The colour--whatever colour there was--drained from the vampire’s face, and his mouth was making a funny fish-out-of-water motion. Buffy repressed a giggle. Okay, this might be a little different than I’d imagined. “So, were you a ‘big bad’, like you are now?” By his reaction she doubted it, and damn it her curiosity was piqued.

Spike tried to regain his composure. Taking on an air of nonchalance, he scoffed. “It’s not important, is it? What’s past is past. Can’t really change it now, can we? How about we go by the docks over there and see if anything interesting’s going on...” Please don’t make me do this.

“Nah--this bench is too comfortable. Anyway, you seem to be on some sort of storytelling streak, so now’s a good time to talk away.” She loved doing this to him. Every squirm, every nervous tic--the Slayer was soaking it all in. Maybe the big bad had been a bit of a pussy cat... She decided to play a little with him. With a serious look on her face, she wondered out loud. “Oh my God! You weren’t Jack the Ripper, were you?”

Now he knew that she was teasing him. Letting out a laugh, he retorted. “Fuck off, Slayer. I’m not tellin’. A guy’s gotta have his secrets.” Yeah and the big secret’s that you were a wanker, a mother’s boy. A floppy-haired bad-poetry-writing geek. “I was just different.”

“Different in what way? Were you a priest? Were you in the army?” She wasn’t going to leave him be until she had every little detail. This was all too good to pass up.

Spike was getting nervous--mostly because his defences were beginning to fall. “Look, pet. The last thing I need is to give you more ammo to use against me.”

Buffy placed a hand on his arm, leaning in towards him. This was her last chance at getting him to talk. “Aw, come on, Spikey. How bad can it be?” She whispered in his ear, pressing herself up against his side. “Just tell me--it’ll be our little secret.”

She wants to play this little game, does she? Alright--let’s show her that two can play at this. “Ok. I’ll tell you--but only if you give me a kiss.”

The young woman shot away from him as if shocked. From the other end of the bench, she asked him: “What? Spike, you’re crazy if you think I’ll even come close to you.” Well, closer than I was, anyway.

Smug, the vampire smiled. “Have it your way, Slayer. I’ll just keep my sordid past to myself.” He knew that that would get her off his back. There was no way in hell that she would kiss him just to find out about William.

Buffy was pouting. When had this game turned in his favour? Sordid? That’s so not fair! She crossed her arms against her chest and pressed her lips together. Trying to keep her eyes anywhere but on the blonde vamp, she scanned her field of vision: there was an older couple out for a walk; she spied a small gang of teenagers near a lamppost, smoking and laughing; she even spent a while watching some workers unload crates off of one of the large ships. But her mind kept going back to Spike and his dare--or was it an offer?

She felt like pulling her hair out. Kiss Spike and find out about his past, or don’t kiss him and never know what he was like... Argh! “Fine! This is killing me. One. Kiss. And if you try anything funny, it’ll be ‘Hello Dustville’--got it?”

Wha? He’d been in mid-thought when she blurted it out. Was she really going for it? Was it worth divulging his last secret, just to get a kiss in return? Hell, yeah! “Ok, pet. Why don’t you slide down here--I don’t think it’ll work if you’re way over there.” He watched her intently as she made her way closer to him, trying her best not to touch him or his coat. When she sat still, lips in mid pucker he snorted. “No, luv. You kiss me. That can’t happen if you’re just sitting there doing your best impression of a sucker fish.”

The young woman opened her eyes and groaned. “Fine--get technical.” She placed her palm on his cheek, and brought his lips to her own. As her lips met his, she felt like an electric current passed through them.

This was all wrong. She meant to press her lips to his and to pull away, disgusted. She never expected his lips to be so soft, so inviting. He returned the kiss, cupping her neck with his hand. The embrace intensified, but remained chaste. After all, a kiss was all she promised--not a petting session.

They pulled away from each other, both in a daze, and stared at each other. Buffy’s cheeks were flushed, and Spike’s mouth had opened--he even seemed to be breathing hard.

“Ponce.”

Buffy’s brow creased when her mind worked out what he’d just said. “What? What did you just call me?”

The vampire chuckled softly. “No, pet--I’m talking about me. That is the reason behind our lip lock, isn’t it?” Not that it wasn’t bloody amazing.

The young woman relaxed, but didn’t distance herself from her companion. She remained pressed up against him, comforted by his proximity. “Ok, so you were a ponce. What’s that, anyway? Is it like a jerk, or something?”

