Chapter 19
It was laughable how many times Buffy nearly turned around to march right back home. This was stupid. Spike would take one look at her holding a box of cookies and laugh in her face. And he’d be there. If he thought that excuse about leaving for Cleveland would fly with her, he’d underestimated her ability to sniff out a lie.
She faltered again but reminded herself that Ellen had paid them an unexpected post-Christmas Day visit while wearing a reindeer patterned sweater with a neckline far too low. The last thing Buffy wanted to see was drool gathering at the corner of Hank’s mouth. No, but thanks no. She’d had enough traumas in her life to add seeing her father flirt again to the collection. Needless to say, Buffy had grabbed the cookies and ran.
Her hands started fidgeting the closer she got to Spike’s house. She was just about to pat her hair when she realised just how ridiculous that would be. It wasn’t as if she craved his approval. So what if she had ratty hair? Who cared?
Shoot, she should at least have brushed it.
No! No brushing. And no hoping that Spike would open the door without his T-shirt on. Wait, where did that pervy thought come from?
She raised her fist to knock when she accidentally knocked over some package with a blood red bow wrapped around it lying on the doormat. Buffy cringed, hoping it didn’t contain anything breakable.
Picking it up, she knocked.
Nothing.
She waited for about a minute and knocked again.
The door opened to reveal a disheveled Spike.
“Buffy? What’re you doing here?” He leaned against the doorframe and wait… did he hiccup?
“I bring cookies.” She smiled cheerfully and showed him the box.
His eyes were bloodshot when he met her gaze as though he hadn’t slept all night. “Are they home made?” he asked hopefully.
“Yup.”
He scratched his chest and moved away. “Come on in then.”
As soon as she entered, she noticed the house seemed to have turned into a war zone. “I found a box on your doorstep.” But he wasn’t listening to her and immediately headed into the living room where it looked as though bomb had fallen down right in the middle.
“Isn’t it a bit early for spring cleaning?” she asked and hesitantly followed him, taking off her coat.
“The furniture was looking at me shiftily,” he answered and dropped down on the couch, which was the only thing not smashed or overturned.
Buffy’s gaze swept the room in disbelief before she dropped both packages on the floor next to the couch. Her foot accidentally kicked an empty bottle. Wait. Was he…? “Are you drunk?”
He saluted her with a bottle of something that reminded her of ice-tea. Although she’d bet that was the last thing he was currently about to drink. How had she not noticed him retrieving it?
“Bloody right I am. I’m hammered.” He frowned. “But I’m sobering up. Time to fix that.”
Did he giggle? Now that was just plain wrong.
“Give it to me,” she said and swiped it from him right as he was about to take a gulp. His lips were still puckered and he slowly blinked at her.
“You know, this is just pathetic.” She sat down next to him. “Not to mention that you stink to high heavens.”
He pouted and sniffed at his T-shirt. “It’s not that bad.”
“You smell like a brewery!”
His head dropped against her shoulder and he inhaled loudly. “Hmm… flowery.”
“Would you please stop sniffing me?” She stood up, put the bottle of not-ice-tea down and gripped his wrist to pull him along. “Come on, tell me where your bathroom is.”
He was staring at their joined hands.
“Spike!”
His eyes slowly lifted to hers before he stepped closer and buried his face in her neck. Damn him and his distractions. Luckily, the stink of alcohol quickly penetrated her haze. “Your bathroom? Where is it?”
He pulled away and gave her a wicked smile. “Are you going to bathe me, love?”
She’d tell him whatever would make him show her. “Yup.”
Before she could protest, he bent his knees and hauled her over his shoulder. All of a sudden she was staring at his butt and he was patting hers and this was so not good. Definitely of the bad. Especially when he swayed on his feet.
“Spike! You’re going to drop me!”
“Who do you think I am? I’m steady as a … whoa!” Buffy held her breath as he almost tripped over an overturned chair. “See? Safe and… safe,” he said with triumph and resumed his unsteady walk.
“I am so gonna kick your ass once you’re sober,” she muttered.
“What’s that?”
“Nothing,” she said, this time loud enough for him to hear.
