Chapter 7
Sunlight was blazing through the doors of the bedroom’s shallow balcony when she woke up. Her head was in the curve of someone’s shoulder, a cool strong body was against her back, an arm lay between her breasts, big hand splayed across her hip, holding her to him. A forehead pressed to the back of her head; face in her hair; cool breath against her neck. Spike.
Three men, two good, one evil. And the evil one was the one who was still there in the morning.
She laughed a little, ruefully, and twisted in his arms to lie on her back. He leaned over her, his face expressionless and withdrawn, his eyes very dark and still.
“You’re still here,” she murmured.
“Of course. Monsters don’t go away. Don’t you know that? They’re always around, somewhere in the shadows. I don’t leave, pet.”
“Good.”
She pulled him down to her and kissed him. He made an odd little sound in his throat and kissed her back deeply. She felt his torso ease down upon her, purred at his weight, her hands running caressingly across his back and pressing at his shoulderblades to hold him to her.
“Nice way to wake up,” she murmured, “after a great night.”
The tight lines of his face had relaxed; his eyes were smiling. She realized that he had been braced for rejection.
“Liked it, did you? Liked your walk on the dark side?”
They had done everything last night, unable to stay away from each other, eating each other alive. It had been a revelation to her, how he could make her feel, what he could make her do.
“Wasn’t that dark.” She had done things with him which she didn’t even know how to spell, but it hadn’t felt wrong, had just seemed natural and right.
“Nothing’s dark if it’s done consenting, luv, and doesn’t hurt the partner.” He bit her shoulder lightly in illustration and the tiny prick of his fangs was only stimulation not pain. “Dru was the one who was into pain.”
“You didn’t like that?”
“Never was into the pre-show. Angelus was the one who got off on torture, twisted Dru around that way.”
“How come you’re not that way?”
“Too much of what I was as a human remaining, maybe. Don’ know.”
“The poet.”
He winced. “Did I tell you about that? Bloody hell, don’t tell anyone else, pet! Never live it down!”
She laughed at him. “Okay.”
“Wasn’t the kind of demon Angelus wanted. Never got into that kind of thing. Liked fighting a whole lot better. He didn’t like fighting. Thought it was crass. Too uncouth for him. Liked torture better, mental and emotional, made an art form of it. Tried to beat me into it, smashed a lot of my bones trying. But it didn’t take. I never liked being told what to do.”
“Why are you so different? Even before he got the soul, you’re not like each other.”
“All demons are not alike, pet. Angel’s always fighting his demon. I accept mine. Maybe that’s the difference. Let’s me control it, knowing what the demon can do and choosing to do it or not. That soul thing. All the soul does is give you a conscience, the knowledge of what’s right or wrong. I don’t know for sure, you see? I just guess. There are humans who know and do the wrong thing anyway. Serial killers, rapists, whatnot. Soul’s no guarantee. Doesn’t make you a different person.”
“Angel’s a different person than Angelus.”
“Is he?” He gave her a totally disbelieving look. “Angelus is just Angel with the brakes off, pet. They’re not two different people. He might want you to believe that, might want to believe it himself. But it’s not true. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are the same person, pet, just opposite sides of the same coin. Heads or tails, a nickel’s still a nickel.”
She thought about that, frowning.
He ran a hand slowly down her body from shoulder to knee and she arched involuntarily to him. “How about we...?”
“Oh, God, are you still up for it? Even after last night?”
He grinned at her, tongue curling behind his teeth. “Always.”
“We should be getting up,” she sighed. “The sun’s up. What time is it anyway?”
“About noon.”
“Noon?” She bolted erect in bed, grabbing the sheets around her. “Oh, my God, what will the staff think?”
He fell onto his back, laughing. “They’re the best staff around. Which means they don’t think. They know. Besides, we left my T-shirt and Docs in the living room.” He smirked at her. “And your nightgown.”
Her face flamed scarlet. “This is awful!”
