I should let everyone know that Beloved in Blood is coming to a rapid end. Two chapters following this one. Thank you guys so much for your support and feedback and, well, everything. *hugs* You made writing this so, so much fun.
There was absolutely no way that life could get better than this. Buffy stretched contentedly, gently running her fingers through Spike’s ruffled hair, enjoying the way his cool breath caressed her skin. His head was pillowed at her breast, his arms curled under her shoulders. The hard length of his cock was pressed against her hip, his right leg nestled between her thighs.
Buffy couldn’t remember ever being so happy. Not when Brent Hinkley asked her on her very first date when she was thirteen years old. Not when Tyler asked her to the Spring Fling the year that she was booted from Hemery. Not when Angel first kissed her. And, well, the long line of Angel-related dateage was really out of the running completely. She’d never been happy with Angel. Not really. Not when every step they took was overshadowed by the loom of impending disaster.
“I never wanna leave here,” she murmured, her fingers massaging his scalp affectionately.
“You’ll find no argument with me, pet,” Spike replied, his lips whispering a kiss at her breast. “Though I’d wager you won’t be happy with a hole in the ground.”
“I could adapt.”
He chuckled, and the vibrations against her chest felt so wonderful, she found herself melting further into the mattress. “I should prob’ly look into gettin’ a place for us,” he mused thoughtfully. “White bloody picket fence an’ everythin’.”
“Picket fences are dangerous,” Buffy objected.
“Bloody dangerous,” Spike agreed. “But useful, if you’re attacked on the way home.”
“If we move into a place of our own, how will the invite thing work?” she asked. “It’d be the home of a human and a vampire. Vampires can enter other vampire’s homes, but not people’s homes.” Her brow furrowed and she raised her head a bit, smiling when his warm eyes met hers. “I don’t want vamps getting into a place that we have. We’d never get any rest.”
Spike shrugged. “We’d never be bored, either.”
“Yeah, but we’d never get to sleep. Or…do other things that you like doing in bed.” Buffy grinned and trailed her hand down his body, gently running her nails across the small of his back. “I wouldn’t want to be caught off guard during a…crucial moment, you know?”
He shivered with pleasure under her touch. “See your point, luv.”
“I thought you might.”
“Come to think of it, there are certain vamps I’d wanna make bloody sure never got an invite.” Spike grinned, resting his cheek against her breast. “Angel, for instance, never gets on the guest list. I don’t care if—”
“Yeah. Like he’s done so much to earn an all-access-pass. Hello? Tried to kill me dead.”
“I still say we stake him through the heart.”
Buffy rolled her eyes. “Yeah. But then he’ll just come back. I sent him to Hell, remember? The Powers or whatever are determined to keep him undead.”
“So?” Spike’s shoulders rolled in what looked to be a halfhearted shrug. He tightened his arms around her and sighed. “We can still give the sodding Powers a run for their money.”
“That’s not very responsible of me.”
“Well, you’re tied to a very irresponsible vamp for life, pet. If fate allowed us to happen, they gotta make allowances for bad behavior.”
Buffy giggled, then giggled again when the corners of his mouth tugged upwards at the sound. She was mated to such a sap, but God, she was so happy she feared a spontaneous musical number. Never before had she just lain in someone’s arms, or had someone lay in hers. She’d never had the chance to cuddle. And from the way Spike’s arms kept tightening around her—from the way he kept crooning against her breast—she could tell, he was big with the cuddling.
As with the PDA’s. She had a feeling they were going to be one of those sickeningly cute couples that everyone hated. Kind of like Oz and Willow. There were times—especially up until Spike’s explosive return—when Oz and Willow were so…well, Oz and Willow that Buffy had had to refrain from throwing something at them for being so cute and happy when she was so miserable and alone. But she wasn’t miserable or alone anymore.
It was so strange. The day had been so strange. She’d seen Giles and Angel, she’d learned that all her worries about Spike leaving her were unfounded, she’d learned that she was the mate of a vampire and had even read up on how to perform the not-so-complicated ritual. Now, it was drawing near to early evening, and she was lying in her lover’s arms. There was no plan anymore. Her life was blissfully unplanned.
