Chapter 17
It was his turn to read to Emma tonight and he could have acted as disgruntled and put out about it as he wanted to, but deep inside he knew he didn’t mind at all.
She’d wrapped herself up in her duvet and looked up at him with droopy eyelids when he entered her room.
“Ready for your story?” He sat on the edge of the bed and leaned against the headboard, tried to ignore the tightness in his chest when she scooted up to him and curled up against his side. “You look about ready to drop off.”
“I’m very awake,” she said with her chin up. The effect was somewhat spoiled by a yawn that followed right after.
“I can see that,” he said, a smile pulling at his mouth. “So what do we have here?” He snatched a bunch of books off the night stand. “Dumbo? Nah, read about the floppy eared tosser last week. Uhh… how about the one about the three little piggies? Seeing as I’m a bit of a bad wolf myself and I like bacon.”
Emma dug her nimble little fingers into his ribcage.
“Hey. No tickling.” He put her in a loose headlock. “Where the Wild things Are sounds all right. Do you think they’re talking about us? We’re a bit wild ourselves, aren’t we?”
“You’re silly.”
“I am at that.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and just… The trust she put in him still made him uneasy. She should be running as far from him as she could. He was a thing out of children’s nightmares, not a protector. He was evil, with a rap sheet, with which he could probably cover all the buildings of a small town. Having her burrow her face into his chest shouldn’t make him feel as though he wanted to keep her safe, most of all from himself.
“Are you…” She fell silent, fingers picking at his T-shirt. “Do you love mommy? Like, really really?”
He swallowed hard, a stone falling into the pit of his stomach. “You know I do.” It should have felt more like a lie. He wondered when the lines had blurred and why it felt as though he’d lost his footing.
“It’s my job to make sure. They won’t come back until you do. And mommy too. It’s an adventure!”
He frowned, combing through her hair, twisting a curl around his finger. “Think you’re a bit tired, Pidge. You’re talking nonsense.”
She heaved a sigh, laid her ear right over his heart. “I love you. You’re my daddy, you know.”
He froze, ducking his head to look her in the eyes, those eyes that looked far too old and knowing. If his heart could beat, it would be stuttering against his ribcage. He wondered if she knew, but then she yawned again, eyes slipping shut and he thought, no. She couldn’t.
“Love you too.”
He read until her breath evened out, tucked her in with a lingering kiss on the top of her head, wishing he could fill that hollowness inside telling him that he was living a borrowed life. That eventually it would be over.
He should feel happy to be rid of this charade. Tiredness weighed heavy on his shoulders instead, the clearly drawn lines of ‘do’ and ‘don’t you bloody dare’ smudged beyond repair.
*******
“You seem strangely quiet,” Buffy said after he’d climbed his way to the loft and fishing a pair of boxers from a drawer seemed to be taking him way too long. Weird how she’d learned to read him so well. How she noticed just how transparent he really was when one looked close enough.
“Just got her to sleep. Don’t want to wake her up.” He pulled off his T-shirt, slashes of moonlight moving over pale, pale skin stretched over firm muscles. Was it bad that she wanted to lick every inch of him and find all the weak spots that made him squirm? Probably.
“She won’t hear you from down there, doofus.” She threw a pillow at him. He caught it and dropped the T-shirt, of course. Because he was a nuisance, but a nuisance with vampire reflexes.
“Is that a proposition to make you scream, pet?”
She blushed, grateful that the lights were out. On second thought… vampire. Damn him. He probably saw it anyway. “You know, there was a time that would have meant you threatening to bite me or break my legs or something.”
“Still might,” He grinned, the tip of his tongue running over his teeth. “Bite you, that is. Would be a shame to break your legs. I’m quite fond of them.”
Her eyes fell shut when he went for his zipper. Okay, so maybe she peeked a little bit. What was a sexually frustrated slayer to do? She didn’t really see much anyway. It totally didn’t count.
“You know, if you want a full show, all you have to do is ask.”
She squeaked out some unintelligible response and mumbled, “I wasn’t looking,” into the pillow.
“Just got a case of a wandering eyes, eh?”
She groaned, clinging to the mock security of hiding her face in the bedding while he pulled the boxers on. “You’re just… you’re nice to look at, so… bite me.”