“They’re probably used to it.”
“You’re supposed to be my bodyguard, not my lover!”
“Must have happened before, between people and their Guild bodyguard. All those goodlooking Guild members of both sexes around all the time. Must be an awful temptation. Just propinquity would do it. Bet their racy novels are full of it.”
“I’m supposed to be a Champion, not the heroine of some racy novel!”
“Can be both, can’t you?”
“Ohh!”
She scrambled out of bed, the sheet wrapped around her, and ran to the bathroom, leaving him laughing.
She turned on the taps in the bathtub and left it to fill while she brushed her teeth. She was just sliding into the tub when Spike came padding into the bathroom, mother naked and totally unselfconscious about it. Buffy blushed. But really he was beautiful to look at and there wasn’t an inch of each other’s bodies they hadn’t explored last night, so she shouldn’t be feeling shy. But she did.
“Scoot forward,” he said and slid in behind her. “Love these big tubs. Plenty of space to play.”
“Spike...”
“We’re already late. Half an hour more won’t make a difference.” His arms came around her, pulling her back against him. She could feel him hardening behind her. “Besides, look there.”
She looked. There were two robes now hanging on the wall beside the tub where there had always been only one before.
“Oh, God!”
He was laughing at her. “Can’t keep anything from good staff. They always know. Learned that before I was turned.”
“However will I face them!”
“Just act as if there’s nothing out of the ordinary, luv. They will.”
His hands were sliding over her, his cool lips sucking their way down the side of her neck, touching off that flare of dark fire and heat that was getting to be so familiar now. There were definite advantages to making love with a vamp, she found, including his ability not to need to breathe underwater. By the time he let her out of the tub, she was a limp rag and the water was completely cold—not that she felt it as anything but a delicious contrast, being so overheated herself.
It was hard having to face the staff. But Spike was right. No one acted as if anything was out of the ordinary except that they had both decided to sleep in. Brunch quietly replaced breakfast and Buffy hoped that they hadn’t discommoded the chef too much.
The couple of newspapers brought in at Buffy’s request showed that the reporters from yesterday’s press conference had hewn to the party line. Baniel’s device had turned up a few more sightings. Buffy was just plotting these on the map when Spike looked in the study door.
“Gonna go down to the dojo, pet. Wanna come spar?”
“Sure. I just want to get these plotted first.”
“Come down whenever you’re ready.”
He was working with a slingshot when she and Cadhi got to the training rooms, firing a rock with deadly accuracy precisely into the gold of a target that had been set up.
“A slingshot?” she asked in surprise and he grinned.
“Their long range weapon seems to be crossbows or this little toy here.” He showed her what looked like a crossbow, but double the normal size. “They call it a belly-bow. You hold it against your stomach like this, then draw the string back. Throws heavy shot quite well. Can fire a rock weighing about forty pounds anywhere from two to three hundred yards. Tried it out. But I can get more force and distance with a slingshot.”
“You planning to do a David and Goliath with our Big Bad?”
He laughed. “Never know.”
Sparring between them had turned into a kind of exhibition match these days. Guild members started to drift in whenever they began to fight and Buffy had noticed that a few of them were even copying some of their moves. She knew that Cadhi and Dehren were watching intently. Inter-dimensional contamination. Couldn’t be helped.
Sparring always got the two of them horny. As if they weren’t already. She saw the heat flickering in Spike’s eyes, the laughter there, couldn’t help laughing back. God! If this had been Sunnydale, she would have been horrified at herself. But it didn’t matter here.
He caught her just as they were leaving the gym, pulled her into a stairwell. Cadhi and Dehren were a little delayed, held up by some question Nobiren, the Guildmaster, needed to ask them.
He leaned against her, his full weight upon her, pressing her hard against the wall. He was laughing and she laughed too, her arms tight about his neck.
“If it wasn’t that Cadhi and Dehren are gonna turn up in two seconds, I’d take you right up against this wall,” he muttered. “Can’t get enough of you, Slayer.”
