Again, as always, thank you guys so much for taking the time to read and/or review my story. ***HUGZ*** You have no idea what it means to me.
Her oh-so-brilliant plan was failing miserably. It had been nearly two days since she last saw Spike, and in that time, the ache in her bones had grown unbearable. Her mother had refused to let her out of bed, which was just fine, because she couldn’t move. Not even forty-eight hours had passed; a short, insignificant, incredibly painful forty-eight hours since she’d last seen Spike, and she was trembling. Her skin was feverish, her stomach queasy. She couldn’t slay a fly, much less patrol. And it was because she hadn’t seen Spike. Because they’d kept her from him.
It was all Giles’s fault. Giles and Angel and their stupid buddy-buddying. The second she’d gotten home, her mother had all but forced her to stay home.
“Faith is patrolling tonight,” she’d explained. “I just got off the phone with Mr. Giles, and he says it’s important that I keep you from going out.”
Her heart had about stopped. “What?”
“Faith is patrolling tonight.”
“I heard that part. Why does Giles need me to not patrol?”
Joyce had frowned. “He didn’t say. Something about how you’ve been through enough recently and he doesn’t want you out there after everything that’s happened. Which brings me to…Buffy, what exactly has happened?”
She’d fed her mother some bull story before scurrying upstairs to get her stuff ready for patrol. Giles’s commands couldn’t stop her from seeing Spike any more than her mother could. However, when she’d shimmied down the tree outside her window, she’d found Angel and Faith waiting for her. And try as she might, she hadn’t been able to shake them. Every step was trailed by her ex-boyfriend, and every step made her absolutely nauseous.
Needless to say, Spike hadn’t shown. Chances were, he’d seen her with Angel and bolted. So she hadn’t seen him. Not on patrol, not later at her house. He hadn’t shown at all. He was probably pissed out of his mind, and she couldn’t blame him. Her first attempt at this plan of hers, and she’d failed miserably.
The sickness had never felt like this. Not so soon.
Not even two days since she’d seen Spike, and she was thoroughly miserable.
Which didn’t explain why she was at the Bronze. The last thing Buffy felt like doing was Bronzing it, and yet she’d allowed Willow to drag her out of her room. And while she knew that she should be patrolling, she wasn’t so hardheaded that she didn’t recognize that she was too weak to face anything that actually might attack her. If Spike didn’t show up, or if he didn’t find her first, she might well find herself in a very bad situation.
At the very least, he might know to look for her at the Bronze. Then again, perhaps he was punishing her for showing up on their patrol date with another slayer and her ex-boyfriend in tow. Perhaps he was staying away to make the hurt worse.
Buffy whimpered and dropped her head into her hands. She was alone at her table. All her friends were dancing. All her friends were having a good time. All her friends had dates.
All she had was a growing ache in her belly and a sickness in her heart.
She was alone.
She was alone.
Spike hadn’t taken his eyes off her since Buffy and her mates waltzed through the door. Now she was alone.
Finally. Two bleeding days had gone by, and not sodding once had she been alone. Now all he needed to do was summon the strength to walk downstairs.
He had no idea why it was worse now, only that it was. Though true, each separation following each heated encounter had gotten a little worse, it had never been so fast before. It had never been like this. He’d been dying for her ever since he left her side two nights prior—it’d happened fast, so fast; he was losing himself quicker than he could brace the fall.
If this was Dru’s punishment, it was a fitting one. Make him ache for the Slayer; haunt him with the fear of loving the one girl he could never have. Of being so bloody broken for her that he didn’t know if it was worth being who he had been if it meant he couldn’t touch her.
The worst part? Spike knew how to suss out feelings manufactured by spells and feelings that generated as the byproduct of spells. Whatever he felt for Buffy was real. The lust might have been forced upon him—granted, he didn’t put up too much of a fight—but the soft, gooey feelings couldn’t be blamed on anyone. Not Dru. Not the spell, if there was one. No—if he was falling in love with Buffy, he had no one to blame but himself. It had been his bright idea to try to be the man that could deserve her. He was going soft. She’d given him more outs than he could count, and he’d turned them all down for want of her golden smile.