“You seem a bit too fixed on the whole biting thing. Should I take it as an invitation?” And then there was a dip in the mattress and a puff of his breath over her skin as he swept her hair to the side and sank his blunt teeth into the back of her neck. It was animalistic, and it should have raised all kinds of alarms in her head, but it just made her want to arch into him and let him keep going.
He was gone right away, slipping under the covers as she lifted her flaming face off the pillow and turned to face him. “You think you’re so funny, don’t you?”
“I know I am. I’m a riot,” he replied. His cheek was squished against the pillow as he blinked at her lazily. He was smiling a little too, probably unaware that he was doing it at all. She kind of wanted to kiss him right now.
If there were any Slayer awards, she would definitely not be getting any. It would be the Slayer Handbook all over again.
“What?” he asked. “You’re looking at me all funny.”
“Nothing,” she blurted out, watched as his teeth gleamed in the darkness, restless energy buzzing beneath her skin. “I was wondering if you were, you know, tired. And stuff.” If you would mind me tackling you and rubbing all over your half-nakedness. Oh God.
“Hardly.” His fingers crawled across the space between them, stopped just shy of touching her arm, which she’d tucked against her chest. “Night creature, here.”
“Is that why you sleep when I do? You know, at night?”
“Yeah, there’s that. Reckon you’ve done a good job of messing me up.”
So had he. In more ways than one.
“Not tired now,” he added, tickled her forearm. “Got other things on my mind.”
“You make everything sound so dirty,” she said, but didn’t move away, her fingers itching with desire to travel over his skin.
“Do I? Or is it your little noggin that twists everything I say into something dirty?” He was smirking at her, his expression at odds with the gentle slide of his palm up her arm. He was like one big definition of odd, now that she thought about it.
“That’s too philosophical for such a late hour. Actually, that’s too philosophical, period.”
“Or maybe you just don’t want to admit you’re the pervert here,” he said, tugging at the end of her hair.
She wanted to bat him away. She really did. It wasn’t her fault that she somehow ended up catching his wrist instead, brushing her lips over his knuckles.
His eyes narrowed, lips parting just the slightest bit as his tongue flicked out to lick his bottom lip.
“Maybe I am,” she admitted, shoving her foot under the duvet and rubbing it over his calf.
“If you don’t stop that I’ll—”
“You’ll what,” she demanded, so close to saying to hell with it all, I want me a bite of that Spike-shaped chocolate.
“Cheeky,” he said, drawing closer, so slowly that she thought she’d explode by the time his breath tickled her lips, his feet tangling with hers.
“I just, I want…” You. She swallowed, traced the shadows dipping into the slash of his cheekbone. “Kiss me.”
It was ironic that it still took so much out of her to ask that. That she still held her breath for a second too long, fearing that he’d laugh at her, when it was so easy for her to face an army of demons with just a sword in her hand.
He kissed her then, with one hand sliding up her neck and smoothing into her hair to pull her closer, lips slotted to hers in a perfect fit. It was just a second, just a thought flitting behind her closed eyelids when he parted her lips with his tongue and tasted her deep, that thought of I don’t want to leave here.
Because here with her hands tracing the edge of Spike’s shoulder blade, knowing he was a soulless vampire, she felt more normal than she ever had. Not fully human and fifteen again, but like a woman who could be herself, give in and want and not hold back. He made her feel as if she could be strong without being made of stone. Nobody had ever made her feel like that. Nobody. And even with her eyes closed and his skin a few notches cooler than hers, she could never imagine him to be anyone else. She didn’t want to.
“Sp—” She pulled away from his seeking lips. “Spike, I—”
“Why did you st—”
“Wait. Wait.” She pressed her palm to his chest. “Are we…? I mean, whatever we’re doing, I just… I want this to mean something. Not just… you know.” I don’t want you to wish I was someone else.
His hands tightened in her hair, his eyelashes tickling her skin as he nuzzled the side of her face. “It does. It shouldn’t, but it does. I’m turning into a right ponce by saying this, but yeah, it means something to me. Wouldn’t want to be anywhere el—yeah.” He wished it didn’t mean so much. It would be him who’d end up with empty hands and even emptier heart once they finished this race against time. Funny how this world that wasn’t theirs could feel so much more like home.
“Me too,” she whispered against the shell of his ear. “I guess I’m a ponce too.”
“You’re a lovely one though,” he said in between brushes of his lips against her jaw. “Used to think that you were the brattiest, most annoyin—”
“Is this foreplay? Because I’m not feeling it.”