She could feel his arousal. She laughed against his mouth, pulled him harder against her.
“If it wasn’t for Cadhi and Dehren, I’d let you. You’re addictive, vampire.”
There was a flicker of something shadowed and painful behind his eyes. He kissed her hard, mouth demanding, then leaned his forehead against hers, eyes closed, just breathing.
Cadhi’s voice called, “Averin?”
“There they are,” he sighed. “You wouldn’t consider heading for one of our bedrooms when we get upstairs, would you, Slayer?”
She grinned involuntarily. “Rather not be that obvious. Not that long till night.”
“Too long.” But he straightened, drawing reluctantly away.
She tiptoed, sucked on his throat teasingly and felt him shudder against her. “Feel that way too.”
“God, you like playing with fire, don’t you?”
“One of your buttons? Have to remember that.”
“You should not leave our sight, avera,” said Cadhi reproachfully as they emerged out of the stairwell. “There are dangers.”
“Nothing we can’t handle,” said Buffy airily and they made their way upstairs again.
They went up the eastern side of the building, a route they always took to avoid the great central halls that were always teeming with people en route to Council or Audience.
“Avera!” Cadhi suddenly shoved at Buffy roughly, knocking her back against the wall.
There were great twangs, four of them. Then Spike had caught Buffy up and had flung them both with his vampire speed to the floor on the other side of the wide corridor. Buffy hit the floor, then had all the breath knocked out of her by Spike falling on top of her.
“Spike, get off!”
But he wouldn’t, holding her flat with his body covering hers. She pushed at him, trying to peer around his shoulder. Cadhi had a crossbow bolt through her arm, pinning her to the wall. Dehren was down, another bolt through his leg. The wall beside which she and Spike would have been standing had two huge holes through it, testament to the power of the belly-bows that Spike had recently shown her.
Four men were standing in the corridor that crossed this one. Four total strangers. Two were struggling with their belly-bows, which seemed to be unhandy things to reload. The other two came running towards them, their crossbows already charged.
Cadhi tore herself free from the wall. Dehren heaved himself upright on his undamaged leg. They both threw themselves on the men with crossbows. The other two men suddenly dropped their bows and turned to run. Buffy felt Spike’s muscles bunch and grabbed him tight, holding him back.
“No! Spike, they’re human! Can’t be seen attacking humans!”
Dehren was whistling, a piercing two-note sound that brought black-coated forms racing down the corridors and along the wide flights of stairs. Tariess’s men, those Guildsmen posted on guard around the building and who had previously been advised that any attack on the Champions was to be considered an attack on Tariess himself.
All four men were surrounded and rapidly borne to the ground. Buffy and Spike grabbed at their own two wounded Guild members.
“Just a flesh wound, aver,” Dehren gasped, leaning on Spike’s shoulder as Spike braced him upright. “Went through the muscle. Did not strike bone.”
“Cadhi?” Buffy was saying urgently.
“Only a scratch.” Cadhi had lifted her jacket up from her shoulder and was peering at and under it. “The bolt pinned my coat to the wall. Just skimmed my arm. They are not professionals. At that range, professionals would have killed all of us.”
“Not Guild then.”
Cadhi looked scornful. “Decidedly not.”
A Guild officer had arrived and was snapping orders. The four men were taken away. The Guild officer came over to their little group.
“Our apologies for the occurrence, nefa’in,” he said. “We will take care of your Guildsmen. These others will guard you until their return.”
A squad of black-coated Guild was already forming up around them.
“I want to stay with my people!” Buffy said sharply.
“I regret,” said the officer flatly. “That cannot be permitted. You are in danger, avera. You must return to your residence where you will be safe.”
“But...”
“There is no danger to them if they are not with you, avera,” the officer said more gently and Buffy had to admit that he was right.
There was a seethe of people in their premises, Guild checking out every square inch of the place. The staff’s distressed faces eased when Buffy and Spike arrived.
