.

“You can still have a normal life in other ways,” Xander pointed out, keeping his face intentionally blank.

“Tried it. Didn’t work,” she retorted dismissively.

“Really?” he asked skeptically. “Because you didn’t even give Riley much of a chance.”

“Yuh huh. Apparently normal human guys get all intimidated when their girlfriends can bench press them.” Buffy bit back.

“And Spike is the only one left? You’re so desperate you have to scrape that low for a boyfriend?” Xander asked meanly. He did feel a little pang of guilt as she flinched under the weight of his words.

“He’s not my boyfriend and I’m not scraping anything,” she sighed, bristling at his supercilious tone. Her fists clenched angrily. How did her friends sometimes manage to make her feel like a child in need of a scolding?

“But he might be…one day?” Xander prodded, silently praying that she would say no.

“I don’t know, Xan.” Buffy hissed, exasperated. “I don’t have psychic powers so I can’t tell you what’s gonna happen in the future. My feelings for Spike…”

“Aha! So you do have feelings for him?” Xander looked like a child as he jumped off the arm of the couch pointing accusingly at her.

“No! Yes! Okay…maybe. I feel…I don’t know…something for him. I can’t tell you what because I don’t even know myself. But I’m not a little kid. I’m the Slayer and I can deal with whatever happens without the need for a babysitter.”

“Spike will hurt you if you let him get too close,” the dark haired boy warned her. “And us too. We’ll end up with Angelus Mark Two on our hands.”

“That won’t happen,” she hissed. “Spike doesn’t have a soul to lose.”

“He doesn’t have a soul at all, Buffy,” Giles said keeping his voice gentle. “He’s not a suitable partner for you.”

“But that’s just it, Giles,” she replied. “I’m the Slayer. There is no ‘suitable partner’ for me because I’m not supposed to live that long.”

“Buffy…”

“No! Let me say this!” She gulped in a breath and faced the expectant faces of her friends. “I could die any night that I’m out there. It’s gonna happen one day. Just let me be happy while I can. Please.”

Giles simply nodded and removed his glasses to polish them once again.

Tara shifted uncomfortably in her seat, wondering again why she was even there. Finally she bravely opened her mouth to speak. “I-I think that h-he could be good for h-her,” the shy blonde chirped in defense of the vampire. “He’s not done anything evil for a w-while now…”

“You know nothing about him,” Xander said harshly, fury flashing in his eyes. He still saw Tara as an outsider and he wasn’t particularly interested in her opinion.

“I-I just think that m-maybe h-he’s changing,” Tara said quietly.

“Changing? He betrayed us to Adam!” Willow exclaimed, upset that her girlfriend would try and defend the vampire. “Buffy can’t be with Spike!”

Anya studied her nails with disinterest. “Maybe we should just honor her wishes,” the former demon suggested to her boyfriend. “If she likes Spike, then let her have Spike. He has a chip so he can’t hurt anyone.”

However, the furious look didn’t fade from Xander’s face and ignored his girlfriend’s words. What did she know about this anyway? She used to be a demon herself, no matter how desperately he tried to ignore and forget that fact, so of course she would side with Spike.

“Thank you, Anya,” Buffy smiled. She didn’t really know the former demon, never having bothered to take the time to get to know her. But it warmed her heart to have a little support from both Anya and Tara. The Slayer made a mental note to actually try to get to know these two young women who clearly had some hidden depths to them.

While Buffy and Anya shared a smile, Xander and Willow exchanged a pointed look with each other.

For them, this wasn’t over.

“Buffy, please see reason,” Giles implored her, missing her friends’ interaction.

“See reason?” she scoffed. “My friends spy on me and then when they decide that I’m doing something they don’t like they stage a freakin’ intervention. Does that sound reason-y to you, Giles? Because it sounds like something of the insane to me!”

“Buffy,” Giles sighed, his patience wearing thin. “We just want what’s best for you.”

“Well, you know, I think I know what’s best for me. And as much fun as all this discussion of my life is, I’m going to bed,” Buffy said, seeing that her words had had little effect on most of the group.

Without waiting for them to say anything else, she turned and headed up the stairs. She managed to keep the tears at bay until she was in the safety of her room but once she let them flow, it was as if the dam had been broken.

The Slayer collapsed onto her bed, sobs wracking her body. She cried for everything that she’d lost in her life as a slayer and everything that she would never be permitted to have. She sobbed and wailed for the innocent girl who had her childhood stripped away by the cruel Powers that Be.

Buffy cried until she had no tears left to shed and when she’d cried herself dry she curled up in a ball until the balm of sleep soothed her troubled soul.

Her sleep was a dreamless solace.

However, if she had known what was still to come, maybe she wouldn’t have slept so soundly.

Xander’s basement was shrouded in anxious silence as two longtime friends only punctuated the quiet with periodic sighs.

Both figures were sitting stock-still, their eyes edgily darting to each other.

It had been almost 24 hours since their Slayer-shaped friend had shocked them with revelations about her potential feelings for another vampire and both were at a loss to know what to do when it came to dealing with this new problem.

Willow’s brow was furrowed with worry as she stared at Xander, hoping for him to suggest a solution. Actually, she was hoping that he would concur with her own thoughts of performing a spell but she didn’t mention that to him. Maybe she could implant it into his mind and make him think it was something he came up with. It was much better to let him believe it was his idea.

Tara had recently commented on Willow’s constant craving to use magic and the redhead was a little paranoid that her girlfriend was right. Maybe she was becoming addicted to the black arts.

“Well, we need to do something,” Xander informed her flatly, pulling her from her thoughts.

“You’re right,” Willow said. “After everything she went through with Angel, we can’t allow it to happen again with Spike.”

“How could Buffy even let that…thing touch her?” Xander sighed disdainfully.

“I don’t know.” Willow gnawed on her lip. “I mean Angel was her first love and he was all with the tall and dark and mysterious. But this is bottle-in-face, in-love-with-crazy-Dru Spike!”

“We have to stop her!” Xander said, his face twisting. “She needs to listen to reason. If she can’t see it for herself then we have to make her understand the badness that is the peroxide menace.”

“But the intervention didn’t work,” Willow sighed, worrying her lip more harshly between her sharp white teeth. “What else can we even do? If Buffy’s set on being with Spike…”

“Whoa there! She didn’t say she was with him.” Xander exclaimed, throwing his hands into the air. His skin was tinged a pale green and he looked like he might be sick at any moment from the thought of it.

“No, she didn’t,” Willow agreed solemnly. “But she was all implicate-y that there could be a possibility of it. And if we’re gonna be good friends, we need to stop that.”

“Right. We need to make her understand that Spike equals bad. Dead things are for the stakeage and not the kissage. As soon as she realizes that, she’ll be our Buffster again.” Xander started pacing, feeling his blood coursing through his veins even more quickly than before.

“How can we do that though?” Willow asked, glancing at her oldest friend.

“You’re the smart one, Will. I don’t know, “ Xander sighed, bubbling over with frustration. “We can’t exactly keep her chained up in the basement and train her to remember that Spike is an evil killer demon and that it’s only the chip in his head that stops him from eating us.”

Willow smiled wryly. “She’s a Slayer and she would kick our asses for even trying. I mean, I guess I could do a spell…”

“Yes!” Xander cried, startling Willow. “A spell would be perfect. Turn Spike into a dung beetle or something.”

“Well, I was thinking more along the lines of making Buffy forget her attraction to Spike,” Willow corrected with a chuckle. “But it would be funny to see Spike as a dung beetle.”

“Can you do that spell, Willow?” Xander asked the redhead seriously, interrupting her giggles. “Can you make her forget she ever…felt…anything for him?”

She licked her lips thoughtfully and nodded. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I can do it…without making anything go all kablooey hopefully. I just need supplies. And…well I need to find the right spell.”

“Is this a research party of two coming up?”

“No.” She shook her head negatively and with a touch of arrogance. “I can find the spell easily. I’m a good witch now.”

“Okay. Get what you need and do the spell tonight. This needs to end as soon as possible,” Xander said.

Willow nodded, feeling a hint of nervousness creep back into her stomach. She knew she was doing the right thing. After all, Spike was bad for her friend, and it was definitely better to stop whatever was blossoming between Buffy and Spike now. If she didn’t then people could die. That was the way a relationship with a vampire always ended.

“I’ll do it,” she said.

The rest of the day was spent in seclusion at Giles’ house for the witch, pawing through book after book. Recently she’d been helping Giles to upload the contents of many of his books to computer disk so she had free run of his magic books. The Brit didn’t even blink when she informed him that she would be working with the books, and he left her to her work alone.

She had a veritable banquet of spells to choose from. And they all whet her magical-taste buds. She could feel the magicks crackling deep in her veins, running through her system like tiny rivers of fire.

There were a few factors that niggled at her conscience but she pushed them away. Buffy needed her and she was prepared to do whatever it took to save her friend from falling for another vampire.

No one else apart from Willow knew just how much the heartbreak Buffy suffered with her last vampire boyfriend had affected the Slayer. It had almost destroyed the blonde. Willow had been there through all the tears and tantrums and she couldn’t let it happen again. Angel had a soul and he still crushed her best friend, so Spike would surely do even worse. Without a soul, he had no moral compass to guide him and it would all end badly.

Unless she stepped in.

She couldn’t deny that it imbued her with a superior feeling of worth too. Sometimes she felt like Buffy didn’t really need her. During the past year she’d felt that way so many times. Sure, since then they’d vowed to try being closer again, but so far it hadn’t worked.

Buffy hadn’t even confided her attraction to the blond vampire in her best friend, so clearly Willow wasn’t as essential to the Slayer as she wished.

Skimming the final book, a spell caught her eye, and she immediately felt her heartbeat speed up. It was a memory and essence cleansing spell, and very advanced magic. For a moment Willow hesitated, wondering if she should try to accomplish such a complex spell, but she was self-assured enough to believe that she could. Her magic had been getting progressively stronger, especially with Tara at her side, and she knew she could do this if she poured all her power into it.