Well, except the whole Chosen One thing, but that was a given.
Best of all, Spike wasn’t going to leave her. He loved her. Buffy grinned and sank further into the mattress. Spike loved her, and he wasn’t going to leave. This was total happiness. This was soul-losing-happiness, only without the soul-losing part. And Spike had given it to her. Spike had given her everything.
“What are you grinnin’ about?”
Buffy blinked and met his dancing gaze. “The same thing you’re grinning about.”
“Am I squishin’ you?”
Her eyes narrowed. “Yes, Spike. I’m smiling like a lunatic because I’m fighting to breathe. Hello, super-strength, here.”
“A simple no would’ve worked just fine.”
“Yeah, but my way was fun because I answered your question and got to mock you.” She giggled. God, she’d never giggled so much in her life. Spike made her giggle. Who would have thought? “I like you right where you are.”
“You like me in other places, too, I’d hope.” He grinned and kissed her, slipping a hand between them to gently caress the bite mark on her thigh.
Mirth vanished instantly. Her nerves sang and her blood raced with heat. She couldn’t help the moan that slipped through her lips any more than she could keep herself from begging him just a little. After so long craving his touch on that sacred spot—dreaming about what it’d feel like to have him stroke her skin as he loved her body with his—getting what she wanted was intoxicating. She just couldn’t wait until she got the chance to play with the mark she’d given him to see if it bore the same properties.
It would be totally unfair if he didn’t get to experience this.
“So, tell me about this claim business,” Spike murmured, dropping a kiss across her nipple, his hand sliding off her thigh as he pulled his head from her breast to meet her gaze fully. Buffy couldn’t stop from mewling in complaint if she tried, and from the apologetic look on her vampire’s face, he hadn’t wanted to stop any more than she wanted him to. “Sorry, pet…I din’t mean to—”
“I know,” she whimpered. “I just…good touchies.”
“You’ll get your good touchies.” He kissed the pulse point of her throat and purred. “I promise. Jus’ think it might be easier to talk if I din’t do that.”
He was right, of course, but that didn’t convince her body that the mature thing to do was to not pout. Buffy sighed and shifted. “How is it that you don’t know about claims?”
Spike shrugged dismissively, though something significant flashed through his eyes. Something that begged exploration, but similarly implored to let the matter alone. Either way, she didn’t have to ask him to elaborate. In a tone that very much mirrored his body language, he said, “I heard about them right after I was sired. Thought about it. Thought Dru was my bloody savior. Angelus never wanted me to have her, though the idea never went away.” He sighed. “After he got himself stuffed with soul, I thought about it again. Wanker was no longer in the picture, right? An’ Dru was…well, in my mind, she was mine.”
Buffy shivered, disgust and jealousy rolling in her stomach. An irrational feeling at best, considering that Spike was most definitely hers, but she couldn’t help herself. The idea that he had ever thought that of any woman that wasn’t her was too much for her overly-possessive mind. Spike was hers, dammit. He’d been hers forever—even before she was born. How dare a stupid, crazy vampire woman try and wheedle him away? Even if said stupid, crazy vampire woman was the reason that Spike was curled in Buffy’s arms. Stupid Drusilla still had no right to ever have a hold on Spike, and that so wasn’t the claim talking.
When she met Spike’s eyes, he was grinning like a madman.
“What?” she demanded.
“You must be havin’ quite the conversation with yourself in that gorgeous li’l noggin,” he teased, his mouth dipping to caress her lips. “You’re so cute when you’re jealous.”
“I am so not jealous!” Buffy insisted immediately.
“An’ you’re not the best liar.”
“Hey!” She pouted. “Why do you think I’m jealous?”
“’Cause you are.” His grin widened and he kissed her again. “Doesn’ matter, baby. She led me here. That’s all. Without Dru, I never would’ve found you. An’ she stopped me from researching it. The claim. She got a vision of what I was hopin’ to do an’ put a right end to it. She made it perfectly clear that I was only hers on loan. Or maybe it was the other way around.” He shrugged. “Maybe she saw that you were destined for me. Bugger if I know or care. Doesn’ matter how I got here; only that I got here. But Dru’s say in the matter ended it for me. I never read up on claims ‘cause I never thought I’d do it. Not unless she changed her mind. Which is why it’s bloody surprising that I managed it in the first place, especially bein’ as pissant drunk as I was.”