“Here we are,” he said and finally let her down. Now it was her turn to sway as the blood rushed from her head. No matter what romance books said, getting carried like this was anything but romantic. It only made her dizzy.
When her vision cleared she found herself face to face with a shirtless Spike ready to unzip his jeans. “Wait!”
He glanced up from the task and tilted his head.
“Pants on.” Definitely on, because she had a feeling handling a man with barely anything on was something she was unequipped to handle.
“But—”
“No buts! Of any kind. Especially not the naked kind.”
She ushered him into the shower stall before he could protest and turned the cold tap on full blast. The comical expression on his face as it hit him was enough to make her giggle.
“Bloody hell!” he tried to jump out but she was faster and pushed him right back in. His hair was plastered to his skull and he sputtered, searching blindly for the tap and failing to find it. He probably couldn’t find his own nose right now.
“That’s what you get for getting drunk.” She snickered.
Then he shook his head like a dog and leveled her with a wicked intent clear in the smirk settling on his lips. Her eyes widened. “Oh no… Don’t you dare!”
“Eye for an eye,” he said with a shrug and yanked her into the shower before she could escape.
Cold water blasted against her head and soaked every stitch of her clothes. “You bastard.”
He laughed and banded his arms around her waist to prevent her from escaping. She still had her shoes on!
“How do you like it now? Not so tough now, are you? Drenching a poor man and thinking you can get away with it.” He made a clucking, disapproving sound.
She reached behind and managed to turn the water off. Gasping and shivering she said, “You are so dead.”
“And you… look like a drowned rat.” His eyes had cleared though it would take him longer to snap out of his drunken state completely. It was when he rubbed her back that she noticed just how little he was wearing and how her clothes clung to her like second skin.
“I’m all wet,” she said dismally.
Spike licked his lips and slid his hand to her lower back. “Are you now?”
“Well… yes. So are you, genius.”
“Hmm… I don’t think so.” He bit his smiling lip. “Not the kind I had in mind.”
His eyes raked over her with naked intensity, and she probably shouldn’t be thinking of the word naked right now. That just led to all kinds of inappropriate—
“You’re not wearing a bra,” he said, his eyes focused on a place where he had no business focusing.
“Yes I am!” She blushed. “It’s just lacy, not the padded kind.” The question was, why was she telling him this again?
One naughty hand slipped beneath her tank top and slid up to caress her stomach.
That felt sort of nice. Her eyes fluttered shut when he leaned in to kiss her neck, the tip of his tongue flicking out to catch droplets of water. Then she regained her common sense.
Spike grunted in protest when she pushed him away and dashed out of the shower stall, water dripping down to puddle around her feet. “We need dry clothes!” Yes, that sounded plausible. Right? “Because who would want to catch a cold? Not me!”
Also, wearing soggy shoes was in no way comfortable. The water squelched beneath her toes in a way that made her cringe, so she sat on the floor to take her boots off.
“I think you’d be more prone to catch hypothermia than cold, kitten.”
Focusing on getting her socks off her feet next, she said, “Hypothermia? Isn’t that a big word for someone so dru—“
She looked up and squeaked. That embarrassing, choked sound actually came from her mouth! Also, she had a bit of a problem closing it. But he was naked! Oh God, those jeans were being pushed down his thighs and dropping to his ankles and apparently, he didn’t wear any underpants. And wait. Wasn’t cold water supposed to shrink stuff? Someone had obviously misinformed her.
“You were saying?” he asked smugly and toed off his boots before kicking off the jeans and she was still staring, unable to do anything but sit there on the floor with one heart-dotted soaked through sock in her grip. She squeezed it so hard water trickled down her wrist to her elbow.
“Guh…” Wait, that was not a word.
Being the arrogant male that he was, he chuckled and swaggered over to a small cabinet. Her gaze helplessly glued to the flexing muscles in his butt as he opened the cabinet and reached inside to retrieve a fluffy white towel.
“Didn’t your father to teach you it’s not nice to stare?” he asked teasingly and wrapped that damned towel low around his hips.
“I wasn’t staring!” slipped from her lips. Denying was instinctive and now a bolt of lightning would probably strike down to punish her for that obvious lie.
