Ruffling his hair with an imperceptibly shaky hand, Spike climbed the ladder and peeked his head out of the trapdoor, glaring at the blonde. She was standing in front of the open crypt door with her hands perched on her hips. Sunlight streamed through the doorway, framing her so she resembled an angel and his dead heart clenched in his chest.
It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see her. That just wouldn’t be true because he’d spent all day longing to see her. No, it was because being around her and knowing that she was taken by a cheating son-of-a-bitch was like having his heart pecked out by a starved committee of vultures.
“If I’d have known you were coming, I’d have baked a cake,” he drawled, hopping up to the top floor.
“Why did you do it?” she asked, ignoring his comment. Oh, so she wasn’t going in for any preamble. That was his Slayer, straight to the heart of the issue, literally and figuratively. The fiery blonde in front of him was formidably magnificent. Standing with her arms crossed and one foot tapping a beat on the dirt floor, she cut a tremendous figure.
“Do what?” Spike lit a cigarette and reclined against the stone wall, keeping on his toes in case she decided to attack. He knew exactly what she was talking about but it was easier to play dumb. Plus it gave him a chance to needle her a little.
“Tell me about…what Riley was doing?”
“Oh, so you’re here about that little chestnut.” He exhaled a plume of smoke, shaking his head sadly. “You’d have preferred if I let him keep on making a fool out you?” Spike asked.
Her face fell and she ran her fingers through her hair.
“Why did it have to be you that told me? Why are you always there when something bad happens?” Her voice sounded so small that he wanted to take her in his arms. He immediately chastised himself for such a thought. The Slayer didn’t want him. And he shouldn’t want her.
It wasn’t natural.
“Happened that I found out what he was doing. Just by chance, pet. Cheating git should be kicked to the curb anyway, love.”
“Doesn’t matter now anyway. Riley’s gone,” she sighed, pulling herself up onto the stone sarcophagus.
“Yeah? Whitebread got caught with his hand in the cookie jar so he ran away like a little boy?”
“Yeah, that’s pretty much what happened,” Buffy said with a nod, before sighing. “He said I…I drove him to it. It was all my fault.”
“Yeah, right!” Spike scoffed. “He went to a vamp whorehouse to get suck jobs and the wanker’s trying to put all the bloody blame on your shoulders. Ignore him, pet.”
Buffy blinked at his attempt to comfort her. She didn’t mean to open up to Spike at all. She’d come here to kick his lily ass into next week. But for him to offer comfort to her instead of saturating her in the derision that she’d expected from him was totally disconcerting.
“Why are you being nice to be?” Buffy asked suspiciously, narrowed green eyes searching his azure gaze for an answer.
“Bloody hell,” he blustered. “I’m not being bloody nice. I’m bad to the bone, Baby. I don’t do nice.”
“Huh. You’re doing a pretty good impression of nice. What are you up to, Spike?”
“Up to?”
“Yeah. You plus nice equals evil scheme. Planning to sell me out to some rising Big Bad?”
“No, pet! I can’t soddin’ win, can I? If I’m a wanker to you then you’re kicking me in the bollocks, calling me a pig, and running away and if I’m nice to you then you’re still looking at me like you want to kick me in the bollocks, call me a pig, and run away. Bloody women, I could live forever and I’ll never understand you lot.”
Buffy smirked wryly. “Yeah, that’s nice Spike. Insult my whole gender. That’s gonna win me over.”
Flicking his cigarette to the ground and grinding it out under his heel Spike returned her smirk. “What makes you think I want to win you over, Goldilocks. You assume you’re actually worth my time.”
Hurt flickered over her face but she immediately pushed it away. This was Spike she was dealing with. For a moment she’d almost forgotten that. “I don’t want to be worth your time except for when I finally put a stake through your heart. Right now I don’t need to do that because a neutered vampire doesn’t even figure on my radar.”
She turned to leave but the sound of an apologetic voice halted her motion. “Buffy wait!” Spike called, sounding guilty and flustered.
The Slayer didn’t turn around. “What now, Spike?” she said tiredly. “Just let me go.”
“I didn’t mean what I said. I shouldn’t have been such a sod to you.”
She turned around slowly, studying him. “You’re apologizing to me? Did the world just flip flop onto its side?”
“Yeah,” he nodded, his fingers drumming a tune on the lid of the sarcophagus. “Must be because I’m sobering up.”
He lifted hopeful eyes to her, a shy smile on his face and Buffy giggled. She realized with a shock that it had been the first time she’d genuinely laughed in a long time. Riley had never made her laugh and Angel definitely wasn’t able to tickle her funny bone.