“Nah, more like a... uhm... a nerd.” He hid his face in his hands as he waited for her reaction. One kiss wasn’t worth this--almost.

Buffy’s face was deadpan--until she burst out in a fit of laughter, losing her balance and falling off the bench. “You?! A geek?! That’s too rich!” Dusting herself off, she almost missed the slight change in his body language. He seemed to be sitting a bit stiffer and he was looking away from her. He couldn’t be taking it this bad, could he?

That’s when it hit her. William the Bloody, Spike the ‘Big Bad’; in his demon life, he had been overcompensating for what he’d been as a human: a wimp. Probably got beat up, or teased. Probably wasn’t very popular with the ladies either. Buffy felt sorry for him; she sat back down and put her hand on his shoulder. When he turned to look at her, she could see the anger and the humiliation in his eyes.

“I’m really sorry, Spike. It’s just, it’s not at all what I expected. I was bracing for, you know, you being a criminal, or something horrible.”

He took a deep breath, and accepted her apology without a word. “Well, William was horrible enough.” Raising his gaze to the skies, he went on. He knew he couldn’t continue if he was looking at her. “I was about as far removed from being a criminal as I am right now from being a priest. I had no friends--I only had Mother, whose coattails I hid under. I always had my nose in a book and I...” He moved his head away from her and mumbled, hoping she didn’t hear him. “andIwroteawfulpoetry.”

Buffy couldn’t help but smile at Spike’s shyness about the poetry. Funny enough, it didn’t surprise her. He just seemed like the kind of person to write poetry, now that she knew him better. “Really? You wrote poetry? I think that’s sweet--it’s romantic!”

“Yeah, well, you didn’t have to suffer through it.” He paused a moment, and found the strength to face her. “No one else seemed to have such heartfelt notions about my poetry back then. The night that I was turned, I’d been to a party. There was a girl there--Cecily Addams. I was in love with her--or so I thought, anyway. Bleedin’ wanker I was, I bared my soul to her and she crushed it. She told me I was beneath her.” His voice seethed with the bitter memory. “So when Dru gave me the chance at finding my inner psycho, I thought ‘Hey, why not? My life can’t get any worse...’”

The Slayer bit her lip. “So... is that why you’re such a ‘big bad’? Is that just an image you got with the demon, or was Spike somewhere inside of William, waiting to be released?”

Her question floored the vampire. Was this the same girl who thought that he was going to dress her at McDonalds? “That’s a damn good question. I’m afraid I don’t know the answer to that. I don’t think that there was much of a brutal murderer in William, but he was headstrong, he didn’t follow what everyone else was doing, he simply wasn’t a conventional fellow. He was also a bloody sentimental fool--the demon never quite managed to quash that quality, though.”

“That’s the one thing about you that’s always puzzled me. I get the killing, I get the posturing, the duster--I get all the doom and gloom. But I never got the faithfulness, the romance, the love. I’ve never met a vampire like you--you’re so...” Buffy waved her hand around, frustrated because she couldn’t find an apt word. “...sentimental. No, that’s not it...”

“Dead sexy?”

The young woman raised an eyebrow. “Uh, no. Not that you’re not... Um. That’s not what I meant” Oh, God please stop blushing... “Passionate! That’s it!” She smiled, proud of herself.

“Passionate...” As the vampire sat there, mulling the adjective over--and whether or not it fit him (which it did, of course), he watched Buffy get up and walk to the railing at the edge of the river. She described him as passionate, and what he felt at that moment was nothing short of it.

He was sick of second-guessing his instincts. Yes, she was The Slayer. But she was also Buffy Summers--and whether or not he wanted to admit it, he was falling for her. No longer wanting to hold back whenever he was around with her, he walked out to where she was. They would never be Romeo and Juliet, all doe-eyed and innocent; they would be more like Benedick and Beatrice, with sharp tongues and a wit to match, forever duelling. He walked up behind her and placed his hands on the railing, capturing her between his arms.

Her Slayer senses were sounding the alarm. Surrounded by Spike, a powerful arm on each side and his solid chest in behind, barely touching her, she tried to gauge her own reaction. Was she afraid, as she should have been? No. She wasn’t fully at ease, either, though. Body tense, she felt a shiver pass through her as he pressed up against her. She pressed back, giving her assent, and his arms pulled in to circle her.