Not that she would tell her girlfriend about this. It was on a strictly need-to-know basis right now, and Tara simply didn’t need to know.

Nodding her head decisively, she copied the spell and the necessary ingredients and set out to the magic store to pick up what she needed.

Soon it would be done. Soon there would be no going back.

++++++++++

With everything gathered, Willow skipped to Xander’s house, greeting him with excitement when she arrived.

“Did you get everything?” he asked.

“All ready,” she informed him with a grin. “I found the perfect spell and the guy at the magic store had everything in stock.”

“Good.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Let’s get this show on the road.

The redhead put her bags down and began unpacking and sorting through her spell ingredients. She paused for a moment to peruse what she’d bought. It wasn’t a secret that some of the items that this spell required were only used for the darkest magic. She wondered whether it was a bad idea to use black magic to cleanse the Slayer but once again, she ignored her doubts and pushed the stale air out of her lungs with a forceful breath.

Everything would be okay. She was sure of it.

Willow laid the black candles out in a circle, crouching down to space them out correctly. She tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear and sat back on her thighs. The redhead still wasn’t totally sure that this was the right thing to do. After her Will be Done spell several months earlier, she’d learned that manipulating people with magic could lead to destructive consequences.

However, Xander agreed that this was what was best thing for Buffy. The witch felt a little guilty that she was hiding this from her girlfriend, but Tara wouldn’t understand. After all, she didn’t know Buffy like they did. Willow knew that it was imperative to stem Buffy’s attraction to Spike right now before it got even worse. It would surely hurt more to stop the relationship if the feelings grew deeper.

This was the correct route.

It had to be.

“Is everything ready?” Xander asked, rising from his seat on the bed and moved to stand against the wall as Willow put the finishing touches to her preparations.

“Yeah, pretty much done,” Willow replied, a few minutes later, mentally checking that everything was right. She was confident that nothing could go wrong with this spell though. She’d spent all day researching it and in her opinion it was totally foolproof.

Xander pushed forward from where he was leaning on the wall and loomed over Willow. The shadows danced on his face and his expression looked a little macabre for a moment.

“Let’s get this show on the magical, mystical highway,” Xander quipped, his face still set ominously. “By the time this is done, maybe Buffy will want to stake Evil Dead and sent him on a one way trip back to hell, where he belongs.”

She wasn’t sure that she realized just how deep his hatred for Spike ran until that moment.

The witch shivered and stood up.

“It’s time,” she said, receiving an answering nod from Xander. The boy stepped to the side and Willow took her place in the magical circle.

Once she was seated in the center of the circle she began to mix some herbs with a deep red powder and Styxian oil. She sliced through a sprig of Lethe’s bramble and laid it on the top of the potion, before crumbling a little charcoal colored piece of root of Hebe over it to finish. A thin plume of smoke rose up from the bowl and curled itself around the redhead like a vine.

“By the powers of the ancient gods, I bind all power within this circle into this spell.”

A sinister beam of black light echoed through her body, darkening her eyes and her hair. A gale whipped up around her, sweeping through her and spiraling outwards like a microcosmic twister. Willow had to concentrate hard to keep herself anchored.

“I call upon the Blessed Lady. Remove the facets of the Slayer that harm her spirit and injure her soul. Gently cleanse her of what erodes her goodness. Let her be free. Take her mind to the time when it was clean and pure and happy. Take away what harms her. Take away what harms her!”

She raised a shaking hand and slashed the dagger across her palm, letting the crimson blood pour into the bowl. The gust whistled around her, voices whispering in the air. As the words emanated from her mouth, her eyes faded to an inky black, looking like murky pools of heavy magic. Even the whites were usurped by the darkness.

“Mnemosyne, heed my call. I invoke thee!” Willow shrieked. “So mote it be!”

As quickly as the tempest had flared up, silence came crashing down again, and Willow flopped over to the ground like a rag doll.

Seeing his friend lying motionless on the floor, Xander rushed over to her and tried to rouse her.

“Will, are you okay?” he asked worriedly, breathing a sigh of relief when her eyes fluttered open.

“What…what happened?” she asked, a cough racking through her. She tasted blood in the back of her throat, wincing painfully. “Oh God! The spell didn’t go boom, did it?”

“I think it worked,” Xander said optimistically. “I hope it worked.”

They exchanged a look of solidarity. It had to have worked.

Otherwise they would be in big trouble.

++++++++++

The Slayer made her way through Restfield cemetery, sighing at the monotony of another quiet night. She twirled her stake in her hands, keeping her eyes peeled for any sight of a demon or vampire.

Unfortunately, when a vampire finally appeared, it was one that was at the top of her list of don’t-slays.

“Are you stalking me?” she asked the peroxide blond vampire.

“Just out for a walk,” he bit back with a glare.

“Always out for a walk just where I am, huh?” Buffy rolled her eyes and quickened her pace.

Spike, of course, had no trouble keeping up with her and followed quickly.

“Think you’re forgetting that this is my bloody cemetery, pet. Maybe you’re the one stalking me!”

“Yeah, you wish, Bleachbrain,” she scoffed. “In your dreams maybe.”

“Oh love,” he drawled, curling his tongue in front of his teeth, “Any dreams I have that involve you are always a lot kinkier than that.”

The vampire delighted in the deep blush that stained her cheeks and laughed when she flashed him a nasty look.

“You’re a pig, Spike, and I don’t want to hear about your perversions,” she told him primly.

“Yeah, why hear about them when you could experience them first hand?”

“I…we can’t,” she said without much resolve. Why did this vampire have the ability to crack the layers she built up around herself? She sometimes wondered if he possessed a thrall, because his eyes seemed to suck her in and make her a horny little sex fiend.

Spike placed a hand around her waist and tugged her to him, nuzzling at the sensitive juncture of her neck, teeth scraping gently against her prone skin. “Tell me again why we can’t, pet.”

Buffy felt her legs jellify at his touch. He seemed to have the power to turn her into a gibbering wreck of horniness whenever he was close to her.

“I-I…um,” Buffy stuttered, her brain switching off under the relentless bliss of his ministrations.

“I want to fuck you,” he admitted, his tongue tasting the velvety skin along the shell of her ear. “And I’m going to, love. I’m going to lay you down, spread you open and shag you until you can’t walk for a week.”

The Slayer hesitated momentarily remembering her reluctance of the previous evening. But then the annoyed faces of her friends floated in front of her mind’s eye. Their controlling, irritated glances made a sneaky surge of belated teenage rebellion rise up within her and she grinned.

“I want you too,” she whispered, giving in to her need for him.

Buffy gasped as he clasped the back of her head and crushed their lips together. It took her a moment before she responded, but she was helpless to do anything other than melt under his caresses. Her hands came up and tangled themselves in his short curls, mussing the carefully slicked back blond locks.

Their tongues tangled together mercilessly, each fighting for dominance. His hands skimmed Buffy’s ribcage, dancing down to her hips and finally settling on the plump globes of her ass. The kiss became increasingly rough and their arousal became increasingly heightened. Spike could scent Buffy’s juices as they pooled in her panties. The deliciously pungent aroma filled his nostrils and his cock grew even harder. He ground it relentlessly into her hip, craving release.

On Buffy’s end of the kiss, she was totally aware of the evidence of Spike’s arrival pressing into the hipbone. She vividly remembered just how good that turgid cock felt when it was thrusting into her warm, wet pussy. He’d managed to hit all the right spots. In fact he’d made her aware of spots that she hadn’t even known existed until then.

And then without warning Buffy broke away from his lips and took a step backward.

“Oh God!” she groaned, her voice hoarse and pained. She cradled her stomach and leaned over as if she was going to be sick.

Spike ignored the feeling of hurt that coursed through him. For a moment he thought she was about to launch into another of her speeches about the wrongness of their attraction but his eyes widened when her head snapped back and an ear piercing wail radiated from between her lips.

Hurt instantly transformed into worry.

A ray of dark light enveloped her and her whole body tensed and shook violently. Spike tried to rush at her but he was thrown to the ground by an invisible force field before he could touch her. The experience seemed to last for an eternity, but in reality it was only moments before she crumpled lifelessly to the ground.

Spike scrambled to his feet and rushed over to the Slayer. Her heartbeat and breathing were slow and steady but he couldn’t rouse her.

Trying to ignore the niggling terror, he picked the small girl up in his arms and cradled her to him, rejoicing in the feeling of her warm form against his chest. Having her in his arms again, even under this kind of circumstance, was pure heaven for the vampire.

However, he was worried about what had just happened to her. Spike had been around long enough to be able to recognize the stench of witchcraft when he encountered it. Someone had cast a spell on the Slayer. He just hoped that when she awoke, she would be okay. For the first time in over a century, Spike prayed to a God he was sure had abandoned him long ago.

She had to be alright.

She just had to be.

It didn’t take long to get back to his crypt, but for Spike those were the most anxious minutes of his unlife. Even when Dru had almost lost her life at the hands of an angry mob in Prague, he hadn’t felt so worried. The Slayer’s prone form belied her inner strength. A strength which he’d been a victim of too many times. And yet now he silently prayed that inner fortitude would keep her safe.

“Don’t worry, pet,” he whispered to the unconscious blonde. “Ol’ Spike won’t let anything happen to you.”

As soon as he entered the crypt, he descended to the lower level with the Slayer still tucked safely against his chest, cradling her like a sick child. He laid her down on the bed, listening to her breathing as he watched over the young woman.

Spike could hear the air as it filled her lungs and then again as it left them, expelled in tiny shallow breaths. The blood beat steadily through her veins, coursing with power in her tiny body.

All of a sudden, as if by magic, her green eyes snapped open and Buffy locked her gaze with Spike’s, a luminous smile on her face.

“Is something wrong, Spikey?” Buffy asked, sensing his anxiety.

