Which were somehow no longer attached to the pole at the head of the bed.
“How did you get free?” Buffy asked as the chains clinked to the floor.
Spike’s back was to her, and it grew rigid as he paused before finally answering. “I guess they weren’t connected very well. I did it myself, and I’m not exactly a professional welder.”
Buffy had thought they’d seemed pretty well attached when she’d been in them. But then again, Spike probably was a good bit stronger than her. If they hadn’t been welded very well, she supposed it was possible he would be capable of breaking them.
Well, of course it possible, she chided herself. She’d seen him do it. It wasn’t like he could somehow use superhuman strength to break the chains.
She sat up and moved behind him, running her hands up his back to his shoulders before placing a soft kiss against the mark she’d left when she’d bitten him earlier. He relaxed against her, moaning softly at her touch.
“God, you’re incredible,” she said as she nipped at his ear. “Really fucking amazing.”
Spike hummed in his throat. “We’re good together, luv.”
Buffy smiled, his declaration warming her. She wanted nothing more than to let him wrap her up in his arms so she could sleep next to him in that big, soft bed, but she knew that would only lead to missing work in the morning. Again. She pulled back reluctantly, letting her hands slip away from him. “I should probably go.”
Spike turned towards her quickly. “Why?”
“I have to go to work in the morning.”
“You can go from here.”
Buffy arched an eyebrow. “Tried that. You seduced me so I’d stay and keep having sex with you.”
“Oh, right. Guess there’s no way I could convince you to quit your job and become my full-time love slave.”
“Tempting, but no. For one thing, I think that would result in the permanent loss of the use of my legs.”
“As long as I can still get them up in the air, I’m good.” Spike replied with a shrug.
Buffy smacked his shoulder. “Pig.”
He smiled in a way that made him look way more charming and innocent than he should, especially considering the next words out of his mouth. “You can’t stick around for one more shag?”
“Oh my god do you like put Viagra in your Wheaties? How does it keep getting up?”
“You’re very inspiring.”
Buffy snorted. “I guess.” She leaned in and gave him a quick kiss before she forced herself to move away. “Sorry, if I give you that, then you’ll convince me to stick around for another and then we’re just stuck in a vicious cycle.”
“Not vicious. Bloody lovely.”
It was tempting, Buffy had to admit. It would be so easy to simply lose herself in this man’s arms and forget about the outside world completely. But practically, she knew she couldn’t. As much as Spike seemed to like having her around now, they’d only known each other for a few days, and chances were greater than not that he’d grow tired of her after a while. The divorce itself was already going to wreak havoc on her finances. She certainly couldn’t afford to lose her job because she couldn’t keep her hands of a guy, albeit a gorgeous one.
“I can’t. But we have out date tomorrow night, and if you want to, you can have me all weekend.”
Spike grinned wolfishly. “Promise?”
“Yes.”
He tugged her back to him long enough to kiss her until she broke away panting. He looked at her with dark eyes full of lust.
How she managed to move away, get dressed, and leave, Buffy wasn’t sure.
Buffy sighed as the hot water from her shower pounded over sore muscles. She couldn’t remember a time when she’d ever ached like this. Every inch of her was sore.
She’d suspected for a while that Riley was more or less a dud in bed, especially since the amount of effort he put towards her pleasure seemed to have an inverse relationship with the length of their marriage.
But Spike… She didn’t think he was quite the norm either. His stamina seemed damn near inhuman. He’d come only to stay hard and keep moving inside of her. When she thought about it, she couldn’t think of a time when she’d seen him be anything but at least partially hard. Even with her relatively-limited sexual experience, Buffy knew most guys couldn’t be that way. Maybe Spike had some sort of medical condition…
Yet even with her body’s protests, Buffy couldn’t find it in herself to care. Never before would she have imagined that hours and hours of incredible sex could be so…freeing. She felt better about herself than she had in a long time, more confident, more beautiful. She was realizing now how much she’d turned her dissatisfaction with her marriage inward, blaming herself not only for her and Riley’s tepid sex life, but also for the ever-growing chasm that seemed to stretch between them.
Buffy could see with hindsight that her attempt to seek out a man the night she met Spike had not really been about revenge. It had been a desperate attempt to prove to herself she was in fact desirable and it hadn’t been her own repulsiveness driving Riley into strange beds. Spike had shown her it wasn’t. And then some.
Now, she felt a way she hadn’t in a very long time.
Sensual.
Buffy ran her hands down her body, reveling in the feeling of her own bare skin beneath her fingers. She cupped her breasts, the weight of them suddenly seeming ample enough. She closed her eyes for a moment, wondering what Spike saw when he looked at her, how it was he perceived her. Did he see her differently than she saw herself? He’d told her once when they were making love that she glowed. Did she?
It wasn’t until the water grew cold that Buffy finally shut it off. She stepped from the shower and towel dried her hair before wrapping up in her thickest bathrobe, yawning as she did. She knew she’d have no trouble sleeping.
Buffy opened the bathroom door, then gasped, startled when she saw someone sitting on the bed.
Her fright turned to anger as she realized who it was. “What the hell are you doing here, Riley?” she snapped.
“I live here,” Riley replied, enough smugness in his tone to make Buffy really want to hurt him.
“Not anymore you don’t.”
“I pay half the mortgage.”
“You’re still not living here anymore.”
“I’m not playing games, Buffy. I have every right to be here.”
“Yeah, and I’ll see what the cops have to say about that,” Buffy replied, moving towards the phone.
Riley jumped up and grabbed her arm. “Come on, don’t do anything stupid. I’m only here to talk. I won’t stay if you really don’t want me to.”
“I really don’t want you to. I also don’t want to talk. Any communication between us from now on can go through our lawyers.” She struggled in vain to break free of his hold. “Let me go.”