How desperate for affection was she, that the found herself in the arms of her mortal enemy? Oh, can it, she told her inner Slayer, that one’s getting old. They had been mortal enemies at one time, but as everything in the world evolves--nothing can remain unchanged by the tides of time--so had their relationship. Were they friends now? Yes, she thought so, at least. Did she have feelings for him? A definite maybe, bordering on yes. Did he have feelings for her? She hoped so.

The young woman turned to face him, the million questions in her head reflected in the vampire’s blue eyes. They stood there, intertwined by the edge of the Thames River, looking for answers in each other’s eyes, but finding only more questions.

The moment’s silence was broken by Spike, who was never really known for his patience. “Oh, bugger this!” He crushed his lips to hers in what he hoped was an effective display of the passion she saw in him.

Buffy tried to think, tried to react, but the feel of his soft, cool lips on her own erased all coherent thought from her mind. All that remained was something between ‘Oh God’ and ‘Yum’. She brought one hand to his face, tracing the sharp angle of his cheekbone; the other hand trailed to his waist, where she hooked a finger in one of his belt loops pulling him closer to her. She felt his erection press against her stomach and smiled into their kiss as she heard him moan.

Ok--so far she hadn’t punched him, kicked him, pushed him away or staked him. Better yet, she was returning the embrace with a zeal that matched his own. Spike’s tongue slid against her lips, seeking entry into her mouth. She parted her lips and welcomed him in. Their tongues duelled as the intensity of their kiss grew. It was no longer the fusion of two mouths, but of two bodies.

Buffy felt the railing press into her back, but she ignored it. All she wanted to think of was how good it felt to let go. She was having a major gropefest with an incredibly sexy vampire out in public, and she didn’t care who saw. She dragged her fingernails down his back, reaching for his rear end. She paused for a moment when she felt his face shift--she didn’t know if she was quite ready for that yet--but relaxed when his face took its human guise once again. Impressed at his self-control, she pulled him closer to her.

They pulled apart and rested their foreheads together, both panting. In between breaths, Buffy managed to find words. “Spike?”

“Yes, luv?”

“What was that all about?”

Pulling back a little so he could look her in the eye, the vampire searched for the right answer, to tell her what she wanted to hear. “Don’t rightly know, but I can tell you that I don’t for one moment regret it. That given the chance I’d do it all over again.” That must have been the right thing to say, because she smiled and hooked her arm around his waist.

As they made their way back to the car, Buffy decided to bring out into the open an issue she’d been mulling over. “So... when are we going to go to the Nex?”

Spike paused only briefly, the question surprising him. “I guess we should plan on going there pretty soon. We need to get on this guy’s trail before it goes cold. Why do you ask?”

The Slayer slipped her arm out from around him, and turned to face him, walking backwards. “Well, I’ve been thinking. About what we argued about earlier.” Seeing a ‘oh, not again’ look cross his features, she quickly continued. “No, I’m not up for another fight. Actually, I’ve been enjoying the getting along more than the fighting. What I’m thinking is that since we’re both in a good mood tonight, maybe we should go through with the biting when we get back to the hotel. That way we could go there tomorrow night.”

Although Buffy’s proposal shocked him, he didn‘t show it. He had expected to be the one reminding her, asking her night after night if she was ready yet; he never believed that she would be the one to bring it up, especially not that same night. Attempting to seem unaffected, he answered her. “I s’pose it makes sense. The bites wouldn’t be too fresh tomorrow night, and we are here for a higher purpose than shooting the shit at the base of the Tower of London.”

He unlocked the car doors with the remote, and opened the passenger door for her to get in. Before she had time to sit down, he took hold of her arm. “I’ll only go through with this if you’re comfortable. Last thing I need is for you to panic, or even worse to stake me.”

Buffy no longer doubted in her heart that Spike felt something for her. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t balk at the chance to sink his fangs into her neck. Rising on the tips of her toes, she kissed him on the cheek. “I am comfortable. I am ready. Now if we wait too long, my resolve may just break...”

“Right then. In the car you go.” With a smirk, he gave her a little shove, and she fell into her seat. “We’ve got a very important task to work on. No need dilly-dallying in empty car parks.”

Author's Note: I hope you liked their first kiss :) The next chapter is strongly rated R and involves bloodplay, so please be warned. I also have a challenge for my dear readers. I know that waiting for yummy chapters sucks, so for every 5 reviews I get, I'll move the post day one day sooner. Does that sound good to you?
And thanks to all who have been reviewing. The Spuffy Realm readers are by far the most generous of all site readers.