“Are you okay love?” he tentatively asked her. “You had a nasty turn out there in the graveyard.”

“Of course I’m fine, honey,” she responded cheerfully. “I’m with you so everything is just perfect.”

Spike frowned. It was true that the Slayer had been less of a bitch than usual to him in the last few days, although that wasn’t saying much, but she had never said anything like that since the pair of supernatural beings were under the influence of a witch’s spell.

“Uh, pet? Sure you’re alright?”

“Mhm,” she grinned, sitting up gingerly to test her strength. “I’m just peachy with a side of keen.”

The Slayer flashed him another beaming smile before pulling him down to her, nuzzling her face into the crook of his shoulder. Spike’s eyes widened exponentially at the gesture. Clearly the Slayer was missing more than her peachiness or her side of keen right now. If Buffy was in her right mind she wouldn’t be acting this way with him. In fact she would probably thrust a stake through his heart, or through some other vulnerable part of his anatomy, if he merely fantasized about her touching him like this.

And yet now her hot little hand was skimming over his chest and heading in a very southerly direction.

“Whoa there, Tiger!” Spike choked out, stilling her hand in spite of his burgeoning erection. It took all his strength not to give in. However, he was reluctant to be on the receiving end of a rampaging Slayer’s ire once she got her senses back.

“What’s wrong?” Buffy asked with a pout.

In spite of his soulless state, Spike felt a pang of guilt at the dejected expression on her face. “We can’t do this, Slayer.”

Buffy frowned. “Why not? We’re in love. We’re getting married and it’s not like we haven’t done it before. Not really seeing the problem here.”

Blinking rapidly, Spike’s eyebrows shot up. “We’re what now?”

“Oh silly vampire,” Buffy giggled girlishly. “You’re such a little prankster. Don’t tease me, honey. You know we’re getting married and yes, the engagement was sudden and okay I guess we planned to wait for the wedding night. But last night at my Mom’s place showed me just how amazing a lover you are.”

“Last night…” he mumbled, a feeling of foreboding settling in his gut.

Buffy thought that the night they’d shared together under the influence of the Will Be Done spell had only happened the previous night?

His brow furrowed as he studied her happy-go-lucky expression. His girl seemed so totally carefree and she hadn’t seemed that way in a long while. He missed that carefree innocence that she’d once possessed in abundance.

“And I need you again,” Buffy continued, oblivious to Spike’s musings. “God, Spike, no one’s ever made me feel that way before. You took me to places that I didn’t even know existed.”

Spike felt a little frisson of pride course through him at her words. Sure, it was rapidly becoming clear that his girl was under some kind of spell, possibly a memory spell, but he would like to think that her words still held truth to them. His mind flashed back to the night they’d spent together in her house on Revello Drive several months earlier and he couldn’t deny it had been one of the best nights of his entire existence.

Being buried deep inside of her warm, welcoming body had been almost a religious experience for the vampire.

Or it would have been if he wasn’t a demon and therefore pretty much allergic to all things religion related.

But nevertheless, there had been bells, whistles, and flashing lights as he made love to the girl. Every night he was haunted by the memories of the way she felt, the way she smelled, and the little noises that slipped from her bee-stung lips as she climaxed, her legs squeezing the unlife out of him. In hindsight, knowing that he loved her for real now, it made their one and only loving night together even more poignant.

They’d enjoyed a drunken night together only days earlier but that wasn’t the same. It was fraught with unbridled passion but it wasn’t the tender girl who’d adored him under Willow’s spell that he’d found in his bed.

Spellbound Buffy had truly loved him in a way he’d never even dreamed he could be loved.

And it made him feel whole.

And here was that Buffy again. The Buffy who loved and desired him, who wanted him despite his undead status. How could he truly resist that? Even if he ended up as dust afterward, the vampire was incredibly tempted to give in to her.

But a tiny annoying voice inside of him protested against that idea. This wasn’t like when they were both under the influence of Willow’s spell. Buffy was essentially out of her mind this time, but Spike knew exactly what he was doing. The vampire was totally aware that a sober, unspelled Buffy wouldn’t want this.

Or would she?

The Slayer had been becoming increasingly receptive to his advances recently. No longer did she look at him with abject disgust when he flashed his charms in her direction. Maybe, just maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to give in to the girl who was now crawling into his lap and using her tongue to do delicious things to his neck.

“What are you doing?” he gasped as her blunt teeth closed around the corded muscle of his neck.

“Want to play,” she giggled, fisting her hands in his T-shirt and tearing it open. “Need to feel you, taste you. Oh Spike! I want you so bad.”

His inner voice urged him to be strong. It tried to remind him of the potential dusty ending for him if he didn’t stop this right the fuck now. “Uh, no love we shouldn’t. I mean we really…fuck! Buffy…uh…” His eyes rolled back in his head as her tongue flicked over his nipple.

“Mmm, you taste so good, Spikey,” she moaned, fumbling with his zipper. And then her hand closed around his dick and that was when he lost all control.

Fuck having morals! That was for idiots and white hats. Spike had tried to be good but what man…dead or alive…could resist a Slayer who was looking at him like she wanted to devour him.

“Oh Spike, I can’t wait until we’re man…well vamp and wife. It’s going to be so wonderful my love.”

The vampire gave her an indulgent grin. It felt so good to have her fawning over him like this, even if it was just some kind of spell. He wouldn’t be surprised if the idiot witch had been meddling with magic again. Perhaps if he’d possessed a soul he would have felt guilty about enjoying her this way. But when love ran so deep and so strong it was hard to give it up.

And that was the moment he knew for sure. Buffy Summers wasn’t just in his heart. She was his heart. Somewhere along the way this tiny slip of a girl had become the center of his world and he’d be damned even more if he was going to let go of her. He’d tasted heaven and now he was an addict.

For so long he’d denied his feelings, pretending to himself that they were as a result of Willow’s spell or too many shots of whisky on an evening. But that wasn’t the case. Somewhere along the way, Buffy had wriggled into the center of his very being and taken over. She’d become his everything. He craved her touch, her scent, her taste. When she wasn’t close to him, he felt lost, like a part of him was missing.

During his time with Dru, he thought he’d known love. She’d rescued him from his mediocre existence and he was grateful to her for that. But what he felt for this little blonde American was so much more than he’d ever felt for his vampire sire.

Right now, even as her tongue was caressing his most sensitive parts, all he wanted to do was hold her, listen to the vibrant beat of her heart as he breathed in her sweet scent.

He pulled her up from her knees, not needing the sexual contact right now. He only needed to feel her nestled against him. This was the closest he’d felt to anyone in forever…literally.

“Don’t you want to play?” she asked with a pout.

“Got plenty of time for that later, pet,” he assured her, flashing his girl a cheeky smile and a wink that made her heart melt. “Just wanna hold your sexy little bod.”

With an exaggerated pout and a deep sigh, the blonde acquiesced and tucked him gently back into his pants. The vampire winced a little as his engorged cock strained against his zipper. But he knew that there really would be time for play at a later time. Oh, and the things he would do to her…

Spike swallowed hard as he felt himself swell even more. The man wasn’t exactly famed for his restraint. But as he buried his nose in his girl’s blonde mane, he knew that holding back now was worth it. And he absolutely, positively wasn’t doing this because he felt that annoying little niggle of guilt at the fact that the Slayer clearly wasn’t herself.

Because he was a vampire. With the grr and the bumpies and he was sure that one quarter of the Scourge of Europe wouldn’t feel guilt at taking advantage of the Slayer.

Even if he loved her.

Because weren’t vampires supposed to feel a selfish kind of love? Wasn’t that what the Watcher’s Council instilled into their charges?

And yet…

When Spike was with Buffy, it was no longer about what she could offer to him. It was about what he could give to her, how he could make her happy. The blond vampire hadn’t felt this much of a ponce since his human days when he’d been William the Bloody Awful Poet.

He clutched the little blonde even tighter to him.

He only wondered how he’d ever be able to let go once this spell wore off or was broken.

Buffy sighed in contentment as she reclined against Spike’s chest, her head tucked cozily into the crook of his shoulder. Immediately, the peroxide blond forgot any of his mildly disturbing thoughts and was pulled back into the moment.

“This is nice,” Buffy mumbled, a smile dancing on her lips.

Her partner nodded in agreement. It was nice. In fact, it was better than nice.

This was close to perfection.

Spike had dreamed of this moment so many times. Being able to be with Buffy when she was soft and welcoming and not kicking him in the head had merely been a pipe dream. But here she was.

The problem was that despite the wonder of having Buffy like this…it was tainted.

He hadn’t realized it at first, thinking that he could just enjoy this for what it was. And at first he’d been able to pretend that it was real.

But it wasn’t.

Buffy didn’t really know who she was, so this was merely a mirage. Well she knew she was the Slayer but love is such a defining quality that a belief in false love can re-determine someone’s fundamental essence. Her memories of everything that happened since Willow’s spell were gone. In fact, her whole outlook on life was altered. And that didn’t sit right with Spike.

As a soulless vampire he was supposed to be incapable of guilt. Wasn’t that the whole point of shedding your soul? And yet…somewhere deep within him flecks of guilt were needling him. He didn’t want to experience guilt.

He wanted to be free of his conscience, because in truth life was so much easier that way. Without the remorse over taking advantage of Buffy, he could just enjoy being here with her. Deep down he knew that he should put a stop to it, take her back to the Scoobies and let them do their detective bit to find out the cause of her memory loss.

But her hot little hand was closing over the shaft of his throbbing erection again. How was he supposed to think when she was doing that to him?

He glanced at her and couldn’t help but smile as he spotted the devilish twinkle in her eyes.

“What are you doing, you little minx?” he asked with a grin.

Buffy shuffled down until she was eye level with his pulsating cock and let her tongue trail casually up the turgid shaft. “Having myself a Spikey-flavored treat,” she replied with a mischievous twinkle sparkling in her eyes. “Don’t want to wait any longer.”

