"I need to call my sister. I have to tell her I'm going to be a bride."

The word struck him like an off-side blow. Bride. He'd pictured, as their marriage, the nightly fighting they'd do together, and how he'd watch her back and keep her strong, and how they'd have some little place they'd retreat to together after battles, some vague warm nest with a cozy bed and a bathtub.

The actual wedding hadn't occurred to him at all.

"Bride. You're gonna be my little bride." He lifted the phone out of her hand, held it out of reach. "Tell me some more about that."

"Tell you? You just asked me." Have you changed your mind already?"

"Tell me 'bout this wedding of ours. When shall it be? How shall it be? It's got to be quick."

"Why quick? Are you pregnant?"

She hadn't joked with him in so long. "Don't want to be kept waiting. Want to take you home an' get down to it. I mean, to life. Our life."

"Where's home?"

"We'll find us one. I had a cellar flat in L.A. but I don't suppose it's mine anymore."

"No cellars."

She was pressed up against him now, sparkling, teasing. Reaching for the phone. "Give it. I need to brag. Buffy's got her man."

He held it up higher. "No phone calls, not 'til you're warm an' dry."

"They're waiting to hear from me. Don't you know they're all wondering how this reunion is going?"

"Let 'em think that no news is good news." He pitched the phone onto the top of the kitchen cabinets, and swung her up. Upstairs he turned on the electric fire set into the old grate, and tugged down the bedclothes, even as he still held her against him with one arm. She let him move her around, put her arms up like an obedient child to have her dress stripped off. He toweled her hair into a moist fluffy nest, and peeled off her silk underclothes, that were plastered to her body, and her boots, and tipped her into bed. Took off his own, and tossed the ball of wet things into the bathtub.

When he came back to her, Buffy was sitting up, her arms outstretched over the bedclothes, flexing and curling her hands. With her mussed up hair and bare breasts, she looked wild and pleased with herself. Her smile was entire. He thought of that other time he'd asked for her hand, when they'd been moved by magic. First time he'd touched her, kissed her, really tasted her. How happy they'd been.

This was like that, but magnitudes better. All magic cleared out. Reality in the saddle. "Haven't answered my inquiries. Tell me 'bout this bride thing."

"I want to be beautiful for you."

"You can't help that."

"Spike." She reached for him. "The strangest things get you hard."

"You. What's strange about that?"

"Wedding talk. Me in tears. Look at you." She was starting to cry again. The sound of it, the salty aroma, made him sob too. She cuddled in close, her mouth against his neck, kissing his throat and under his ear. "Are you really all right now? We should talk about ... well, there's so many things." She was suggesting they talk at the same time that one of her hands was wrapped around his prick, possessive and imperious, working him up. It was a little bit confusing.

She said, "Tell me you're all right."

"Pet, I am now."

"I was so frightened. I thought ... I knew that if you let me go, I'd just shut down. I'd be the slayer but I wouldn't be Buffy anymore."

"Don't say that. Nothin' could do that to you." It could though, he knew; love could change you the way the sea changed things. In his instance it had made him from a monster into something very like a man. For her it was different. She'd learned disappointment from her lovers, inequality and resentment. And yet somehow in the midst of those harsh lessons, she'd allowed herself to trust him.

"I want to do everything to make you glad. I'm going to be such a sweet wife, you'll see."

Tipping him backwards, she threw a leg across his thighs. She pulsed heat, but her hands and feet were still chilly. He touched her everywhere; she gasped when he put a hand between her legs. Her clit was already a fat pearl, slick against his thumb. Buffy wriggled on his hand, sucking her lip, and in a moment came with a long whining shudder.

"God I love to watch you spend."

"I need you on me," she whispered. "Fuck me."

He rolled her under, the quilt bunched around their bodies in a warm cocoon. Her legs curled tight around his flanks. She sobbed as he settled in her, welcoming him with a deep press of her inner muscles, feeding her warm breath into his parted lips.

"Slow, yeah?" he whispered.

"Let's take forever."

A little while later she chuckled. "We are perfect when we do this. Spike, we are perfect." She still whispered, as if respecting a holy silence.

"Think I was born to fuck you?"

The suggestion made her smile; she nodded. "You were made for me, yes. And me for you."

The electric fire made the room hotter and hotter. Her hair gave off the scent of the downpour they'd stood out in. The aroma of her gathering sweat was glorious. On the other side of the windows, the wind flung rain against the glass. They stretched it out, taking long trembling pauses to savour their deep drenched connection, the soft internal rocking of her heart, the rhythm of her breath. He couldn't get enough of looking at her.

He murmured in her ear. "You're a sumptuous fuck. You're the finest there is."

"You remember all the other times?" she said.

"That we've done this? Yeah."

"It's always good, isn't it?"

"It is."

"I want you to know that I've loved you for a long time."

"You've told me. I know it, I do, pet."

"You remember all that?"

"Everythin'."

"I'm going to make it up to you, Spike. How I made you wait. How I put you down."

"No, love. Nothin' to make up. Was all necessary, yeah? Part of my education."

"Your education."

"To fit me for you, for the mission. Though I'm still not ... still not up to snuff. But we use what we've got. Anyway, you've been nothin' but good to me lately, you know you have. Sweet an' patient through all this mess."

"I saw things about you that were always hidden. So many aspects of who you really are. And I admired them, I liked them all. Not to deny the demon in you, Spike, but you turn out to be so much more than that."

"You wouldn't like me so well without my demon. Gives you what you require." He demonstrated with a hard swivel that made her curl and cry out; then there was no more talking, the languour broken. He took her hard, and she fucked back with deep tense pulls, arching into him, grunting.

Later, in a limp heap in the bedclothes, she drowsed. He held her as she slept, and thought of what he'd done, how eagerly she'd agreed. Had it ever happened before, a slayer marrying a vampire? He'd never thought of himself as a husband, even in all those decades with Dru—she was his girl, eternal, as he'd believed then, and he'd considered himself bound to her, until she shook him off. But not married. Angel and Darla, much as they played the stern parental couple, were never spouses either; it wasn't the vampire way. Yet now he'd asked for her and been accepted, he felt that this was where his love for Buffy Summers had been leading all along, this strong urge to be responsible for her, to belong with her, acknowledged in the sight of everyone they knew. It was fairly boggling though, how she'd accepted without hesitation. He saw it again in his mind's eye, that moment when she dropped down to face him, how her eyes were full of eager love. He felt like a fool for ever doubting her, even as he wondered if fucking and fighting were enough to make a marriage on. Enough for her.