“Come on, baby,” he purred, reaching out to touch her. She slapped his hand, hard, away. “Bloody hell, Anya, that actually hurt!”
“Good! You deserve it. I told you you’d regret the day you shoved me around, William Giles! I’ve had it. You have an itch you want to scratch? Fine, then scratch it with that bimbo you’re staying with.”
Spike growled. “She’s not—“ But the door was slammed in his face before he could finish.
Sighing heavily, figuring he didn’t have a shot in hell at getting laid, at least by Anya, and feeling he had to get back to Buffy – not to mention feeling guilty for trying with Anya – Spike headed back to Casa de Summers.
When Spike saw that Buffy’s parent’s car was no longer in the driveway, he felt guilty. He’d only been gone an hour, but still. Buffy shouldn’t have been home alone for that long. He supposed she could have called Finn or Gunn in – and that thought, the thought of Finn inside with her, sent him racing through the alarm access code and jetting up the stairs.
He heard her laughter, Finn’s voice, and then Buffy shouting, “Go! Run! Get him!”
Curious, Spike slowly made his way to the living room and peered in without letting them know he was there. He found Buffy and Finn watching football. Buffy watched football? Course, it wasn’t the same football he grew up with and was accustomed to, but his time in the States had eased him into liking the American sport.
And seeing Buffy get into the game was a surprise and a turn on to boot. Anya hated sports of any kind. She would nag and complain that she wanted to go out when he wanted to stay home and watch the game.
Buffy was avidly watching, her luscious bottom on the edge of the couch cushion, a Patriots hat on, her hair jutting out in a pony tail at the space in the back. She was so…adorable.
What he didn’t like was Finn, hovering close by, smiling at her like a rambunctious puppy.
“Finn,” Spike drawled, coming into the room. “You can go now.” He didn’t take his gaze off Buffy as he strolled over to her, meaning to take Finn’s spot on the couch.
She looked up when he came into her peripheral. She smiled brightly. “Hi!”
He chuckled at her exuberance. “Hi. What are you doing?”
“I’m watching the game! And, the Pats are winning. Naturally.”
“Pet, they’re a New England team, right? Shouldn’t you be rooting for the Raiders or San Francisco?”
She wrinkled her nose. “No. See, my Dad is originally from New England, so growing up it was all about the Patriots and all about the Red Sox. He didn’t watch much hockey or basketball, so those were the two games I grew up watching and learning about, and those were the teams I became fans of.”
Spike smiled down at her. Yet another new thing he learned about her, and another new thing he loved. He slowly turned to Finn, feeling he very much couldn’t take his eyes off Buffy. “Finn. I told you to go.”
“The game is almost—“
“Go!”
“Spike, surely he can stay until the game is over,” Buffy reasoned.
“He can listen to it in the car.”
“Spike!” Buffy jumped up. “You’re being rude.”
“I don’t care. Get out of here Finn.”
Glaring, Riley stood until he was just about eye level to him. Problem was, he was a bit taller and Spike knew it. Although, he knew Riley meant to make him look like a ponce by being taller, Spike kept his cold hard gaze steady on him. He wasn’t one to back down, and he wasn’t one to be made to feel intimidated.
Riley seemed to realize he wasn’t going to win this round and with a grumble, he cleared out.
Buffy was glaring at him when Spike turned his attention back to her.
“What?” he asked innocently, knowing full well why she was so mad.
“Why do you have to be such a jerk?”
“I wasn’t. I was getting him back to his post. He was the one being the jerk trying to make me feel all less of a man by being taller than me.”
“Get back to his post…” she muttered. “You left, remember!” she shouted.
“You told me to!” he shouted back.
“There’s two minutes left to the game. He could have stayed.”
“Well, I didn’t want him to!”
She shook her head. “You’re a child.”
“I am? What about you? You’re living under Mommy and Daddy’s thumb—“
“I do not live under their thumb!”
“Don’t you? This house is really theirs isn’t it? What did you have to promise Mama Bear to get her off your back tonight? ”
Jumping up, Buffy slapped him hard across the face, causing his head to snap to the side. He felt shock first. Then instantly felt guilty for having pushed her to that. He looked back at her to see her shaking in anger.
“You’re an asshole,” she said and marched off.
Sighing heavily, he took a deep breath and sat down. This was an apology he didn’t want to fuck up. Buffy deserved more than just a shoddy “I’m sorry.”
She deserved…
She deserved everything.
And he couldn’t give her any of that could he?
He found her in the library/study, hunched over her desk, writing furiously in what appeared to be a journal. Coming up slowly, he realized she must have felt his presence because she froze and put her pen down.
“What?”
Yep, she felt him.
He came round and looked at her. “Pretty good trick you got there, pet.”
She looked up at him, annoyed. “Well, you know what they say about losing one of your senses…”
“The others are enhanced, I remember.”
“What do you want?”
“To apologize,” he said, perching himself on the desk.
She sat back, eyeing him. “You know…you don’t know anything about me. You think you do, but you don’t.”
“I want to know more.”
“Then maybe you should try asking instead of flinging accusations about things you know nothing about.”
“I’m sorry, Buffy, I really am,” he said earnestly, hoping to convey with everything in him that he was truly sorry.
She sighed, “Apology accepted.” She eyed him, scrutinizing him. “As much as you try to have a hard shell, Spike, you actually do have feelings, you just don’t want to admit to them.”
“That’s quite an assumption,” he said, stiffening. “I could say the same about not knowing anything about me, pet.”
“I watch people, Spike. That whole thing about the other senses being enhanced? I have to watch people to learn what mood they’re in; how they feel…that way I can be in tune to them, especially useful since I can’t hear their tone when they’re talking to me. If you didn’t have feelings, you wouldn’t slept in my room last night, you wouldn’t have slept in my bed –“
“I get it, Buffy, all right?” Spike snapped at her. “How is it that I come in here to apologize and this becomes about me?”
“Because I find you fascinating, I suppose. I want to know what makes you tick and what got you so riled up earlier to insult me the way you did. ”
“Fascinating? Me?” he balked. “Whatever for?” And what got him riled up earlier? It was fucking Finn in your living room hanging all over you, that’s what got me riled up. Git tried to show me up in front of you. And then you defended him!.
“Because you’re different than I am.”
“Oh, a cop with dirty hands, that it? Attracted to the darker side of life, pet?”
“That what you want me to think?”
“What is this? Psych 101?”
“You’ve led a different life than I have Spike, but a lot of people have. I’ve always felt on the outside growing up and it wasn’t until Parker that I started to feel I was getting a taste of the world outside this house and my overbearing mother. I don’t mean to insult you when I say I find you fascinating. I just mean that …you’re interesting to me.”
God, how could he resist this woman? And how was it that her simple explanation could bring him to his knees? He felt more and more that he wasn’t worthy of her. So, why he got up, leaned over her, cupped her face in his hands, and kissed her languidly, wanting to taste every inch of her, was beyond him.