Of course, neither of them really understood the Slayer. It was a sad fact but she realized that it was true. But even when they were enemies Spike had somehow been able to connect to her on a deeper level than the other men in her life…both of the living and the dead varieties.
“So…want a drink?”
Buffy let a grin spread across her face.
Buffy slammed back another shot of whiskey, grimacing wildly at the taste as it burned the back of her throat. However, as soon as the taste faded, she was immediately hit with the delicious sensation of warm numbness trickling through her.
The Slayer wasn’t sure just how many shots she’d already consumed but judging by the wooziness she was guessing that it was somewhere between several and too many. However, the alcohol was helping so she wasn’t a caring-Slayer right now. For once she was letting herself be free to enjoy herself and so what if the enjoyment just happened to be taking place in the company of a vampire. A vampire that used to be but no longer might be her mortal enemy.
And when exactly had that happened? The blonde had gotten so used to having a defanged Spike in her life that their relationship had morphed from all out contempt to a grudging respect to…something else. Something unidentifiable and she honestly wasn’t sure that she wanted to identify that faint warmth in his face she saw so frequently these days when he let his guard drop.
Shaking herself from her confusing thoughts, she raised her eyes only to be confronted with Spike’s smirking face looming in front of her. “What?” she asked wondering why he suddenly had that tender look shining from his ever expressive eyes.
“Nothing. It’s just you’re bloody adorable when you take a drink.”
“Shut up,” she scowled. “I’m so not adorable. I’m the Slayer. Big and scary and grr.” She mimicked her words with hand gestures that only made Spike chuckle harder.
“Looking more cute and fluffy right now,” he responded, taking a sip of his own drink. “Like a fluffy Slayer-bunny.”
“You totally shouldn’t say that to Anya,” Buffy giggled. “Bunnies are scarier than slayers to her.”
“That bint is barmy,” Spike said seriously.
“Because she’s scared of rabbits?”
“No, because she’s dating that bloody git, Harris. You’ve got to be daft to let him near you.”
“Hey!” exclaimed Buffy. “That’s my friend you’re talking about.”
“You have my bloody sympathies then.”
“Spike! Xander’s a good guy. I guess sometimes he’s a little judgmental but he’s got a good heart.”
Spike wanted to argue with her, convince her that he saw something rotten within her friend but he knew that it was the wisest thing to let the subject drop. Harris was a blind spot for Buffy and she couldn’t see the darkness that lurked under his skin.
“Whatever you say, Slayer,” he shrugged. “Maybe the girl just needs someone to give her those much-touted orgasms she’s so obsessed with.”
Buffy giggled, a sound that warmed a vampire’s cold heart. “Anya is kinda orgasm obsessed. Makes Xander cringe.”
“Probably ‘cause the boy’s so inept at giving them,” he muttered under his breath before latching onto Buffy’s gaze. “Although…you know there’s a lot to be said about those orgasms when you’re getting them from someone who knows what they’re doing.”
“I-I uh…”
“You remember what that’s like, don’t you, pet?”
He stared at her from under hooded eyes and Buffy shivered, although it wasn’t from the cold. The Slayer knew exactly what he was referring to. Their spell-induced tryst had been filled with the heat and passion of a thousand suns. Never had she felt such pure bliss as she’d managed to find in his arms. No matter how much she tried to forget it, deep inside she craved a reprise of that feeling.
“I remember,” she gulped, the alcohol in her blood fuelling her with courage that she wouldn’t have had in her sober state. “It was…sensational.”
Spike grinned. “Now that’s more than a ringing endorsement from the Slayer. I think I like that…sensational.”
“Don’t let it feed your ego,” she chided playfully. “Your head so doesn’t need to get any bigger.”
“I believe both my heads are more than big enough.”
Buffy glanced down in the direction of his lower ‘head’ and swallowed in anticipation as she saw the bulge straining against the length of his zipper.
Reveling in her reaction to his lewd comments, Spike’s eyes flickered to her pouty lips and then back to her glazed eyes. She was gazing at him with wide eyed innocence, and he just couldn’t resist. He had to taste her. Giving in to his burgeoning passion, he seized Buffy by the shoulders and dragged his lips to hers.
He needed her.
And by the way she was starting to enthusiastically respond, she clearly needed him too.
He pulled away for a moment and scanned her reaction, but she just looked as if she was desperate for even more.
“There’s a bed downstairs,” he told her suggestively.
Buffy didn’t even hesitate. Forgotten were any of the reasons why she should say no to the soulless vampire. All that mattered was indulging her own needs and nothing was going to stop her from having him. She’d been strong for so long so why couldn’t she give in?
“What do you say, Buffy? Can I take you to bed?”
She nodded, licking her kiss-swollen lips.
“Yes,” she murmured. “Yes, you can.”