“I came by earlier, but you weren’t here. Where were…” Riley stopped in mid-sentence and tightened his grip on her arm as he tugged her closer. “What’s that on your neck? Is that another hickey?”
“I told you I met someone else. And I swear to God, if you don’t let me go, I will call the police.”
“You need to stop seeing him. I’m willing to forgive you since I messed up, too, but if we’re going to make our marriage work, then you certainly can’t be seeing someone else.”
Riley finally loosened his grip on her arm, and Buffy moved away from him. “Make our marriage work? Are you insane? This marriage is beyond over.”
Riley sighed and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Look, Buffy, I know we have our problems, that we have for a while, and what I did was the worst way to handle things. I know that, and I can’t even begin to tell you how sorry I am. But we’re married, Buffy. There’s a legal bond between us.”
Buffy shook her head. “A legal bond that can be severed. And it isn’t enough either way. For a marriage to work, it needs more than paperwork. It needs love.”
“And what, this new guy loves you?”
She didn’t know if she could call it that, or even if she ever would be able to. After all, they hadn’t known each other long enough. But she did know that Spike looked at her in a way Riley never had. “That isn’t the point. And it’s also none of your business.”
Riley looked at her sharply. “It’s not Angel, is it?”
His question took Buffy aback. In all of this, she’d barely even given her ex a passing thought. “What?”
“Please don’t tell me you went crawling back to him, Buffy. I mean after all he put you through…”
“Riley, I haven’t seen Angel in years. It’s someone you don’t know and don’t need to know. My personal life ceased being your business when you started paying other women to have sex with you.”
“I told you I was sorry about that!”
“Well, gee, all forgive then.” Buffy glared. “Get out.”
“Look, I know with the sort of example you had as a kid, divorce seems like an easy option, but…”
Buffy put her hands on her hips and sucked in a deep breath. “Oh, you are so very out of line.”
Riley stood up again and held his hands out in front of him. “Just hear me out. If you want to spend some time apart, I get that. Maybe a bit of a separation would be for the best right now. But divorce is jumping the gun, Buffy. We really need to at least try counseling first.”
“Riley, I really don’t know how to get this through your head, but I don’t want to be married to you. I haven’t been happy, you haven’t been happy, and there’s no marriage counselor in the world who can make me feel any differently. This marriage isn’t working. We aren’t working. Period. I’m not going to waste anymore of my life pretending otherwise.”
“It’s the other guy, isn’t it? He’s got you so worked up you aren’t thinking straight.”
Buffy sighed, weary of this whole conversation. She was tired and sore and just wanted to sleep. “No, Riley. It’s not him. It’s you. I don’t want to be with you.”
Riley nodded, and for a second, Buffy through he got the message. Then, he clasped his hand on her shoulder and said, “You’re upset. That’s understandable. But you’ll change your mind after you start to bore this guy. I hope for your sake I can wait that long.”
At any other time his words may have struck a nerve, but tonight, Buffy was still feeling too good about herself to let Riley tear her down. Things with Spike could fizzle. She was realistic enough to know that. His attraction to her could very well wane. But she wasn’t about to let Riley of all people try to make her feel small. Not after what he’d done to her.
“He might get bored with me.” She paused for a moment and shrugged. “Hell, I might even get bored with him. But that still won’t send me back to you. Because you have never been able to hold my interest. Your idea of sex is rolling on top of me and grunting for five minutes – or if I’m lucky, less. Having sex with you is like being trapped under a big, sweaty pile of blankets, and I’m tired of just soldiering through that. I haven’t even had an orgasm with you in years, and I can’t remember when was the last time you as much as pretended to care. So, really, this is just over. I never want you to touch me again and clearly, you’re wanting something other than me in the bedroom, too, since you’ve had to resort to hookers in order to get off.”
“That wasn’t about sex!” Riley yelled. “That was about finding someone who needed me!”
Buffy wasn’t sure what to make of that response. “Huh? Explain how that works exactly.”
“You always cut me out. You have your own job, your own bank account. You said you’d take my name, but you still use Summers more than you use Finn. You’re clearly not interested in staying home to raise children any time soon. How do you think that makes me feel, Buffy?”
“Apparently like you need to go out and pay for sex because it doesn’t come with a price tag at home.”
“No!”
“That’s what you just said! You said you had to pay for sex because I’m not a stay-at-home wife who depends on you for money. And really, that may be the most twisted thing I’ve ever heard anyone say.”
“You’re putting words in my mouth, Buffy.”
“No, the ones already in there are pretty much doing the trick.”
“Those women made me feel like a man, Buffy. They needed me to support them.”
Buffy held up her hands and took a step back. “Okay, I honestly have nothing to say to that except maybe therapy might be a good idea after all – only less of a couple thing and more of a you thing.”
“Buffy, come on. I’m trying to open up here! Maybe I do need some counseling, but so do you. Things will work so much better if we…”
“There is no ‘we!’” Buffy yelled, cutting him off. “We are over.”
“Look, I can see I’m not going to be able to get through to you tonight. But I want you to take a few days to think things over and decide what’s really important – this fling you’re having now or your marriage.”
“Yeah, like I really need time to ponder that.”
“Buffy…”
“Just go, Riley. It’s late, I’m tired, and we both know this is getting us nowhere.”
“Will you at least give things some thought?”
Buffy’s only response was to point towards the door, and thankfully, Riley finally walked through it. She stood in the bedroom, shaking, until she heard his car drive away. She then went out and made sure the front and back doors were locked before changing the combination on the alarm. She could get the locks changed, too, tomorrow. For now at least, she’d hear him coming.
Satisfied she’d dealt with Riley for the evening, Buffy finished getting ready for bed.
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