He pressed his finger against her still parted lips and leaned his forehead against hers until the frown smoothed out. “Used to. Then you went and made me like you, even the horrible excuse for singing I hear when you’re taking a shower.” Makes me wish we’d never have to go back.
“Oh. You’ve heard that,” she mumbled, her lips moving against his fingertip.
“’S hard not to. You holler so loudly it scares the birds out of the woods. It’s bloody adorable.” He tapped her on the lips and inched up to slide a line down her nose. “As is that little bump on your nose.”
She wrinkled her nose reflexively, fingernails lazily scratching up his spine. “I broke it when I was seven. I fell off a swing.” She paused. “What else do you like?”
There was this fragility in the way she looked at him. He could break her so easily, because she was just like him with that too hard shell and a heart like a soft underbelly. “Your stupid hair. It’s too bouncy and shiny.”
When she arched her eyebrow he wondered if she’d caught his habit by accident. He wondered how many of hers he’d copied in return. Hoped it wasn’t her regular butchering of the English language. “Well, your skin is stupidly soft for an undead guy and your eyelashes are too long.”
“Is that right?”
She slid her palm down his back, down, down until the tips of her fingers grazed the curve of his backside. This was torture. The best kind.
“I like… umm… I like your butt too.” And then she squeezed it.
“Fuck.”
Her eyelashes fluttered, her grip tightening.
“Do you like it, Buffy?” he asked, drawing her name out on purpose because he knew she liked the way he said it. One day he might just get her to admit it. “Do you like it when I talk dirty?”
She bit the tip of his nose and scratched her way up his spine. “Maybe. Just a little. You’ll have to try again though, just to make sure. You know, in the name of all things scientific.”
God, he could love her so easily. And wasn’t that the stupidest thing he could ever do?
“Make me,” he said, knowing she could never refuse a challenge. You and me, we’re made of the same cloth.
She whipped the duvet off him, replaced the rush of slightly chilly air with scorching warmth when she pushed him into the mattress, straddled him.
“How about this?” Red bloomed on her cheeks, but she wasn’t backing down.
“Not entirely convinced,” he said a bit more shakily than he’d have liked, sliding his hands up her bare thighs to her hips, thumbs dipping just beneath the sides of her knickers.
“I’ve got you at my mercy. I could do anything,” she said, and there was still a note of hesitancy in her voice that he wanted to erase, because she hadn’t even touched him properly and he was already willing to beg.
“Do with me as you please then. Won’t hear me complaining.”
She wriggled on top of him, stilled as if held at gun point the second he growled. “Don’t stop. Just,” he gripped her hips and urged her to move, to circle her hips as he ground against her, “yeah, that’s it. Feels good, doesn’t it?”
Her head lolled back, the sight of her arched throat making him wish she was close enough for him to feel her pulse throb against his tongue. “Ungh… so not better than chocolate.”
“Mmm… liar.”
“Nope. Not at all,” she said, dragging in a shaky breath.
“The things I could do to you if I had chocolate though. Could pour it all over and lick you clean.”
“Evil.” She slumped forward, her palms braced against his stomach.
“Says you,” he breathed out, fingers digging into her hips when she rubbed against him in just the right way.
“Feels… yes.”
He’d laugh at her incoherence if his own words weren’t stuck in his throat, strangled into a groan that made her whimper in response. And even though she was right on top of him with the almost unbearable heat of her and her thighs trapping him in place, she wasn’t nearly close enough.
“Let me take it off, Buffy.” He tugged at the hem of her T-shirt.
“Oh. Yes. Okay.” She gulped in a breath and nodded quickly, going stiff, which. That was his job.
He couldn’t have her being all skittish when she was so bloody stunning he could stare at her for hours and not get bored. He drew the tee over her head and tossed it to the side, not much caring where it landed. She was, “Beautiful.”
The tips of her tousled hair brushed the tops of her breasts, her golden skin bathed in moonlight streaming in through the open blinds.
“Bet you say that to all the naked chicks,” she said with a rueful smile.
And no. Just no. He flattened his hand on her stomach and slid up until he was caressing the long line of her throat. Realised with a start how much she’d come to trust him when she didn’t even flinch. Realised that he trusted her too, in a way he’d never trusted Dru. “Haven’t in a long time. Mean it too, you know. You make me want to,” write poems again, “ravish you for hours.”