He was losing sight of what was important, and why it had been important. The past few days, when he fed, it had only been to survive. He hadn’t killed. He hadn’t even felt the drive to kill, which worried him. Furthermore, for the first time since he’d crawled from his grave, he’d made a point to avoid taking blood from women. It was wrong. It felt wrong. Every time a chit eyeballed him, he found himself cringing and looking away, wishing for Buffy’s smiling face so he could jump to her side and proclaim himself taken, whether he was or not. If he couldn’t stomach looking at other women, there was no sodding way he was going to use them for food. The thought alone made the part of him that couldn’t get sick feel sick; if he was going to taste any woman’s blood, it would be Buffy’s. And it wouldn’t be for food.
Spike shuddered, his eyes falling shut. He imagined how she would taste as her body trembled into orgasm around him. As she screamed his name, her pussy clenching around his cock, her nails scratching at his back, her legs tightening around his waist. God, she was a fucking vision when she came. And while he didn’t deserve to taste her—while her blood was perhaps the last thing he deserved—his eyes couldn’t help but cross at the thought of how spectacular it would be.
Only he shouldn’t be thinking of drinking her blood without going in for the kill. He shouldn’t avoid sampling other women. He shouldn’t feel that he was betraying Buffy when he accidentally bumped into some faceless brunette—or redhead, or non-Buffy blonde, or anyone who wasn’t, well, Buffy. He shouldn’t, but he did.
Spike tried hard to wish things differently, but he couldn’t. He wanted to want to be elsewhere, but he was hopeless. He was completely hopeless for her.
And despite wanting to care, he didn’t. Buffy had awakened him in ways he hadn’t thought possible—as much of a wanker as that made him sound. She was everything he shouldn’t want, and the very idea of her made him weak at the knees. So he was trying to be the man she deserved, even if he was cutting corners. The man she deserved wouldn’t dine on citizens, whether he was killing them or not.
He didn’t want to bag it. He wanted so much to cling to this last semblance of who he was. However, if she asked him, Spike was terrified he’d throw in the towel and swear himself hers for all eternity.
That didn’t scare him as much as it should have. It didn’t bother him as much as it should have. Amazingly, after only a couple of days, none of it did. The only thing that truly bothered him, other than his obviously unstable mental condition, was the fact that it hurt like hell whenever they were apart.
Only Buffy was alone now, and there was no longer a reason to be apart. Especially when all the cheeky looks from the single women in the club were making his stomach coil. It had been a while since he’d been around so many non-Buffy females, so he truly hadn’t had time to appreciate how fantastically he couldn’t stand the opposite sex. These stupid come-hither looks were really beginning to annoy him, the women behind them—the women that weren’t Buffy—made him want to heave. He was a catch, to be sure, but surely they didn’t think he needed assistance looking for a bedmate. Did he look like he was in the market? There was only one girl in the whole sodding world that could tempt him.
And she was sitting just a few yards away.
There had never been such sweet relief. Buffy felt him the second before he touched her. The second before his hands curled around her arms, the second before his chest pressed at her back. She felt her insides cleansing—a ritual, inner baptism that washed away all the hurt and the tenderness and left only reprieve.
“It’s all right, kitten,” he murmured, his mouth immediately drawn to her neck. “I’m here now.”
Buffy had to choke back a sob. It felt too good to be real. “Spike…”
“An’ I’m holdin’ onto you to make sure you don’t fall over.”
A shrill, strained giggle tickled her throat. “Good, ‘cause I think I would have.” She sighed and leaned back into him, her eyes fluttering shut as his lips caressed her skin. “Where have you been?”
“Around.”
“We were supposed to patrol yesterday,” she murmured, sighing when his arms linked around her middle. He tenderly chased away the pain. She never would have thought his touch could be so gentle. “Why weren’t you there?”
His grip around her tightened. “You were with him.”
“I so was not.”
“I saw you, Slayer. You were with him. An’ some chit who desperately needs to have her arse handed to her.”
“You mean Faith.” Buffy’s nose wrinkled. She so did not like the idea of Spike seeing Faith. And yet, to be a complete masochist, she swallowed hard and continued. “You didn’t think she was pretty?”
“Hell no.”
“Most guys think she’s pretty.”
“She’s certifiable. Am bloody amazed that Angelus managed to keep his fists from connectin’ with her mouth.” Spike tugged on her earlobe with his teeth, then pressed his lips to the base of her neck again. “Besides, I din’t pay too much attention to her. You were there.”
Buffy tried and failed to keep from turning into a puddle of slayer-goo. “You paid enough attention to note that she needs her ass handed to her.”