“This is a terrible thing, averin!” Emer exclaimed. “We are so glad to see you both unharmed!”
“Cadhi and Dehren were hurt, but the Guild says they’ll be back soon. Does anyone know yet who those people were?”
“They are being questioned at this moment,” a Guild officer said, pausing beside them. His team was leaving, having made sure the premises were secure. Six Guild members now guarded the foyer and would remain until Cadhi and Dehren returned.
Adara came flying in, all apologies and exclamations ; then Tariess’s majordomo with messages of Tariess’s concern and determination to get to the bottom of the attack.
A couple of hours later, word came that the assailants were definitely not Guild hired for the purpose, but civilians, proponents of Lehren’s ideas and worldview. Respectable citizens who honestly believed they were saving the world by eliminating these alien intruders.
“Wonderful,” muttered Buffy. “That’s all we need. The populace wanting our hides.”
Spike gave a scornful laugh. “Nothing new about the peasants-with-flaming-torches bit for me, Slayer.” He was pacing back and forth, restless and irritable, like a cat on hot bricks. “Wish these gits would go and let us have Cadhi and Dehren back again. Comfortable with those two.”
Cadhi turned up some forty-five minutes later, having not only been patched up by medical, but also having undergone a debriefing by Tariess’s head of operations. Which must have been an arduous process, because she looked worn and exhausted. The crossbow bolt had been removed from Dehren’s leg and he was recovering well, but was being kept overnight for observation, Cadhi said. Buffy suggested that she go straight to bed, since they surely had guards enough right now. Cadhi agreed thankfully.
“Where is Spike-aver?” one of the new guards asked suddenly as those six were sorting out their duties at the guard post. Buffy realized that Spike was no longer anywhere in sight.
“I saw him going into his bedroom,” one of the staff supplied. “Shall I...?”
“No, I’ll go,” said Buffy shortly and headed for Spike’s bedroom.
She was unsurprised to find it empty. She glanced into the bathroom to find it the same, except for Emer making sure that everything was shipshape and in readiness. The doors to Spike’s shallow balcony were wide open, their curtains billowing in the breeze. She went and looked over the balustrade. There was a sheer twenty-foot drop to the next level, but she had no doubt that he could easily have made it. She should have known he’d do something like this. He’d been so fractious, resenting being caged like this.
“He’s sleeping,” she announced, returning to the guards. “You don’t have to worry about him.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Emer’s startled glance as that lady came into the foyer. Emer knew that Buffy had lied. But in her own way, Emer was as much a professional as the Guild was. Buffy and Spike were her charges. She said nothing.
Spike returned a couple of hours after nightfall. Lying in the dark in his bed, Buffy saw strong hands catch the edge of the stone balustrade, then a supple, shadowy form that looked like part of the night come vaulting over to land lightly on the balcony, only the glint of bleached white hair in the moonlight giving him away.
“On the prowl again?” she asked dryly and he laughed.
“That’s what I like to find in my bed,” he said and came unerringly through the darkness to put one knee on the bed and kiss her, leaning over her on his straight arms. “You. Naked.”
His T-shirt was damp again when she put her hand on his chest.
“You went swimming?”
“Got antsy.” He was laughing under his breath as he moved away. “Should have left the lights on, pet. You know I like to see you when we make love.”
He was relighting the lamps one by one.
“You don’t need that much light, vampire.”
He turned his head to look at her sideways, not smiling, his eyes very dark. “You do. Told you. Want you to know what you’re making love to.”
“I know. A monster.” She smiled at him as he trod off his Docs and began to pull the T-shirt over his head. “A very pretty monster.”
“Yeah?” His eyes went half-lidded and he started to smile.
“Better close the balcony doors,” she said as he tossed his jeans across a chair and moved towards the bed. “We might get attacked through them.”