“You’re quite ravishable yourself,” Buffy replied quietly, her hips shifting back and forth, unconsciously chasing after more friction.
He smoothed his way over her skin, traced the curve of her breasts with his knuckles, settled over her thudding heart for a few seconds before moving lower. He loved the way her stomach quivered when he traced the sensitive skin just above the waistband of her knickers.
“Something you want?”
“You know what I want,” she said, grinding down hard enough for him to forget he didn’t need to breathe.
He flipped them over before she could blink, his thigh pushed between her legs. And yes, finally. Skin on skin from chest to feet, her heart beating against his chest so hard it almost felt as if his was beating in synch. “Want to hear you say it. Want to know that you want this. That you want… me.”
“I do.” She locked her arms around his neck and hugged him close, whispered, “Sorry, I’m not good with words,” into his ear.
“Maybe I should improvise then. Give it a good old try and see if I hit a mark,” he suggested, kissing her jaw. He’d never thought he’d like this, the kind of passion that was almost innocent. He could spend hours and days and weeks in her arms with his hands gliding all over her, exchanging kisses that didn’t go too deep.
Didn’t matter though, did it? He’d let her get too deep already, let her get him addicted to the kind of intimacy he’d never had before. And even though she was right here, pressed up against his body, he already missed her.
“Less thinking, more… this,” she said, rubbing her thumb over his forehead and cradling his head to bring him close enough to press her lips to his.
“That’s something I can get behind.” With a final quick peck on her mouth, he pulled away and sat back. “Maybe even literally.”
“Wh-oh,” she breathed out with a giggle as he flipped her over onto her stomach and nosed the nape of her neck. “Tickles.”
“You need to stop being so bloody adorable.”
“It comes naturally,” she mumbled into the pillow, eyes fluttering shut as he rolled his knuckles up her back. He paused. “Why did you stop?”
“Just a sec. Need some stuff.” He swiped the body lotion off the nightstand, shrugging. It would have to do. “Make it nicer.”
She watched him silently, her pupils blown wide, humming in agreement. How did we get here and where do we go from here, he wanted to ask, worried there was no way out anymore.
He straddled the back of her thighs again and drizzled the lotion over her back, tossed the bottle on top of Buffy’s discarded T-shirt. The heels of his hands dug into the tissues, unwinding the knots until he felt all the muscles loosen up, massaged her until she all but melted into the mattress.
“If you keep doing that I’m going to turn into a gooey Buffy.”
He smirked, kissing every knob of her spine from neck to tailbone. “Gooey, you say?”
It was fun to watch the realisation dawn and her cheeks flood with colour. “Not that kind of… I mean… not… ugh. You suck.”
“Not yet.” He kissed each dimple at the bottom of her spine and slid his palms up her thighs, his thumbs teasing the hem of her white lace knickers until she was trembling, her hips arching off the mattress just the tiniest bit. “Would you like me to?”
“No! No… I can’t. This is—”
“Buffy.” He rested his chin on her lower back. “Can you trust me?”
As he waited, somewhere in the distance, the pipes groaned and wind whispered against the cabin walls. She seemed as though she was about to shake her head then, but ended up giving him a jerky nod.
Yeah, she could trust him with her body, but could she trust him with her heart?
You’re not supposed to want her heart, you wanker. Not when she’ll take it right back.
“Buckle up, pet.” He wanted her so much his hands shook and yet, this was a line that couldn’t be uncrossed and redrawn anew. Maybe it was all the blood rushing from his brain, but right now he didn’t give a fuck. Watched another boundary fall to dust as he lifted her hips, slid a pillow right under and drew her knickers over the curve of her ass, down to her spread knees.
A heart-shaped birthmark on her hip. Just like her, the other Buffy. He told himself they weren’t the same, that they wouldn’t repeat the same mistakes.
He kissed her left cheek, laughed in surprise when she said, “Always knew I’d get you to kiss my butt.”
No, not the same. We’re us and we can do this without the heartache. We can.
“Could have just asked,” he said and her giggle came out as a choked whimper when he swiped his tongue from top to bottom.
“Oh God, oh God… nobody’s ever—”
“Never?” It shouldn’t please him this much, to get to have this part of her.
She shook her head, sweat beading on her temple as he licked and teased and drank every drop she had to give.
“Love… love the way you taste. Like honey and wine,” he said, groaning into her swollen folds, kissing lightly then sucking until she was trembling and biting down on the pillow.