“That only meant I was listenin’.”
“You could have come to see me after I went home.”
“Yeah, but then I jus’ would’ve ended up shagging you silly, an’ you said there could be no more of that.”
Had she? With the way he was kissing her skin, it was hard to remember why.
He nipped at her neck and she trembled with a moan. Yeah, definitely hard to remember why.
“Buffy…” Spike murmured raggedly. “I need to take you…outside.”
“Oh. Okay.”
He scraped his teeth along the long column of her throat and purred. “You might wanna tell your friend.”
“What friend?”
“The one starin’ at us.”
She blinked dazedly and glanced up. Sure enough, Willow was standing just a few feet away, a dumbfounded look on her face. Buffy exhaled and relaxed, her body falling pliant against her vampire. She was relieved beyond relief that it was Willow; her resistance was completely worn down—she was too lost in Spike’s sinful touch to give a damn if the whole world saw her.
Well, she cared enough to be incredibly relieved that it was Willow, but not much beyond that.
“Hi, guys,” the redhead said weakly, offering a half-hearted wave. “Not that this isn’t sufficiently awkward enough with my being here, but you might wanna go elsewhere. I think Cordelia and her man-whore are on their way over.”
Spike quirked a brow. “Man-whore?” he echoed, his mouth ardently peppering kisses across Buffy’s neck.
“Xander,” Buffy whispered.
“Man-whore,” Willow huffed before her cheeks rouged. “Anyway, yeah. I’d make with the escape. Not all Buffy’s friends are as cool as I am.”
Buffy grinned and slid off her stool. “You’re the coolest, Will. We’re just gonna…ummm…”
“Pop out back for a bit,” Spike supplied, lacing his fingers through Buffy’s and tugging. He barely gave Willow a second glance. “Come on, pet. Wouldn’t wanna fuel the man-whore.”
Buffy giggled and bounced eagerly after him. She felt so deliciously scandalous, like the girls who used to sneak off during lunch at Hemery to give their boyfriends blowjobs in empty classrooms. At least, there had been rumors. And while it hadn’t appealed to her at the time, there was something to this feeling. She felt womanly and liberated, naughty and bold. And the fact that it was Spike leading her into the alley made all the difference.
This isn’t a part of the plan, her mind warned. You’re totally breaking the rules.
Her body couldn’t care less. Her body was celebrating the fact that Spike was there at all. That his hands were on her. That he had dragged her into the brisk Sunnydale night. That he had shoved her against the Bronze wall. That his mouth was wrestling hot, needy kisses from hers as he thrust his denim-clad cock against her.
“Unh…”
“You wore a skirt,” Spike commented, his voice annoyingly calm considering the wild look in his eyes.
Buffy’s eyes narrowed, her hands clutching at his forearms. Two can play at this game…though God, he was so much better at it. “I am a girl, you know,” she replied, trying to sound as breezy and casual as he did, and failing miserably. He’d chosen that moment to latch his mouth onto her clothed breast.
“Baby,” he growled, hiking her skirt around her waist and tugging on her panties. “No need to tell me.”
“G-good.”
“Unzip my jeans.” He left her breast with a parting kiss, moving northward until his face was buried in her neck again. She felt his tongue lap against her pulse point, and her heart jumped, her hands anxiously tugging at his belt. “You taste so sweet,” he purred, nipping at her teasingly. “So fucking sweet.”
One last strain at logic fought for air. The plan. The plan.
Purely Sensual Buffy scoffed. Logic was terribly overrated, especially when her better senses were fogged with lust. Especially when Spike bunched the crotch of her panties aside and sank his fingers inside her wet pussy. The fire blazing through her veins roared in triumph, and she found herself pulling so hard on his jeans that the button popped.
Spike chuckled. “Eager, are we?” he asked, his thumb grazing her clit.
“I can’t wait. I can’t wait.” Buffy hooked her left leg around his waist, positioning him at her opening. Then she met his eyes and melted. He was looking at her like she was an angel.
Her heart quivered and ached. This is why you had the plan.
“You’re amazing,” he murmured, the slick head of his cock nudging her sopping flesh. “Wrap your arms around my neck.”
She kissed him and obliged. The taste of his moan against her lips was worth the world. She loved the way he kissed. The way he tasted. She could live off Spike’s kisses and never want for anything.