“Twenty-foot drop, no handholds. Would take an expert with professional equipment to make that climb. These guys aren’t professionals. They’re amateurs.” He snickered. “Really like to see them get in here. They’re all so freaked out because of what they think we are? Should show them the truth. Should go into gameface and watch them fling themselves screaming over that balcony. Guild could take it. These pathetic wankers won’t.”
She laughed involuntarily. “You’re evil.”
“And don’t forget it.” His eyes were brilliant and hard and very dark as he folded down on top of her. “But you won’t.”
“No.” Her arms closed around him. “But I keep wanting to forget,” she sighed. “This is getting all too complicated. And you’re too beautiful.”
“Think so?” His eyes had gone soft. He kissed her slowly and deeply. “Like it if you think that way. Though you’re the beautiful one, pet. But it’s nice that you want to forget. Getting enamored of darkness, are you?”
“And you’re getting enamored of light. Why did you protect me back there?”
“Sex partner and food supply. ‘Course I had to protect you.”
“Liar.”
He laughed a little, ruefully. His lids were down, so she couldn’t see his eyes, only a flash of blue behind the thick, straight lashes.
“Habit. Victorian here. I protect my women.”
“You didn’t protect Harmony.”
“She wasn’t my woman. Don’t ask questions you don’t want to know the answers to, pet,” he said with sudden harshness.
“I need to understand.”
“No, you don’t. Everything here’s just a dream, remember? It won’t matter once we’re back in Sunnydale. Let it go.”
“You’re acting as if I were Dru.”
“Dru,” he muttered. “Crazy, but not. Sees things. Things you don’t know yourself. Covered with you. Yeah, she was right, wasn’t she?”
“What?”
“Let it go, Slayer! Sometimes it’s better not to understand things.” He looked down at her angrily. “Or are you planning to keep this little freak show going once we get back to Sunnydale?”
“God, no!”
“Didn’t think so. So let’s just go with the flow, shall we?”
His mouth took hers with a kind of despairing violence that she couldn’t understand; his body covered hers, urgent and demanding. The world spun away.
He disappeared again the next day. Went on some kind of a field trip right out of the city, the Guild said. Three of the six guards had gone with him. The other three were still here, assigned to help Cadhi who was back on duty.
“I’m going to have half the freaking army here next,” growled Buffy under her breath. But she wasn’t angry at them. She was angry at Spike for taking off like that without telling her what he was up to. Damn it, she was the Slayer. She was the Champion, not he, even though these people might have stuck that label on him. “Did he say where he was going or why?”
Everyone, staff included, shook their heads. Apparently he had just snapped his fingers at three of the guard, headed for the door and left.
Fuming, Buffy stamped back into the living room and spent the day plotting sightings of the Big Bad on the contour map pinned to the table in the study. That poor Adept who was porting Baniel’s detection device around must be thinking he’d be spending the rest of his life chugging back and forth on those railway tracks, chasing a mirage. The thing never seemed to settle.
Spike came back a couple of hours after dark and went straight through to his bedroom. Buffy heard his arrival just as she was finishing dinner, tossed down her napkin and went after him. He was in the bathroom when she got there and she could hear him running a bath, but when she tried the door, it was locked and wouldn’t open.
She banged on it with her fist. “Spike!”
“Covered in mud here, Slayer. Gimme half an hour. Got to soak out a few aching muscles too. Takes a while to get used to riding those sodding h’laren.”
“Where have you been?”
“Out.”
“You son of a bitch!”
“Language, Slayer.” She could hear him laughing.
Well, two could play at that game.
She stamped back into her own bedroom, locked every door that allowed entrance, and went to bed. If he was going to be like that, he could wait till morning to talk to her. She was so mad right now, she would probably knock his block off if she saw him.
She had left one light burning, so she was able to see when the door handle turned half an hour later and hear him stop short when the door wouldn’t open. She smiled tightly with satisfaction.
He laughed with genuine amusement, then went away.
Five minutes later, the lock clicked quietly and the door opened. Spike sauntered in, wearing only a bathrobe, his feet bare. He shut the door behind him and grinned at her.