She mumbled something that sounded a lot like his name, hips moving restlessly, hands clenching around the sheets so hard that he heard a ripping sound. He didn’t let up, wouldn’t let her squirm out of his grasp and away from his hungry mouth. He laved and sucked and tasted her deep inside, palming himself through his boxers when she jerked and moaned and struggled to breathe, flowing into his mouth once she crested the high and flew apart.
“That’s it,” he growled out, slipping two of his fingers in and pumping hard and fast until she came again with a drawn-out whimper.
He placed open-mouthed kisses back up her spine, smug and proud of the way her entire body would spasm at the smallest touch as if it was electricity. He told himself this was enough, that he didn’t need her to love him. That having her look up at him with only lust in her eyes wouldn’t make much of a difference since he’d never really had anyone’s love anyway. Not the kind he wanted. At least this time he had equal footing.
“My legs are rubbery. I can’t move.”
He brushed her hair away from her flushed, sweaty face. She turned over, all languid muscles and a hint of a smile, and nuzzled his palm.
“Means I’ve done my job well.”
“Job well done,” she agreed, “Can’t even… brain not working.” Her hand slid down his sternum, lips blindly catching his lips before kissing down the curve of his neck.
“’S not nice to tease.”
“Maybe I don’t want to be nice.”
She pulled his boxers down with an unvoiced question in her eyes and a tremble in her hands. She made him want to be kind and gentle and just give, give, give until he had nothing left. Perhaps it was all right, when she gave in return and looked at him that way, so hungry for him, mouth gliding over every inch of his skin when she finally wrapped her hand around him.
“Wait,” he said, struggling to think coherently.
“Don’t you want me t—”
“’Course I do. I do, bloody hell, Buffy.” He reached over to retrieve the lotion, handed it to her, almost sheepishly. “Just, makes it less…”
“Friction-y?” she offered and damn it, her hand was still on his cock, squeezing just a little, but not nearly enough.
“Yeah, that.”
“See? I know stuff.”
He could only nod and watch as she dripped the cold lotion over him and started to massage it in. God she was so hot she could turn him to ashes just with this.
When he looked up and met her eyes, all soft and open, he had to remind himself not to tumble off the cliff and fall in love. Her slippery palm was gliding up and up and down, twisting and squeezing as he urged her with his hand over hers, encouraged her to go faster.
She bent over and sucked a bruise into his collarbone, soft hair splayed over his chest. With her heat and her touch and the silky smooth taste of her still on his tongue, he couldn’t think anymore. Not of anything else but her name on a loop, couldn’t see anything but the stars bursting behind his closed eyelids when the ecstasy rushed through him, white hot.
Her lips lingered on his in a soft kiss as he came down, and he knew he was weak, but he hugged her close to his body anyway.
“Spike,” she whispered, combing through his hair in a soothing motion. Funny how one word could hold so much weight, so many unspoken thoughts.
“Buffy,” he replied, his chest too tight. He wanted all of her and not let go. Maybe not ever.
Don’t fall in love.
“Is it too late,” she said, clueless to his moment of panic, “to—”
She never got to finish.
The moment he blinked, his arms were empty and he was standing in the middle of a cemetery with Buffy a couple feet away, wide-eyed, nausea rolling around in his stomach. They were back as though they’d never left, right in the same spot, dressed in the same clothes they’d vanished in, with a distance that felt miles long and wind twisting between the grey headstones.
Home sweet home.
TBC
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Previously: Buffy's cleaning spree ended up with her ditching it in favour of thumbing through Spike's book. We've learned more about the other Buffy & Spike, and Spike almost ravished Buffy on top of a kitchen counter.
Warning you that this is a long ass chapter, so, you know... hope you like that kind of thing. It's like two in one! I think I deserve treats.
Beta'd by the lovely All4Spike. She makes my writing better!
Warning you that this is a long ass chapter, so, you know... hope you like that kind of thing. It's like two in one! I think I deserve treats.
Beta'd by the lovely All4Spike. She makes my writing better!
Chapter End Notes:
Please tell me if you liked it or not, or I'll have to eat my own shoes, and they're red lacquered DocMartens, so I expect they would be hard to chew, so come on, don't be a sourpuss and leave me here hanging all awkward and blushing because I wrote about their genitals. *ends rant, takes a deep breath* Thank you.