He whispered her name against her lips and drove himself inside her, and the world around her dissolved. The brick at her back, the grime in the alley, the sound of cats scrounging for food in nearby trashcans, the thrum of the band playing inside. Everything vanished. Spike was kissing her, his cock was inside her, and she felt like she had finally come home.
“Oh God,” she whimpered. “Oh my God.”
“Lemme guess.” Spike grinned and began rocking against her gently, though the flash in his eyes told her that it wouldn’t be sweet and tender for long. He was in need—he was in as much need as she was. She needed release more than tenderness. “First time against a wall?”
“First time outside,” she countered.
Something menacing flashed across his face. “You’ve done this against a wall before?” he growled, his thrusts rocking her harder. “You fucked Angel against a wall?”
The thought made her want to hurl. Again. “No,” Buffy protested. She drove her hips forward, desperate to recapture him every time he slid from her body. After being so long without him—barely two days—the agonized bliss of his cock stabbing inside her was nearly too much to handle. “No. Two firsts. Two.”
“Against a wall.”
“Yes.”
“Outside.”
She nodded. “Yes. Yes!”
“You like the firsts I’m givin’ you, don’t you?”
He grinned and kissed her, and she melted. The feel of his lips on hers while his cock was thrusting inside her was so completely singular to anything she’d known. She couldn’t remember if Angel had kissed her during their one and only night together—though, she was sure he had. And even then, it hadn’t made the ground move. It hadn’t even made the bed move.
Angel had never done to her what Spike did to her, and the knowledge rendered her shaken.
Did she like Spike’s growing list of firsts? Her mind was a jumbled mess of dead-ended confusion, and it was all his fault. She had talked herself into seeing him every day on the basis that this wouldn’t happen anymore. That she wouldn’t allow him to woo her with his wonderful words and his incredibly tasty kisses. That, as much as she loved the feel of him thrusting into her pussy, she needed to walk away from this with her heart in one piece.
She needed him to say something if he felt what she felt. She couldn’t be the first to say it. Not again. Not after last time. Last time, she had confessed everything—she had given Angel so much power, he’d ripped her to shreds with just a few well-aimed barbs. And while her mind was doing a good job of persuading her that Spike felt something more, she was half-convinced that she was just seeing what she wanted to see.
Two nights ago, he’d cuddled with her in her bed. He’d kissed her and loved her body so thoroughly that the next morning, she’d wondered if she’d dreamed herself into a smutty romance novel. The soreness between her legs told her differently. Thank God her mom had gone to work early; she’d felt bow-legged all morning, and the last thing she needed was an impromptu interrogation on Buffy’s pronounced limp mixed with the sounds that had undoubtedly reverberated through the walls.
“Say it, Buffy,” he growled against her mouth. “Say you like it.”
Like it?
“You love the firsts I give you.”
Oh, God. He’d been expecting her to answer that?
“I love it,” she gasped, choking a sob as his thrusts grew harder. She was slamming helplessly against his body and the wall at her back, and she loved every second. “I love it. I love it.”
“You want me to rub your clit?”
“Oh God.”
“Tell me, Buffy. Tell me what you want.” The next thing she knew, his cock had slipped from her entirely, and he was sliding his length between her pussy lips. “You like this?” he demanded roughly. “I can make you come anyway I like, but I want you to decide. You wanna come like this?”
“Spike!” she whimpered, wiggling desperately and thrusting her hips against him. “Spike, please!”
“Spike please…what?”
“Please! I need…I need…” She bit at his lower lip and gasped when he growled. “Inside me. I need you inside me. Please!” She seized his left wrist and guided his hand between so that the tip of his fingers grazed her clit, and she jumped in his arms. “Please.”
Evidently, she’d done something very right. Spike’s gaze turned molten and he favored her with a leer that managed to both turn her to liquid goo and fill her with fuzzy warmth.
“Hold on, baby,” he practically snarled, rubbing his spongy head against her slit, then slamming back inside her. The cry that tore through her throat was guttural, barely human, and made his eyes shine as though she’d handed him the world. “This is gonna be a rough ride.”
Buffy buried her face in the crook of his neck and squeezed his leather-bound arms until she heard him moan in pleasure-laced pain. He didn’t lie. He pounded her into the wall, growling things that sounded like words, stroking her clit as his balls slapped noisily against her and swirling his hips with every thrust. She wanted to scream, but didn’t dare. It likely wasn’t as fast as it felt, or even as hard, but her back felt bruised and her legs were sore simply from where his jeans rubbed against her skin.