Buffy sat bolt upright in bed. “How did you do that?”
He held up a couple of thin metal instruments. “Guild has lockpicks, remember? Loaned them to me when I said I wanted to practice. Never could do that mist thing like Drac and wouldn’t care to break the door in. Emer wouldn’t like it. Probably another priceless antiquity or something.”
She barely stopped herself from laughing. His cockiness always got under her guard.
He tilted an eyebrow at her. “So, what’s with the bad moody, Slayer?”
She flounced out of bed, nightgown flapping, and stood glaring at him, her arms folded. “Where were you?”
“Spelunking.”
“Spe-what?”
“Exploring caves. They’ve got some about twenty miles out from the city. Wanted to see what they looked like.”
“Caves!” she said incredulously. “Why?”
“Thing might be hiding in one. Wanted to see what kinda conditions it might accept. Tell us something about it, that would. Don’t think it’d like it though. Cold, damp and nasty down there. Way colder than above ground.”
“Vamps don’t mind the cold, right? So maybe this thing won’t either.”
“Think it might like things hot. Likes playing with fire, doesn’t it? Incinerating things and all.”
Buffy frowned. “Your logic’s a bit shaky.”
“No harm in a recce,” he shrugged. “Caves were a bit shaky too. Guild says there are a lot of quakes all along these mountains. Couple of nasty tectonic plates grinding away at each other down there beneath us, I suppose. Got beaned by a couple of rocks, just fooling around in those caverns.”
“Why didn’t you tell me what you were doing?”
His brows rose. “Is that what’s got your knickers in a twist? Why should I?”
“I’m the Slayer, dammit! I need to know what’s going on!”
“We’re both champions here, Slayer,” he mocked. “You’re not the one and only anymore.”
“You should have told me!”
He was frowning, his jaw out, the bones of his face suddenly very visible.
“Asked your permission, you mean?” His eyes flashed with anger. “Never asked permission of anyone for anything once I became a vamp. Never gonna.”
“I didn’t mean that!”
“Then what did you mean?”
“I need to be kept up to date on what’s going on!”
“Do I have to run every idea past you now, Slayer? Like to work a thing out before I put it out there to get dumped on. Like to know all the ins and outs of how it functions. Not gonna change now.”
“Look, if you haven’t noticed, things are sensitive here with these people! We should discuss any bright ideas!”
“And who gets the veto? You? Yeah, thought so,” he mocked as she started to answer, then stopped. “You’re used to running things, Slayer. Good for you. Well, so am I. Ran things for a hundred years once Angel souled out on us. Did pretty good so far.”
“You could have got yourself killed by those rocks you said fell on you! Then where would things have been?”
“Same as they were. You’d still be around, being all ‘champion’ for these people. It wouldn’t matter.”
It would matter to her, she realized with a shock.
“‘M not one of your pathetic Scoobie losers, Slayer,” he snarled at her. “Not gonna run at your heels, waiting to be told what to do, asking permission to scratch my arse. Sod that!”
“I wasn’t even thinking that!” Okay, how had he managed to twist things around on her like this? She was the one who should be justifiably angry, but here she was on the defensive and he was the one furious.
“It’s all about you, isn’t it, Slayer?” he mocked. “Self-absorbed bint, aren’t you? Too used to queening it. Well, I’m not gonna take your orders, pet. Not gonna dance to your tune. That’s what’s really got you all pissed off, innit? That I won’t do what you say?”
What had really got her pissed off was that she had been worried about him, she realized in horror. She swirled around and tore the balcony doors open, stepped out into the cool night air, gripping the stone balustrade to keep from hitting out at him.
“That wasn’t it at all!” she flung at him over her shoulder. “I don’t expect people to do what I say! No one does! They all tell me what to do! Giles, the Scoobies, Angel...”
His hand slammed down onto the balustrade beside hers. He leaned over her shoulder to glare at her. “Oh, don’t bring that name into this! I’m not Angel!”