Spike knew he should protest once again. He should end this now and get her some help to reverse this spell. Otherwise it could only end with a stake lodging itself in his heart when the spell finally did end. However, when the hot cavern of her mouth enveloped the swollen head of his erection all rational thoughts fled from his mind. His eyes rolled up in his head and he gasped at the pleasure.

Her little pink tongue dipped into the small slit at the end of his penis and she licked up the pearl of pre-cum that she found there.

He’d spent all of twenty minutes trying to resist. But he was only a man. He wasn’t Superman. Who could stand firm against the attentions of this woman?

“Mmm,” she moaned, savoring the taste. “Spike, you taste so good! I love the way you taste, honey.”

The moan sent a vibration echoing through him, heightening his pleasure even further. When her hands wandered to his ball-sac and she started to caress it gently he wondered if it was actually possible for a vampire to dust from pure pleasure.

However, he couldn’t even conceive of how much more pleasure there was for him to receive.

Buffy took the whole eight inches of his dick into her mouth, suppressing her gag reflex as it hit the back of her throat. In spite of the reflexive tears that pooled in her eyes she swallowed around the thick member.

“God, pet. Yeah! Suck it like that,” he babbled in encouragement.

She pumped him into her mouth, swirling her tongue around the end of the milky column of his dick. Occasionally she grazed him with her little white teeth too and the slight hint of pain just made it even better for the slightly masochistic vampire.

“Fuck!” he swore as she took him in even deeper and her throat muscles began to milk his length.

Her little tongue tickled the head of his cock, slipping between the tiny hole at the end of his throbbing organ. The action forced the vampire’s hips up off the bed, making him buck wildly. No one had ever given him this kind of pleasure before.

Back when he’d first been turned, sex had been all about domination and proving who was the alpha-vamp. It had also been about pain. Angelus, Dru, and Darla all had sadistic streaks in their blood that ran deep. Being the youngest member of the pack meant that Spike was so often the recipient of some of the worst kinds of sexual tortures. But he’d gotten used to it.

Once Angelus regained his soul and Darla abandoned him and Drusilla in favor of the Master, Spike had tried to introduce some tenderness into his lovemaking with his sire. However, Dru craved both receiving and giving the pain when it came to sex and any kind of gentleness was a rare event.

But with Buffy all those memories were washed away. Even though he knew it was manufactured by a spell gone awry, he could feel the love seeping through every touch. She was perfection and he already knew that he was so deeply in love that he never had a chance of getting out of this unscathed.

He was hers, whether she wanted him or not.

Luckily right now, she clearly wanted him. The desire that she felt for the vamp shone from her glittering green eyes. They were clouded with profound lust and he smiled at what a sex kitten his naughty little Slayer was proving to be. Even when they’d had their drunken tryst, she showed that she was insatiable in the bedroom.

The warm cavern of her mouth was taking him higher and higher and he didn’t think he would ever return to earth if she continued this way. He let out tiny moans that gradually transformed into full on groans and full body spasms as she played him like a virtuoso.

“Fuck, Slayer, you know all the right bloody spots to hit.” Spike groaned, surrendering to his desires.

“Don’t call me Slayer,” she chided him gently, nibbling at his shaft as she spoke. “Call me Buffy. Say it. Say my name, Spike.”

“Buffy,” he choked out. “God, Buffy! Fuck pet, you know how to make a bloke mad as a bloody hatter. That mouth…it’s perfection, love.”

He felt the pleasure course even more intensely through his veins, like tiny bolts of electricity flowing in place of his static blood. However, just as he was about to reach his peak, Buffy stopped dead, pulling away and collapsing to the ground.

Suddenly her eyes rolled up in her head and her violent seizures started to wrack her body.

“Buffy!” he yelled worriedly, but she continued to buck up into the air, her back rigid and her muscles tense. Foam spilled from the edges of her mouth and Spike’s worried notched up another level. If his heart had been able to beat, he knew it would be going at a million miles a minute right now. “Love, what’s wrong?”

Buffy didn’t answer.

She couldn’t answer.

Spike pulled on his own clothes in haste, and wrapped the Slayer in his duster, before scooping her into his arms. She was flailing in his grip and it took all of his effort to maintain a steady hold on the young woman.

Without another thought, he headed out into the velvet mask of night.

He needed some help. And he knew where to get it.

Giles sat staring at his half empty whisky glass, alone and tired. Recently he’d been feeling a little underappreciated by everyone. He was no longer a watcher, no longer really relevant. Buffy had tried to incorporate him more into her life but it was still difficult for him not to really feel needed.

A part of him felt like maybe he should return to England. He could go back to his homeland, maybe even open up that quaint little café he’d always dreamed of owning. Perhaps he’d find a nice lady to be with and the two of them could live out the English Dream.

Or then again, he’d probably end up alone and unhappy. He might be the weird man who lived alone with several cats and was the center of the village gossip. He’d probably be the guy that parents told their kids to cross the street when they saw him.

Or he’d find some town with the highest vampire population in the British Isles and end up as vampire chow.

Yeah, that was more likely.

Wouldn’t that be just his luck?

He took another gulp of his drink and let out a sigh, wallowing in his less than desirable thoughts.

A sudden banging on the door startled him and he surged to his feet worriedly. Pulling open the heavy wooden door he was confronted with the horrific sight of a blond vampire cradling his slayer. The young woman was bucking and seizing against the leanly muscular chest of her protector.

“What the bloody hell is going on?” asked Giles, his voice filled with anxiety.

“Gonna let me pass?” Spike asked brusquely. “Got ourselves a little situation here.”

“Well, yes,” Giles stammered, moving aside to allow the vampire into his home. His eyes were glued to his charge…in the arms of William the Bloody.

“Got somewhere I can put her, Watcher?”

“Yes, I…um…in my bedroom, Spike.” Giles replied, confused as to what the hell was going on.

Storming past him, the vampire took the stairs two at a time, careful not to jar the girl and speeded to the bed. He gently deposited his precious cargo onto the woven coverlet. The Slayer wasn’t thrashing as violently as she had been previously, but she was still gasping for breath, shallow pants rocking her chest. Her face was white as a ghost. Spike could only hope that she wasn’t destined to actually become a ghost any time soon.

“Don’t give up on me, pet,” he said quietly, too low for human hearing to pick up on. “Whatever’s ailing you, we’ll find it and beat it. Bloody hell, Slayer, you’re too strong to let go.”

He reached into the pocket of his pants and pulled out a slightly bent cigarette, playing with it nervously, twirling it between his slender fingers. The vampire hadn’t felt this helpless since he’d been captured and chipped by the Initiative. However, even that seemed to pale into insignificance compared to this.

Giles watched the vampire carefully through the small crack in the door as he lit the cigarette and puffed on the small white stick. It dangled casually from between Spike’s thin fingers but the Watcher could see an almost imperceptible tremble in the other male’s hands.

Normally vibrant blue eyes were dull as they gazed down at the Slayer from Spike’s pale face. Giles frowned at the way Spike was staring at the Slayer. It was almost as if he was distraught by her condition.

“You’re gonna be just fine,” Giles heard his fellow Brit assure the unconscious young woman. “Your Watcher’s a smart bloke…most of the time. He’ll work out what’s going on and we’ll get you fixed up and back to your old self in no time. Mark my words, Princess.”

Spike stroked her forehead, the beads of sweat sticking to his cold fingers.

“Not gonna let anything happen to you, love. Only just really found you, and I ain’t bloody well losing you now. Might be a selfish git, but I need to keep you in this world.”

Giles swallowed heavily as the words hit his ears. He’d never imagined what a non-murderous Spike could be like and this was a very bizarre scene that was unfolding in front of him. Especially seeing as Spike had been hell bent on killing Buffy for the entire time that he’d been acquainted with her. Giles slinked away from the slightly ajar door and went back downstairs to await the vampire. He had a plethora of questions that he wanted to ask. And he really needed another drink.

Placing a small kiss on her cheek, Spike drew back from the supine Slayer and took a final drag on his cigarette before stubbing it out on the carpet.

He might be in love with Buffy but he was still bad to the bone.

Okay, maybe not as bad as he used to be but he could still piss off the Watcher sometimes.

It was good stress relief. And he really needed that right about now.

Taking a deep breath he exited the bedroom and descended the stairs, only to be confronted by a purple faced Englishman.

“What did you do to her?” Giles demanded, grabbing the vampire by the scruff of his neck and slamming him against the wall.

“Didn’t bloody do nothing to her,” Spike denied.

The human produced a stake seemingly out of nowhere and pushed the tip against the defenseless vampire’s chest. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t stake you right now!”

“’Cause I didn’t hurt your Slayer. I saved the girl. If it wasn’t for me she’d be lying in the middle of Restfield Cemetery right now where any nasty could take a bite out of her.” He gulped down that niggling little guilty feeling at what he’d done with the Slayer when he’d taken her back to his crypt. What the Watcher didn’t know wouldn’t get Spike staked. “And don’t you make any mistake. Sweet treat like the Slayer would be demon chow before you could snap your fingers.”

“Why would you help her?” Giles questioned him, not yet relinquishing his hold on the other Englishman.

Giles’ mind flashed back to the scene he’d just witnessed but he pushed it out of his consciousness. He was too confused to delve into that little can of worms that was threatening to pop open.

“Why wouldn’t I?” The corner of Spike’s mouth twisted sardonically.

“You hate my Slayer. You’ve tried to kill her multiple times and it was only the chip in your brain that prevented you from continuing to try. Surely this would be a perfect solution for you, no?”

Spike laughed, not from humor but from the irony of the situation. Leveling his eyes to Giles’ he sighed wearily. There was no point in trying to hide it. Giles was savvy enough to figure out that there was more to this eventually. And despite his affinity for fudging the truth at times, Spike knew that sometimes it was just easier to tell it how it is.