“Angel—”
Spike growled.
Buffy frowned and smacked him. “Hey! You just said your ex’s name like…a bajillion times there. I don’t think I should have to talk about Angel in code if you’re not gonna do the same.”
“Yeh, well, unlike some people, I can bloody admit when I’m jealous.”
“I am not jealous.”
“Case in point.”
“I am not!”
Spike chuckled and shook his head. “It’s amazing how little your lying ability improved in that minute an’ a half.”
“You’re mean.”
“Evil,” he corrected.
“Same diff.”
He feigned an indifferent shrug. “Comes with the territory, I s’pose. Now, go on. On the bloody edge of my seat. What did your precious Angel say?”
She batted her eyes innocently. “About what?”
“About claims, you infuriating bint.”
Buffy held his gaze for a long minute, then broke into a smile. “I love you.”
His frustration vanished immediately into tenderness and awe. God, she loved it when he did that. When he went from pissed off and sexy to lovesick and sexy. The change was so instantaneous—and so gorgeous. As though his default mode was to look at her like she was an angel, rather than rip her apart because she was the Slayer. It was just another thing in her catalogue of Spike-characteristics that she adored.
“I love you, too,” he replied ardently. “I love you so much.”
Her heart sang and she was instantly lightheaded. “Softie.”
“Oi.”
Buffy smiled and gently ran her nails along his sides, enjoying the way his skin shivered beneath her touch. “Angel said that claiming is an instinctive thing for vamps. That you must’ve recognized something…in me…that made for a good…I dunno. Very primal, or so he says.” She paused and frowned thoughtfully. “He also said that different vamps will respond or approach the idea of claiming from, well, different angles. Some vamps really want to claim or be claimed, and others don’t.” She met his eyes again and smiled. “I guess you really wanted it.”
“Not much of a surprise, that.” He smiled uneasily, as though the knowledge of his wanting to belong to someone was as crippling for him to hear as it was for her to say. It just told her all the more how lonely he’d been. That he could have been with Dru for so many years, and never once felt anything but alone.
Buffy worried a lip between her teeth and reached between them to stroke his face. He’d never be alone again.
Spike shook his head a few seconds later, his eyes returning to her. “Anything else, sweet?”
“Not that I can think of. Oh! The pain…the hurty stuff that happens when we’re apart…it should end now.” At his look, she shrugged. “It was because I hadn’t done the claim thingy on you. Now that I have, we should be pain free. Which really, of the massive good. I’d hate to never get to go shopping alone with Willow again because getting five feet away from you gives me killer cramps. It was getting really bad.”
“Bloody right.”
“So, we also don’t have to do those patrol non-dates anymore.” Buffy paused and grinned. “We can go on patrol dates now. Complete with handholding and fondling of the appropriate and inappropriate kind.” Another giggle tore from her lips at the near-dreamy look that flooded his eyes. Her mouth latched onto his earlobe and nibbled, pulling him back down to her. “Wanna get started on that?”
“You mean, do I wanna leave this nice, warm bed, get thoroughly unnaked, an’ go out to kill things?”
“We can come back here and get re-naked after.”
Spike sighed and slipped his hand back over her mark. “Or we can give us something to look forward to.”
Rational thought abandoned her. There was absolutely no way to think rationally while his fingers were stroking her skin. “Ohhh…” Buffy moaned, releasing his earlobe and stretching her arms around his neck as his mouth fell to her throat. “Ohh…you’re…being very…bad.”
“Want me to stop?”
“No. No! Want good touchies.”
Spike chuckled, his lips making their way back to hers. He gave her the universe with his kiss. And there was a forever of kisses ahead of her. A forever of universes. A forever of kissing him.
Something told her that forever wouldn’t be enough.
“Then good touchies,” he murmured, “my girl shall have.”
To be continued