“You’re acting like him! Unilateral decisions,” she muttered bitterly. “All for my own good.”
“I don’t do things for anybody’s good!” he snapped. “Evil here, remember? I’m not trying to tell you what to do. I’m just fucking well keeping my independence! Sodding hell! Think I’m your lapdog, do you? Bloody well not, Slayer! You don’t own me!”
She could feel him vibrating with fury behind her and suddenly the ridiculousness of the situation hit her. She wanted to laugh. This whole thing had gotten out of hand. Because why? Because she had been afraid for him and hadn’t wanted to face that. Because she...cared for him.
She leaned back abruptly against him, her head on his shoulder. “But I do own you, Spike. Here.”
His breath caught. There was a ringing silence. Then the tight planes of his face softened, changed into helplessness. His hands closed on her hips, fingers digging into her flesh, pulling her back hard against him.
“Christ, you know how to play me, don’t you?” he muttered.
“Not playing,” she murmured and turned her head to brush her open mouth against his teasingly.
His breath shuddered in his throat. He kissed her deeply, their mouths twisting together.
“Not gonna work,” he warned. His face had gone strained and taut again, but it was a different kind of strain, all intensity and heat. “Not going to bloody do what you say.”
“Wasn’t thinking of that.”
“What then?”
She reached behind her with both hands to tug at the belt of his robe. “You.”
“You have no mercy, Slayer.”
He bent a little, his hands sliding over her hips and down her thighs. Then he was pulling her nightgown up, splayed hands sliding back up her thighs, the rings on his fingers cold against her flesh.
“Like these tube things,” he muttered. “Convenient.”
“As if anything else would give you trouble anyway,” she muttered back. “You’re too good at this game.”
“Getting there yourself, pet.”
His robe had fallen open now and she felt his skin cool against her, that taut, supple body aroused and hard behind her. She shuddered and pushed back against him.
A hand slid between her thighs, pulling her legs apart. He moved against her back.
“Oh, no, wait,” she protested. Even though it was night, they were out in the open, the room lit behind them and lamplight pouring over them. “Out here?”
“Not visible,” he said, a deep, husky mutter against her ear, lips sliding down the side of her face, her neck, across her collarbone. “No line of sight from anywhere else. Besides...”
“Dark side, yeah,” she murmured. “Want you.”
“Buffy...”
She felt his thickness push into her, arched against him. It was a different angle, deeper, stronger. She clenched upon him as he stretched her to the limit, and felt him gasp against her cheekbone. His splayed hand slid down her stomach, the heel of his hand pressing hard against her G-spot from the outside. His thumb found her clit, worked it. She moaned.
Exquisitely slow. Slow, deep thrusts going all the way in and then just that little bit further. That profound possession in both of them.
“You’re mine,” he said, a blurry rasp against her neck. “You’re mine.”
She didn’t answer, couldn’t, drowning in that heavy, honied, dark sensuality.
“Never felt the way you make me feel, Slayer,” he whispered as she arched and pushed against him, clenching hard upon him. “Not in a hundred and twenty years. Don’t know how I’m gonna give this up.”
“Me neither,” she sighed and felt the cool exhalation of his breath against her skin as his fangs sank into the vein. “Oh, God!”
It was too much, unbearable, that wild rapture thrilling through every cell of her body. She convulsed against him, her whole body seizing up in ecstasy, felt him judder and pulse within her again and again.
“God,” he groaned, his full weight upon her, both of them leaning weakly against the stone of the balustrade. His head dropped forward, forehead pressing against the side of her head. She could feel his breath shuddering against her hair. “Never gonna be free of you, Slayer.”
TBC
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Author's Chapter Notes:
The fabulous banner is by the awesomely talented Ben Rostock.
Chapter End Notes:
Glossary: aver: sir / avera: ma'am / averin: plural / nefai: gentle being / nefa'in: plural / ri: 3 miles