Spike’s mockingly quirked eyebrow clearly said he was onto her before he offered her his hand. The only reason she actually took it had to be the fact her brain was just beginning to reboot. She hated allowing anyone to help her even if the reason for it was as small as pulling her to her feet.
His fingers enfolded hers as he yanked her up and close to him. Close enough for her to notice a ragged scar marring the place where his neck met his shoulder. How had she not seen it before? Curiosity was stronger than her sense of diplomacy and she opened her mouth to ask when Spike leaned in to whisper, “Liar, liar, pants on fire.”
His breath tickled her cheek in a way she didn’t entirely dislike.
Buffy freed herself from his grasp. “My pants are fine, thank you,” she said with as much dignity as she could muster, which at the moment wasn’t a lot considering she stood there awkwardly with one whimsical sock on her foot and the other in her hand. “But I could use some dry clothes, if you don’t mind.”
Well, it was hardly fair that he’d shucked off his and she stood here, beginning to shiver.
Spike blinked. “Right. Of course. Err… the towels are there.” He pointed to the cabinet. “Just take one. I’ll go up to get you something of mine.”
Then being quicker than a man wearing only a small towel had any right to be, Spike was gone. Buffy shook her head. One minute he was tormenting her with sly looks and… other stuff, and then he skedaddled like… well, like she would.
And men thought women were moody and hard to figure out.
*******
His head was beginning to clear. One would think that would beat some bloody sense into him, but no. He’d been seconds away from saying to hell with it all and snogging the breath out of her and that urge refused to go away even now. The way she’d devoured him with that wide-eyed gaze had spun his head around.
“Spike?” sounded from the other side of his bedroom door. “Are you in there?”
“Yeah!”
Buffy walked in. “Please tell me you have a drier.”
Spike clenched his jaw and breathed through his nostrils as she walked in, all that luscious bronzed skin on display. He tried hard to resist coming up to her and yanking that towel off her body before throwing her on the bed. “Afraid not. We’ll have to make do with the fireplace,” he said, contemplating accidentally putting her clothes too close to the fire. Oh, he was a bad, rude man. “Here, take this.” He handed her a button down dark blue shirt and a pair of red boxers with polar bears on them that Rupert had given him for Christmas last year.
Buffy gave him a nervous grin and took the stuff from his hands. “Polar bears?”
“I just like them,” he said with a shrug and sat down on his bed, leaning his weight on his elbows. He wondered if she’d be willing to change in front of him.
“A little privacy?”
“You know, I wouldn’t mind watching.”
Buffy crossed her arms over her chest. “And I wouldn’t mind practicing my kickbox moves.”
“Well, this just isn’t fair,” he grumbled but stood up anyway. “You got to see my goodies but I don’t get to see yours?”
“It’s not my fault you’re shameless.”
Well, she had a point there. “Not even a peek?” He deliberately fluttered his eyelashes and stuck his bottom lip out in a pout.
“No,” she said resolutely but he could see the smile tugging at her lips.
“Heartless, that’s what you are,” he complained good-naturedly and took the damp clothes from her arms.
She almost tugged them back so he gave her a questioning look. “What?”
“Nothing. It’s just… uhh… my… I’ll hang them up myself.”
“I’ll do it,” he said, confused why she was getting all out of shape over a heap of wet clothes. Maybe she suspected he’d thought of burning them.
He was out and headed down the stairs before she could take them back.
Jeans. Tank top. Oversized flannel shirt. Socks. And… Spike’s face lit up with a devilish grin as he fingered her lacy bra and mismatched knickers. He’d put them carefully on display and wait for her face to turn red.
What could he say? He loved making her blush.
TBC
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Author's Chapter Notes:
After the angsty chapter, here is a more light-hearted one that I think you'll like. ;) On a different note, I'm going back to uni by the end of the week, so let's all hope the new room I'll be moving into will have a functional wifi internet. I'll try to update on Sunday or so, but I might be too busy unpacking and getting situated. Just so you know. :)
Thank you All4Spike, who always betas as quickly as a speeding bullet.
Thank you All4Spike, who always betas as quickly as a speeding bullet.
Chapter End Notes:
Let me know if you enjoyed the chapter. That would make my day. :)