“Here’s the rub of it, Watcher.” Spike nervously took a gulp of air. “Somewhere along the bloody line I stopped hating the Slayer. I don’t even know when or how it happened, but nonetheless that hate faded away into something…else. Old Willie said it best: ‘My only love sprung from my only hate!’ And that’s what happened.”

“Love? You love a Slayer? You love my Slayer?” he sneered.

“Bloody slayers were my addiction, you know. But I loathed them and their goodness and all I wanted to do was feel their life drain out of their bodies as I squeezed it away with these two hands. And then Buffy came along. And she changed everything. She made me love her. And I love everything about her, Watcher. Including her goodness.”

“You’re really trying to tell me that you genuinely love Buffy?” Giles scoffed incredulously. “Even if you do believe such rubbish, I can’t believe that.”

“What the bloody hell not?” the vampire asked indignantly.

“Well for one thing, you don’t have a soul,” he replied indignantly. “A creature needs a soul to love.”

“You mean the Great-Foreheaded Ponce needs a soul to love.”

“If you’re referring to Angel, then yes. He has always made it quite clear that a vampire cannot feel love without a soul.”

“And of course he’s the ultimate authority on everything,” Spike retorted sarcastically. “May I remind you that I loved Drusilla for over a century, Rupert. I took care of her through thick and thin.”

“That was familial loyalty.”

“Bollocks! You don’t know the buggering shit she put me through at times and I stayed with her.”

“A vampire has a bond with its sire, Spike.”

“You really think that’s why I stayed with her? Because of a bloody bond? Not half, Watcher. I loved the bint. She shagged half the male population of the bleeding world while we were together but I stayed by her side.” He ran a tense hand through his hair. “It didn’t matter to me because I was hers. Not cause she sired me but because I was in love with her and I was faithful to that faithless bitch no matter what she did. I never thought I could feel that deeply for anyone else. But I feel a hundred times the love for Buffy than I did for Dru.”

“What you feel is merely obsession, not love.” Giles words were filled with conviction but Spike couldn’t help but notice a slight tremble in his voice as he spoke.

“Forget your Council doctrines for a minute,” the vampire said imploringly. “Sure, they teach you that my kind are a bunch of mindless zombies who think about nothing more than death and destruction. And I’m not denying that I like a good spot of death and destruction. It’s bloody fun, you know.”

Giles raised his eyes to the ceiling and opened his mouth to speak, but Spike continued with his monologue. “Look, just forget your buggering prejudices for one minute. After everything I’ve done to help her, can’t you see that I’m in love with Buffy?”

“No, I can’t believe it,” Giles denied.

“Then write to Ripley’s because this is the God’s honest truth.”

“You’re not one of God’s creatures, vampire.”

“No, I’m a son of Satan I suppose,” Spike agreed. “But she makes me want to forget the evil inside me. She makes me want to be a better man. You remember you told me that getting this chip might have had a higher purpose? Well I think this is it. Being with Buffy, fighting by her side, loving her…that’s my destiny, Rupes. And I’m not letting it slip away without a fight. Alright?”

Giles sighed, his posture drooping. With one last shake of the vamp, he finally let go of the other man and stepped away from him. The Watcher poured himself another large glass of whiskey, gulping it down without taking a breath before pouring himself a second glass.

“Think you might be able to spare a glass for me?” Spike asked hopefully.

Giles sent him a scathing glare and shook his head but nevertheless poured out a glass of the amber liquid for the vampire.

“Right now what I feel for Buffy isn’t the thing we should be focusing on anyway. We need to figure out what the bloody hell is going on here,” Spike said after a few moments’ silence. “Something bad’s happening to Buffy and someone’s done it to her.”

“Any ideas?” asked Giles.

“I’m pretty sure it’s some kind of spell. There was this weird dark light that surrounded her and then she passed out.”

“And you brought her directly here?” Giles probed, sipping on his third, or possibly fourth, glass of scotch.

“Uh, well. Not exactly. I took her back to my crypt first.”

Giles’ gaze darkened. “If you touched her…” he warned threateningly.

Spike looked away from the Watcher. The vampire had never been a good liar and he figured that Giles would see right through him if he told an outright lie. However, he could fudge the situation.

“I waited for her to wake up. And when she did, the Slayer thought we were back under that bloody spell Red cast on us last year. She wanted me and I told her no. And then she started having a fit, eyes rolling back in her head and foaming at the mouth. So I brought her here.”

The Watcher narrowed his eyes, not sure whether he should fully believe Spike’s version of events. However, he realized that he could probe more deeply into that at a later time. Right now saving Buffy was the priority and they had to try to work out exactly what happened to her. If Spike was right, then it seemed she was under some kind of spell and the best course of action to determine what it was would be research. Having a budding witch in their midst along with a boy who’d done more than his fair share of supernatural research in his time was definitely a bonus.

“I’ll make a call to Willow and Xander,” Giles said, standing up. “They can come over to help us research. Perhaps once we determine what spell has been cast on her then we can track down who cast it. A Slayer makes many enemies in her time so it could be any one of a number of demons or mages.”

“Sure it wasn’t the little witch herself?” Spike asked insightfully. “Not like she hasn’t pulled this crap before.”

Giles shook his head. “I don’t believe that Willow would do this. She learned her lesson after the last fiasco. No, she’s a sensible girl.”

“What about the boy? Heard he cast a spell to make every poor female in this hell-town fall in love with him a few years ago. Dru told me the story after. Bloody bint wanted to make him immortal.” Spike shuddered at the thought of a Xander that would live forever.

“Unfortunately, the witch who Xander commissioned to help him with that little spell has spent the last year and a half as a rat. I very much doubt Xander was responsible for this.”

Spike wasn’t so sure but he didn’t pursue it any more. He could sense that Giles was starting to become irate at these accusations. The vampire couldn’t help but feel a little bitter at the irony of that. The Scoobies never had a problem with accusing him of anything without proof but God forbid he should level anything at their precious selves and he was suddenly the devil.

“I’ll be upstairs,” Spike said with a sigh. “I’m going to check on the Slayer. I don’t want to leave her alone for too long.”

Giles made a face as if he was about to protest about letting Spike stay alone with the Slayer but the determination in Spike’s gaze stopped him from opening his mouth. Instead he nodded, watching the very strange vampire make his way up a flight of stairs toward a Slayer he professed to be in love with. Giles sighed.

Just another day of life on the Hellmouth.

It didn’t take long for Giles to recruit the Scoobies and they hurried over to his place. Hesitantly he explained the situation to Willow and Xander, noting the surreptitious looks they exchanged with each other.

“So we need to investigate the cause of Buffy’s problems,” he said, once he’d informed the pair of what was going on. “Perhaps there’s a new enemy out there who has done something to my slayer. Maybe a spell.”

Willow’s face reddened. Her entire being was infused with guilt and despair. The spell wasn’t supposed to work that way. She knew that she was a competent witch and even though the magicks that she’d tapped into were dark and advanced the young witch had been convinced that she could handle it. There was no way it could have rendered her best friend in such a terrible state.

Part of her didn’t want to admit what she’d done. It would be easy to deny it, to pretend that she knew nothing about it and get busy with the research party. The redhead highly doubted that Xander would spill the beans. However, her conscience overrode her desire to stay quiet and she took a deep breath.

She cautiously raised a hand. “It was me,” she whispered.

“What…was you?” Giles asked, a little perplexed.

“I was…well it wasn’t just me, but we…that’s us I mean…we…”

“Spit it out, Willow,” Giles demanded, his patience finally dissolving.

“We cast the spell,” she admitted rapidly, the words pouring from her mouth in a torrent of regret, scrunching up her face as if she was about to burst into tears. “I’m sorry!”

Giles stared at her with a stony moue. “You cast a spell on my Slayer?” he asked, voice as hard as steel.

“We wanted to help Buffy,” Willow yelled. “She was all sappy-girl over Spike and we were worried about her.”

“‘We’?”

“Xander and me.”

Xander blushed red and looked down at his hands, clearly wishing that the Hellmouth would swallow him up right about now. Although the boy shared Willow’s guilt at the effects of the spell, unlike his friend he didn’t want to confess to their wrongdoings.

“You bloody idiots!” Giles exclaimed, flushed with fury. “You stupid, arrogant little amateur!”

“Hey! Don’t talk to her that way!” Xander intervened. “We thought casting a spell was the lesser of two evils.”

“Right!” agreed the redheaded witch. “Buffy’s our best friend and we didn’t want to hurt her, but we couldn’t let her keep on being with…with that…”

“With that evil monster,” interjected Xander. “She told us that she had…feelings…for Spike. We had to do something to help her.”

“Exactly!” Willow nodded.

“Well, now Buffy’s upstairs and possibly dying. So clearly you’ve saved her from a terrible fate,” Giles commented dryly. He turned to Willow, ignoring Xander’s wince. “I want to see the spell you used right away. If we’re to help her then I must see exactly what you’ve done.”

“The Grimoire is still at Xander’s,” Willow said.

“Then bloody well get it!” he snapped, all patience gone.

Willow and Xander scampered out the door and Giles slumped down into a chair, dropping his head into his hands.

“Those bloody kids!” he sighed.

When the two teens returned twenty minutes later, Giles was already getting antsy. He knew from experience that speed was essential in these kinds of matters.

As soon as they walked through the door he surged to his feet and approached them. Willow balked at his murderous expression but Xander just glared back. Although the witch was feeling a little regretful, the brunet was still convinced they hadn’t done anything wrong. Why couldn’t Giles see that they’d wanted to save Buffy from the arms of another evil vampire?

The Brit held out his hand for the book and she flipped to the right page before handing it to him. Giles carried the book over to the couch and sat down with it on his lap. The teenagers just stood awkwardly by the door, poised as if they might flee at any moment.