She wanted to feel his fingers on her bite mark. She wanted to feel his fangs in her throat. She wanted to feel so many things, and she had to bite her lip, lest she scream something to give herself away. Instead, Buffy fisted a handful of platinum hair in her right hand, drawing his head from her throat so she could smash her lips to his, swallowing his growl and dropping her other hand between them.
The second her fingers slid over the bite mark, it was over. She broke their kiss with a hopeless cry as he sent her spiraling down the most powerful orgasm her body had ever known. Her nerves were singed, her blood was humming, and every inch of her shook. She felt deliriously weak, but happy. Borrowed happiness. It couldn’t last—not forever—but she held onto it while she could.
“Oh, Buffy.”
He sounded as helpless as she felt. Buffy pressed her mouth against his shoulder and screwed her eyes shut, absorbing every delicious sound that tumbled through his lips as he sputtered and came. The world tumbled around them, and for a few, scrumptious seconds, she thought she might black out again. Like she had that night in the cemetery. The night he’d made her dizzy with pleasure and she’d blacked out.
She didn’t this time, but she came close. In fact, the only thing that saved her from unconsciousness was the defeat of Purely Sensual Buffy, now that her body was sated. Logical Buffy stormed through the haze, and her eyes popped open.
Oh God.
“Spike!” She reeled back and scowled, slapping his shoulder. “This wasn’t the plan.”
Spike just blinked and stared at her. “The plan.”
“Yes, the plan.”
“The strictly platonic, no snogging, no shagging, only-handholding plan.”
“Unless you know of a second plan.”
He blinked again. “Love, must we really discuss this while I’m inside your cunny?”
Buffy flushed. “Just saying. I’m trying to be responsible here. We need to stick to the plan.”
“I can’t believe you’re talking about that sodding plan after what we jus’ did.”
“Spike, please.” She glanced down, which was bad, because her eyes automatically fixed on where their bodies were joined, and a fresh wave of lust crashed over her recuperating nerves. Oh damn. “This is why we can’t go days without seeing each other.”
“We risk having a good time?”
She wet her lips and tried not to wince. The last thing she wanted to be was a good time. Only a good time. The old standby that always put out. And while she knew she was quite a ways from Spike viewing her as such, the prospect terrified her all the same.
It didn’t matter how good it was; until he told her that he wanted something more, something beyond the spell or whatever they were under, there could be no more of this. No more earth-shattering sex against brick walls. No matter how much she wanted it.
Spike sighed, his jaw ticking. “Yeah, okay,” he said, slowly sliding his cock out of her. Buffy dropped her legs to the ground again, her balance wobbly. “We’ll jus’ call this a glitch, yeah?”
A glitch. It sounded so cold compared to what it was. But at least he’d stopped arguing with her.
“Yeah,” she agreed numbly, straightening her skirt as he tucked himself inside his jeans. “Yeah. Thank you.”
“Don’t wanna bollocks up the plan.” He favored her with a defeated grin and cast a hand through his hair. “Honestly, Buffy…I din’t mean for this to happen…but it wasn’ just me.”
“I know.”
“You wanted it, too.”
“I know.” She held up a hand before he could speak again. “It was both of us. But Spike…I—”
He just smiled and nodded, and the understanding in his eyes moved her beyond words.
He gets it.
“The plan,” he said.
“It’s the responsible thing to do,” she explained matter-of-factly.
“An’ we’re responsible.”
“You bet your sexy little butt we are.”
Spike favored her with a long look, his eyes dancing. “Buffy,” he said softly. “Don’t go patrolling with Angel or what’s-her-name again. Not if you don’ want this to happen. I don’t know what’s going on, but it’s getting worse. I’m not gonna be able to control myself…especially if you’re not gonna be able to control yourself. If you want this plan of yours to work, we should probably give it a shot, right?”
“I didn’t mean to go patrolling with—”
He held up a hand. “Jus’ saying.”
Yeah, and she heard him loud and clear.
The only thing was, every day was getting worse. Every encounter left her aching for more. So what happened when nightly patrols weren’t enough? For, despite her attempts to keep her emotions road blocked, Spike already owned too much of her heart.
They had to get this corrected before she had nothing left.
To be continued…