It wasn’t long before the older man was engrossed in studying the spell that Willow had used. The more Giles browsed the words of the spell, the more thunderous his face became. He couldn’t believe his eyes.

“This is definitely the spell you used?” Giles pinched the bridge of his nose between shaky fingers. “A memory cleansing spell?”

Willow nodded and glanced to Xander for support. However, the brunet was looking sheepishly at the ground.

“Oh dear!” Giles exclaimed as he examined the spell. “Willow, this isn’t just a cleansing spell. This spell strips the recipient of their very essence.”

“What does that mean?” Willow asked worriedly.

“Well,” Giles said slowly, as if he was talking to a small child, “In the first instance the spell would have done what it was intended to do. It stripped Buffy of the memories that were hurting her. She forgot everything that pains her, I suppose. It would have taken her back to the last time she was truly happy…whenever that might have been.”

“That wasn’t what I wanted to…” Willow interrupted but Giles held up a hand. Anger was like a live entity behind his eyes and Willow cringed at his expression.

“I don’t care what you bloody well wanted to do!” he yelled. “It’s what you did do! But, you see, the spell doesn’t stop there. It invades the victim like a virus, separating them from themselves. Until eventually, it eats through the core of their being. And they die.”

Willow reeled back in shock. She felt as if she’d been slapped. Giles’ words reverberated in her brain and she felt like sinking to the floor and crying. Pushing through the guilt, she hardened her expression.

“This is not my fault!” she said as confidently as she could.

“Not your fault?!” Giles bellowed thickly. “You stupid little girl!”

“I’m not a little girl, Giles,” she spit. “I’m a powerful witch, and you might not want to piss me off.”

Giles froze in shock at her words. They hung in the air, sucking all the noise from the room. Startled eyes flickered from the Brit to the redhead as they other occupants of the room tried to digest what Willow had just said.

Rising from his seat, Giles approached the witch. His face was hostile and cold and suddenly Willow felt less self-assured.

“You think you’re invincible, Willow. That’s what magic does to you. The power corrupts and you have power in spades but you don’t have the sense to know when and how to use it. Just remember that however much power you might possess there will always be someone who has more.” His face softened as he saw a tear trickle down her pale cheek. “You need to learn control or the magic will destroy you.”

“I have it under control,” she protested.

Sighing wearily, Giles returned to the couch and sank down. “Well, now is not the time to enter into a debate about that. We must concentrate on helping Buffy. Your…behavior with magic is something we can talk about soon.”

“I knew it!” another, rougher British voice exclaimed. “It had to be the bloody witch.”

The three humans glanced up to the stairway at the livid vampire. He looked just about ready to murder someone.

“Spike, I take it you heard what was just said,” Giles sighed.

Spike’s expression clearly showed he did as he descended the stairs. “The little witch bollocksed up a spell, right?” he asked, deceptively calmly.

Giles nodded affirmatively, and sighed. “Indeed,” he said quietly.

“What the bloody hell did you people do to her?” Spike roared, punching a hole clean through the Watcher’s drywall. Spike’s eyes focused on a guilty looking Willow. He could smell the guilt rolling off of her in waves. Roaring he turned to her, eyes blazing amber like a monster from a horror story. “You! You’re responsible for this you stupid, irresponsible child.”

“You need to calm down,” Giles said firmly, stepping between the vampire and the witch. However, the expression on his face belied the calmness in his voice.

“I’ll soddin’ well calm down when I found out just what the usless little witch did to my Slayer!” the peroxide blond yelled.

“She’s not your Slayer…” Xander interjected, but firmly snapped his mouth shut at the scathing glare he received from both Brits. Clearly now was not the time to be pedantic.

“Spike, I’m not sure what I did wrong,” Willow admitted nervously, chewing on her lip and wringing her hands together. “I just followed the spell…”

“And that’s the whole problem isn’t it? You followed a bloody spell,” Spike said, waving his hands wildly. “Why the hell were you putting mojo on the Slayer in the first place?”

Willow sighed and tried to find the right phrasing for her admittance. “We…well we felt that…due to circumstances and um…certain..uh…behaviors that Buffy was displaying…she was making bad decisions so…well we thought it best…”

“She wasn’t acting as your bloody puppet so you decided to use magic to make her act the way you wanted her to?” Spike asked sharply, cutting through Willow’s ramblings.

“It’s not like that!” Xander defended his friend. He rose to his feet and came to stand behind the redhead in a show of immature solidarity.

Spike sneered but instead of addressing them any further he turned to the Watcher who was furiously polishing his glasses.

“What’s your take on this?” he asked his fellow Englishman coldly.

“I’m afraid I don’t have the words to express my feelings on this. I’m sure the children already know my opinion on what they’ve done. They were stupid and immature.” Giles glanced at the guilty Scoobies. “Both of you have harmed Buffy in innumerable ways by conducting this spell. However, recriminations can serve no purpose at this time. If we can’t find a way to reverse it, then Buffy will die.”

“I won’t let her die,” Spike assured him with vigor, and a moment of respect passed between him and Giles.

However, Giles sighed.

“You may not be able to prevent it. The spell is killing her. It’s ripping out the very core of her being. Unless we can either reverse it or stop it then…” He paused and put his glasses on the bridge of his nose. He didn’t need to finish his sentence. Everyone in the room knew just what would happen if they didn’t find a cure for the Slayer.

“I guess we should get on the whole research thing,” Willow suggested in a small voice.

Giles nodded in agreement. “Perhaps we might call in some reinforcements. Willow I suggest you call Tara and Xander you may like to call Anya.”

Both the teens opened their mouths to protest calling in their significant others but Giles stopped them with a firm hand. “I understand you probably don’t wish for them to learn of your…actions. But if you desire to help rectify the damage you have done you will contact them. Tara is a witch and therefore well versed in matters of the supernatural and Anya was a demon for more than a millennium. Call them. Now.”

Of course, neither Willow nor Xander could refuse based on Giles’ argument and they quickly obeyed the older man.

The two girls arrived within the hour and they both sensed the tension immediately.

Tara kept her head down as Giles explained the situation, carefully avoiding Willow’s guilty eyes. The blonde was hurt that her girlfriend could be so sneaky. She hadn’t ever suspected that Willow had such malevolence lying underneath her pale skin.

Uncharacteristically, Anya didn’t even make an inappropriate comment as she sat down to research a solution. In her millennium as a demon she’d seen some terrible things, but the redhead seemed to have a knack for inadvertent vengeance that D'Hoffryn would be proud of.

The research party was solemn. It seemed like an eternity before anyone glanced up from their texts for fear of being immersed into the awkwardness once again.

“Oh, this is impossible!” Anya exclaimed finally breaking the silence. She tossed another useless volume on the pile of other useless volumes and rose to her feet. The newly blonde ex demon was bored of this stupid research. She’d learned a lot more in her millennium as a demon than she ever could from these dusty old books.

“Yes, well, we must keep looking,” Giles replied without lifting his nose from the book he was scouring.

Anya sighed and glared in Willow’s direction. “This is what happens when an amateur plays around with spells. They finish up half-baked and unintentionally irreversible.”

“I’m not an amateur, Anya,” Willow growled, her eyes flashing furiously at the ex-demon. Giles had used the exact same word to describe her earlier and she was started to become infuriated with their lack of faith in her.

She was a good witch damn it!

“Really?” Anya asked wryly, leaning against the edge of the research table. She wasn’t intimidated by the other girl despite Willow’s obvious intentions and met her stare with equal strenth. “Then why is Buffy dying because of something you did?”

“It was an accident. Spells go wrong sometimes,” the redhead stammered defensively. “And besides, you hardly even know Buffy. It’s not as if you’re even friends.”

“No, I don’t really know Buffy,” Anya agreed truthfully, unhurt by Willow’s jibe. “But I do know something about curses. I was a vengeance demon for eleven hundred years and curses are pretty much the point of the job. You invoked the power of Mnemosyne. That’s curse territory right there unless you know exactly what you’re doing. Trust me you don’t want to piss off a Titaness. So if you wanted to put a horrible, deadly hex on your best friend, then congratulations. You succeeded. Now she’s going to die, brutally and painfully.”

Willow flushed red with embarrassment and anger. She wanted to put a hex on Anya at that moment. Who did she think she was? She was nothing but a crude ex-demon who had infiltrated her way into their group by promising her Xander-shaped friend ‘many orgasms.’

Before the situation could escalate, Giles stepped in and raised a hand.

“Now is not the time to be squabbling over petty issues,” he told both the women firmly. “Buffy will die if we don’t find a way to reverse this spell.”

Anya nodded and Willow looked at the ground sheepishly.

“Well it’s good to know that when one of your best friends is dying, all your other friends will band together and tear each others’ throats out,” Xander quipped, desperate to break the tension that hung over the room, before glancing over at Spike. “Possibly literally if you’re Evil Dead over there. Not that he’s anyone’s friend.”

“Shut up, Wanker!” Spike bit back, tossing the book he was studying to the ground in a fit of rage. “You’re the one who bloody well did the damage. If Buffy dies it’ll be on your fat head. Yours and the little witch’s.”

The vampire had purposely kept silent up until that point. He didn’t feel comfortable around the Scoobies and he was worried about Buffy. Actually he was terrified that he was going to lose her.

Aside from the time when Drusilla had gotten sick in Prague, Spike had never had to worry about health issues during his lengthy unlife. But now Buffy faced certain death if the Scoobies couldn’t find a cure and it shook his world to its very foundations.

The possibility of losing the woman he loved because of these idiot teens’ stupid actions was not an option.

Apparently Xander still wasn’t prepared to accept any kind of blame for this though. “I don’t even know why you’re still here, Evil Dead,” the brunet remarked meanly. “No one needs you here. The only good thing you can do for Buffy is to leave town so she’s got one less pain in her ass to deal with when she wakes up.”

The anger hit Spike like a freight train, slamming into him with such force that it almost knocked him to the ground. Through the haze of fury he rose to his feet, marched forward and lunged at Xander. He yanked the larger man to his feet and slammed him against the wall. The chip was firing like crazy inside of his head as he pulled back his arm and slammed it into the other man’s face but he paid it no heed.

All he could feel was anger. Pain was just a dull second in the race for his attention.

The next thing he knew he was flying backward across the room, toppling over the table and sprawling on the ground. He raised his aching head to be greeted with the furious face of his fellow Brit.

In the background Xander was flailing and yelling about the dangerous vampire but Spike didn’t even glance his way as he struggled to his feet. He stood toe to toe with Giles, half expecting the other Englishman to toss him out into the sun.

However, Giles surprised him. And it wasn’t often that Spike was surprised, especially by humans. He flashed him an understanding look of solidarity. The look told Spike that Giles understood his feelings, even if he didn’t necessarily agree with them. The Watcher and the Vampire didn’t need to use words for the emotion that passed between them in that moment.

Giles might never approve of Spike’s feelings for his Slayer. He probably wouldn’t ever condone a relationship between the two natural enemies. But now Spike knew that he had Giles’ understanding and right now that was the best he could hope for. Of course, it wasn’t that he cared less what Giles or any of the other Scoobies thought of him.

But Buffy cared.

And if…when… she woke up, having her Watcher’s understanding might give weight to her feelings. Maybe, just maybe, she would allow herself to feel for Spike.

He could only hope.

Of course, he was getting too far ahead of himself. They needed to find a cure for Buffy before they could do anything else. Unfortunately, Xander’s constant bullish ranting was proving a hurdle for them and one that was difficult to surmount.

“Did no one else see that?” yelled Xander, his eyes darting around the room like he was a feral creature. “Spike tried to kill me!”

“Get over yourself, you ponce,” Spike spat, finally lighting his now slightly bent cigarette, much to the obvious displeasure of the humans. He blew out a lengthy puff of smoke and sighed contentedly. “You’d think that after three bloody years of working with the Slayer you’d recognize a demon with or without homicidal tendencies.”

“I think you have Xandercidal ones,” the boy quipped back.

“Anyone who’s ever met you has Xandercidal tendencies, mate.”

“I’m not your mate!”

“Ha! You don’t need to tell me that, Monkeyboy!”

Seeing that the dispute was about to escalate once again Giles decided to step in. He was sick of both the males’ posturing and it needed to stop if they were ever going to help Buffy.

The Watcher turned to Spike with understanding yet steely eyes. “Why don’t you go and check on Buffy?” Giles suggested kindly, purposefully ignoring Xander’s nasty scoff and Willow’s gasp. Giles couldn’t help but think that Spike was at his most useful when he wasn’t actually around so sending him off to take care of Buffy would deal with that annoying pickle for him.

Spike opened his mouth to argue until he realized that the other Brit was giving him leeway to spend some much needed quiet time with the woman he loved. There was no way he was going to pass up an offer like that.

“Right you are, Watcher,” Spike agreed with a nod, heading up the stairs without so much as a backward glance. He could clearly hear the chatter of the humans and knew it was about him but he didn’t give a goddamn fuck about them.

He was going to check on his girl.

And she was his, whether she knew it or not.

When Spike reentered the bedroom, Buffy was sleeping peacefully, laying supine under the floral bedspread, her hair fanned out around her gaunt face. The only sign that something was wrong was her pale complexion and the tiny beads of sweat on her forehead.

He just watched her for a moment, focusing on her shallow breathing. She looked so beautiful and he cursed himself for not realizing his feelings earlier. Maybe if he had…

Dru had known, of course. His sire was touched with the sight, but she was also amazingly intuitive. And she’d known that his feelings for the Slayer weren’t purely of the murderous variety. He had repressed his feelings and covered them with an insatiable blood lust.

But then the little redheaded witch had cast a spell that changed him. The memories of being inside Buffy had haunted the blonde vampire for months. Aside from being primo Spank Bank material, there was a softer side to them too.

Even though he’d tried to avoid admitting it, he’d loved being loved by Buffy. he’d loved tasting her, making love to her and having her love him right back. That evening of holding each other in the purest form of love and passion had been one of the best experiences of his life. Somehow, his subconscious had figured it out before he had.

And now here he was…playing a fool for love once again.

But he couldn’t lose her. No matter what. Even if he had to die to save her, he would happily do it.

Because he loved her.

Picking up the cool cloth that lay in a shallow dish on the nightstand, Spike began to mop her clammy brow. All the time, he whispered sweet nonsense into her ear, trying to reassure the unconscious girl that she would be okay.

“You’re gonna be just fine,” he assured the sleeping Slayer. “Not gonna be a silly little thing like a wayward spell that brings down the greatest Slayer who ever lived.”

Spike ran the cloth down her cheeks, before putting it back in the dish. He traced the planes of her cheeks, nose and jaw with shaky fingers.

“You see, love. You can’t let it bring you down. I know you can’t hear me right now, and you’d probably never listen to ole Spike even if you could hear me. At least not if you were in your right mind. But I love you. I love you so bloody much, more than I even knew it was possible. Thought I’d been in love before but it was never like this. And that’s why you can’t die on me, pet. Because I’d never survive your loss. If you leave me, I’ll be laying myself over your grave and seeing if I freckle.”

Tears filled his eyes and he didn’t even try to wipe them away. They dripped down his face and his buried his head in the folds of the duvet that were covering his Slayer. He could feel the warmth of her body seeping through the layers of material and it comforted him. Yet at the same time it also terrified him because her warmth reminded her that she was human. And her mortal fragility meant she could be stolen away at any moment.

Only he knew that it couldn’t end like that. They weren’t Romeo and Juliet so Spike was determined this wouldn’t end in tragedy.

He had enough residual faith in the Watcher and the Slayerettes that he believed they would find a cure for her condition.

Somehow.

Not that he didn’t still want to rip all their selfish little guts out.

But he wouldn’t do that because he knew Buffy wouldn’t like it.

Fuck but he was Slayer-whipped these days.

Finally he gave in to his needs and climbed into the bed beside Buffy cradling her in his arms. He buried his nose in her blonde mane, breathing in her sweet scent, even though it was fainter than usual. That fact alone infused him with a sense of dread. She was slipping away. He silently vowed to himself in that moment that if they could save her then he’d keep her with him for always. He’d never let her go.

With his beautiful girl locked in his embrace, he finally drifted off into a restless sleep.

Downstairs an air of unease had pervaded the tension. Giles and the Scooby Gang were researching like little busy bees. However, so far they’d come up with a grand total of zip and nada.

The Watcher was starting to worry that there was no way to undo this. The way the spell was worded had made it clear that no reversal spell would work on it. It seemed like his Slayer was doomed to fade away, perhaps the worst kind of death for a Slayer, especially one as talented as Buffy.

“Hmm, this is i-interesting,” Tara muttered shyly, shattering the disquieting hush of the room.

“Have you found something?” asked Giles, raising his eyes from his book to look at her.

Tara nodded unsurely, blushing profusely when she realized all of the attention was suddenly focused on her.

“This incantation, the one that W-Willow used, it s-seems to act as a c-cleansing spell. It l-literally s-strips the person of their memory, and then takes away their e-essence. It took Buffy b-back to the m-memory of when she was under W-Willow’s s-spell and now she’s p-progressing farther to the p-point where she doesn’t even remember who she i-is. W-without a way to stop it they just f-float away and d-dissolve into…nothing.”

Giles sighed. “Hmm, I know that Tara. What we need is to find a way to reverse that.”

“Well that was a huge load of non-help,” Xander remarked rudely, still smarting from his earlier chastisement.

“Shut up Xander!” Giles said sternly. He was reaching the end of his rope with the boy. “I don’t see you offering anything more.”

“Well we already know what the spell does, G-man. I don’t need a re-run of that.”

“Maybe you should have known what the spell did before you actually decided to use it!” Giles pursed his lips and glanced at Tara. “I take it you hadn’t quite finished when you were so rudely interrupted.”

The mousy girl ducked her head and nodded slightly. “There’s more,” she agreed.

“Let’s have it,” Giles requested kindly.

This time Xander managed to keep his mouth shut.

Tara cleared her throat and lowered her eyes to the scrawled passage in front of her. “T-There was a case similar to this one back in the 1840’s. In P-Paris, a y-young girl was cursed by a jilted lover. He wanted to ‘tear out her very essence to punish her for condemning him to an eternity without her love’.”

“He was a vampire?” inquired Xander with distaste. “I mean…the ‘eternity’ thing stinks of undead. Not to mention the whole cursing thing. Undead stenchiness right there.”

“No.” Tara shook her head. “I-I don’t think s-so. He was a h-human.”

“It’s likely the ‘eternity’ comment was figurative, Xander,” clarified Giles, before turning back to Tara. “Please do go on.”

“She started to regress, her m-memory faded quickly and within a week she d-didn’t even remember her own n-name and she was as weak as a k-kitten. W-Well, the girl’s sister was h-heartbroken at her beloved s-sister’s demise. According to this b-book she’d dabbled in the occult before and she was able to t-trace the source of the spell. S-so she did her own spell to tie their essences together. The s-sister acted as an anchor and their life f-forces were connected. It was a s-success and they were tied t-together until they died.”

Tara lifted her gaze and shyly glanced around at all the expectant faces, blushing deeper at being the continuing center of attention.

Giles looked positively ecstatic. “Of course! The spell is whittling away Buffy’s memories and life force, but if we can anchor her essence then that should break Willow’s original spell and bring her back to herself. In fact, I believe that if we can find an anchor then her memories may all be restored too.”

The redhead stifled a whimper at Giles’ somewhat accusatory tone when he referred to her spell. She still didn’t think this situation was totally her fault, having just done what was clearly best for Buffy in this situation. Trust Giles to be stuffy and not think about anyone else but his Slayer. Willow had to admit that she could feel the slight sting of jealousy in her veins.

“So we just need to find someone to anchor Buffy to,” Giles declared.

Xander rose to his feet and smirked. “I’ll volunteer,” he announced proudly, desperately ignoring the scowl that formed on his girlfriend’s face when he made his declaration.

“That could work,” Willow agreed. “And bonus! Xander and Buffy are best friends so we know that he’s the best choice of anchor there could be.”

The two old friends shared an indulgent smile and simultaneously preened themselves.

“Hah!” Anya scoffed. Four pairs of eyes whipped toward her but she merely shrugged and casually took a bite out of her jelly donut. “What? That would never work.”

“And why might that be?” Giles probed, taking note of the boy’s dark expression.

Anya sighed and rolled her eyes. Sometimes she couldn’t quite fathom how these people had survived so long when they were clearly missing a few lemons in their proverbial fruit basket.

“Buffy’s a Slayer…a supernatural creature,” she explained slowly, as if she was talking to a crowd of children. “Her essence is far stronger than a human’s. Tying her to Xander would be like trying to anchor an anvil with a feather,” Anya informed them.

“Don’t be silly Ahn,” Xander responded sulkily. “My essence is very hard!”

“No, it’s not Xander. Your penis is often very hard, yes, except for when you suffer that unfortunate condition that you told me happens to every man.”

Xander choked, his cheeks turning a prominent shade of raspberry. “Ahn! Remember that conversation about things we never ever say in public.”

Anya continued, unfazed. “You know I always enjoy your nice hard, penis, especially when it gets as hard as steel after I do that thing with my tongue that you love so much, but your essence couldn’t be…softer. It’s just as weak as any other human’s. I was a demon for eleven hundred years. I do know something about this.”

“Well quite!” nodded Giles, the frown returning in full force to his haggard visage. He would pretend that he never heard any of the disturbing sex talk, but Anya’s other words were quite informative. “That would make sense.”

“Oh Goddess!” Willow exclaimed, clasping a shaky hand over her mouth. “So what can we do?”

“More research, I guess,” suggested Xander, his gut still roiling at the rejection. Deep down he’d hoped that if Buffy had been tied to him then he might have been able to realize some of his high school wet dreams for real. Then his stupid girlfriend had to go ruin it all.

“Or instead of spending hours on more research you could spend your time finding a supernatural being to anchor her to,” Anya interjected, munching on a mouthful of her donut. “That would make more sense.”

“Right, because we keep a closet full of supernatural beings just for emergencies like this one,” Xander said sarcastically.

“W-we do have one…u-upstairs,” Tara piped up in a small voice, leaning forward so her hair covered most of her face.

“You mean Spike?” Giles asked her and she nodded.

The Englishman considered her suggestion. Spike was a soulless vampire who’d been one quarter of the Scourge of Europe. He’d spent more than a century terrorizing the world with unfathomable evils, but Giles hadn’t missed the way this supposedly evil vampire had worried about the Slayer. He’d even professed words of love for her that he no doubt believed to be true. And he did have the chip in his head to restrain him.

Could Spike really be the savior of a Slayer he’d tried to murder numerous times?

“Well I can’t say he’d be my first choice for an anchor for Buffy but perhaps he wouldn’t be the worst choice in the world,” conceded the Brit wearily.

“No!” Willow and Xander exclaimed in unison.

“The whole point of this spell was to get her away from Evil Dead!” Xander chimed in angrily surging to his feet. “And you want to tie her to him?”

“I want to save her bloody life!” Giles yelled.

“That won’t save it,” Willow shouted. “It would ruin it. She’s always hated Spike.”

“I don’t think she hates him,” Anya said bluntly with a shrug. “When she was sticking her tongue down his throat in Restfield the other night she didn’t look very hate-y. In fact, she looked like she wanted him for an orgasm friend.”

The young brunet man looked even greener around the gills as he absorbed his girlfriend’s frank words.

“Even if she doesn’t despise his bloodthirsty, murdering guts,” Xander continued, hostile and incensed. “He’s a vampire! He’s one of the creatures that Buffy was born to kill!”

Giles shook his head angrily, his temper finally snapping. He loved these children as if they were his own flesh and blood but he couldn’t condone their behavior any longer. His eyes flashed fire as he glanced between Willow and Xander.

“You two idiots have nearly killed her off and you still think it’s your place to dictate her life. I suggest you both stop and think about what will happen if we don’t anchor her to…Spike.”

“I didn’t think you were a Spike fan, G-man,” Xander said coldly.

“I’m not,” he whipped his glasses off his nose and began to polish them. “But I love Buffy as if she were my own daughter. And for that reason I must do whatever it takes to save her life, even if it seems objectionable in the interim.”

“I forbid it,” yelled Xander, his skin turning the color of a damson plum. “You can’t do this! She would hate to be tied to that thing.”

“You don’t have any authority to forbid anything,” Giles said incredulously.

“Shouldn’t we be asking the Slayer what she wants?” another, rougher British voice piped up.

Every pair of eyes whipped up to see Spike standing tensely at the top of the stairs. His cerulean eyes were still slightly hazy with sleep, but the raised voices had woken him. The vampire had clambered out from his space next to his Slayer in order to find out exactly what was going on. This research seemed to be taking way too long and he’d never been a patient man.

He ambled down the steps and came to a standstill at the bottom, a murderous expression etched on his otherwise stony face. As his gaze flickered over Xander and his little witchy pal his eyes glowed a deep shade of amber.

“Spike, we were just discussing our options,” Giles said explanatorily.

“I heard,” the vampire said flatly, his tone betraying nothing of his true feelings about the suggestion. However, the stony set of his eyes made him look every inch the predator that he really was.

“I understand it may not be the best option or the most sensible but it may be the only choice we have,” Giles assured him, wishing he could read his fellow Brit. However, Spike’s face was carefully schooled into indifference.

“It’s not even an option,” said Xander, butting in once again. “I won’t let Buffy be tied to…to that thing.”

“What makes you think I want to spend the rest of my eternity bound to a Slayer?” Spike asked even as his heart leapt painfully beneath his ribs. The thought of having Buffy by his side for an eternity was almost too much to hope for and he didn’t want to put his heart on the line once again only to have it crushed.

“We don’t think you would, Evil Dead, except for some…nefarious reason,” Xander spat. “That’s why I offered.”

“I believe Anya already explained why that’s not an option,” Giles said irritated at the boy.

“Anya doesn’t know everything,” retorted the dark haired man, ignoring his girlfriend’s hurt look. “She was just a demon, not a freakin’ supernatural expert.”

The blond vampire didn’t miss the hurt that flickered across the former demon’s pretty face, even if her boyfriend didn’t pick up on it. “You might want to shut your gob if you fancy ever getting your pin sized dick wet again,” chuckled Spike, reveling in the boy’s discomfort at his comment.

Apparently he’d struck a nerve there.

Big ego, small…

“Shut the hell up, Spike,” Xander bit back lamely.

Spike merely laughed again. “Your demon bird isn’t looking too happy right about now. You better start getting acquainted with Mary Palm and her five sisters, mate.”

“I’m not your mate!” Xander sizzled.

Eager to avoid a knock down duke out Willow coughed loudly. “Maybe Xander’s right and Spike isn’t the best idea for this,” she said thoughtfully.

“Then who do you suggest?” asked Giles, wearily removing his glasses from his face. Absently he began to polish them with a handkerchief.

She swallowed and glanced down at her suddenly fascinated fingernails. “Uh, well…what about Angel?” suggested Willow, ignoring the probing gaze of his grandchilde. “Maybe we could bind her to him. At least she loves him.”

Spike flinched imperceptibly but squared his shoulders before anyone could notice. “Oh yeah that’s a bloody genius idea,” he scoffed scathingly. “Let’s bind the Slayer to a vamp with a dicky soul! What a brilliant plan! What happens if his soul goes bye bye, Red? Buffy gets really dead really fast, that’s what. Either that or she has to kill him. And guess what happens then if her binding partner goes poof. Oh yeah, she gets dead.”

Willow glowered at Spike’s words, even if she knew they were true. But the veracity of his speech wasn’t the point! With Buffy out of action Willow was supposed to be the default leader of the group except for Giles and yet that annoying vamp thought he could infiltrate them and take away her control.

Giles stood up and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I think it can be widely acknowledged that Angel isn’t an option.”

“Neither is Spike!” Xander growled. “If he gets the chip out he’s just a mini Angelus!”

“I’m nothing like that buggering sod,” Spike assured the boy coldly. “Angelus is a sadist. Even with this chip he’d have found a way to bathe in all your blood. Every single one of you would be vamp chow if he was in my situation, chip or no chip.”

“And you wouldn’t just love to kill us?” Xander scoffed.

“I’d love to kill you, you stupid, annoying git. But I wouldn’t, even if I got the chance.”

“Why not?” Xander asked with a smug look, clearly not believing a single one of Spike’s words.

“Why not?” He exhaled heavily, titling his head heavenward, wondering how the Slayer put up with this raving buffoon. “It’d hurt the Slayer to lose you lot. Even you, Monkey Boy. No matter what a bunch of morons you can be, she loves you. And I wouldn’t hurt her that way.”

“But you hate Buffy,” Willow pointed out, letting out a quiet ‘eep’ when Spike shifted into game face.

“No, I don’t hate her, Red,” he roared. “I love that woman. I love her more than my own unlife and I’d do anything for her, even if it means giving up being evil. So yeah, I’m a pussy-whipped git and even worse than that souled ponce Angel. You can all laugh at how pathetic ole Spike is. But I don’t give a flying fuck. Because Buffy’s my girl and I won’t hurt her. And I won’t let her die because of your incompetence. If the only way to save her is to bind her to a damned creature like me then that’s what you’ll bloody well do. You got it?”

He didn’t wait for a reply. The vampire whirled around and stormed back up the stairs leaving five stunned faces staring after him.