“Buffy! Buffy, wake up! Buffy, are you okay?”

The high, slightly shrill voice that broke into Buffy’s dreams was followed by a series of loud, hard knocks on her bedroom door. She tried half-heartedly to rise to answer it, but found that she could not. Spike was still on top of her, and sound asleep. The sound of someone trying the handle – however unsuccessfully – jarred her immediately awake with a sense of alarm, and she looked at the door, remembering with relief that it was locked.

“Just a second!” she called, her voice still a little croaky and hoarse with sleep. “Be right there!” But that was going to be easier said than done, she realized with dismay, due to the weight of the sleeping vampire above her, still effectively pinning her to the bed.

“Spike!” she hissed frantically. “Wake *up*!”

His only response was a low moan that made her eyes widen in dismay. “Buffy,” he mumbled, much too loudly, in his sleep. “So…so hot…touch me…please…”

In spite of the situation, she felt a warm, tingling rush of desire at the need in his voice, even in his dreams, for her. But there was no time to enjoy it now; she had to deal with the very perilous situation at hand. She wondered anxiously if her friends had overheard his words.

*Better safe than sorry,* she thought ruefully. Then she rolled Spike off of her and onto the floor with a loud thump that she *knew* the others could hear.

Spike immediately awakened, looking around and blinking in confusion at finding himself suddenly, rudely, shoved to the floor. “Buffy,” he began, sounding a little dazed.

There was no telling what was about to come out of his mouth, so she quickly broke in. “I’ll *touch* you all right, you disgusting…vampire!” she said, loudly and forcefully. “And that’s ‘Slayer’ to you, you…evil…thing!” The look in her frantic eyes begged him to understand what she was doing.

As he got slowly to his feet, watching her warily, the look in *his* eyes asked if she had completely lost her bloody mind.

“Buffy! Is everything all right in there?” Giles’ anxious voice spoke, muffled through the closed door, and Spike’s eyes shot to the door.

Then he slowly looked back at her, a smile forming on his lips, as he finally understood. Without warning, he suddenly rushed her, grabbing her arms and spinning her around to push her back against the wall with an audible thud.

Before she could react at all, his body was pressed seductively against hers, and he made his voice fearful as he said loudly, “Ow! I’m sorry, Slayer, please! Please don’t hurt me!” flashing her an impish grin even as he spoke.

She was amazed at how convincing he sounded, and a smile spread slowly over her face, to match the cocky smirk on his. Then, all thought momentarily left her when he pressed in even nearer, one hand cupping her naked breast, as he whispered close to her ear, “Hurt me, Slayer…hurt me good,” and squeezed gently, his thumb tracing the sensitive underside of her breast as he spoke.

Buffy gasped in shock and pleasure at the touch, and the tantalizing words, then remembered the others outside and fought to regain enough control to keep up her part of the charade.

“Oh, I’m *gonna* hurt you, Spike!” she said in an angry, threatening voice, her eyes dancing. “I’m gonna teach you a lesson, you bad, nasty, evil vampire!” As she spoke, she reached between them to take his manhood firmly in her hand, pulling him close to her in a clearly dominant gesture that took him by surprise and elicited a little cry that very well could have been of pain, and would surely be mistaken for such by their listening audience – but it was not pain that Spike was feeling, as Buffy’s strong hand slowly ran up and down the length of his rapidly hardening member.

“Oh…God!” he let out a strangled moan. “Slayer…please!” His slightly parted, trembling lips, were simply too much for her to resist, and Buffy plunged forward to kiss him with an almost savagely possessive intensity, even as she did, remembering the façade they were engaged in.

She pounded her unoccupied fist into the wall behind her to resemble the sound of a blow, then again, harder, as Spike’s expert fingers played over the sensitive flesh of her breast, his other hand rising to mimick the first for a few moments, before sliding down to her hip and jerking her forward, her aching center suddenly against the swollen evidence of his desire.

In response, her fingers ran in alternating light and hard touches around his engorged member, occasionally using her nails to lightly scrape the sensitive skin.

“Don’t…stop!” Spike gasped, breathless – but not with the pain the others probably supposed – as Buffy slammed her fist back against the wall again in reaction to the sudden rush of sensation that flooded her as he thrust unconsciously against her, bringing the tip of his erection into closer contact with her throbbing, sensitive body as he lifted her slightly, her back braced against the wall.

Her eyes glittering with a wild, feral desire, she said in a harsh, forceful voice, “I’m not *about* to stop, you dirty, nasty vampire! We’re just getting started!” And with those trembling but angry words, accompanied by a wicked smile and wink, she placed a firm hand behind his leg, just below his rear, and jerked him forward to bury him in her hot, wet center.

He released a moan at the sudden contact. “Oh, Bu – Slayer!” he cried out, nearly forgetting the game in the intensity of the moment, as all his mind could scream out was her name.

“Buffy! Is everything all right in there?” Willow’s anxious voice demanded, calling Buffy’s desperately distracted, pleasure-drunk mind back to the pretense she and Spike were trying to keep up.

“What’s going on?” she heard Xander’s voice, softer, in the hall.

*Great,* she thought. *We’re giving the whole house an audio show.*

“Y-*yes*!” she gasped out, as Spike thrust hard into her without warning, slamming her back against the wall. “Yes! Oh -- *yes*! Everything’s -- *gah*! – under control,” she managed somehow to get the words out, breathless and quickly losing control.

Spike gasped with the pleasure of being encased in her intense heat, but managed through it all to gain enough composure to lean in and whisper, “You don’t seem very much in control to me, pet. But we can’t let them see that the Big Bad’s the one who’s really in charge at the moment, now can we?”

Through the wave of sensation washing over her, Buffy managed to regain enough control to return his cocky smile through lust-glazed eyes. “That’s because he’s not,” she informed him in a soft, seductive tone, a wicked gleam in her eyes of jade.

In the next moment, she exerted her Slayer strength, clenching her powerful inner muscles around Spike’s shaft, giving him an explosion of intense sensation as her grip became so tight that the pleasure bordered on excruciating.

He let out a strangled cry, throwing his head back in ecstasy. “*Oh!* *God!*”

“Who’s in control, now, Spike?” she demanded, her tone hard for the benefit of her listening friends, but her eyes sparkling with teasing, triumphant laughter.

He did not respond, not out of the defiance her friends assumed, but because he was simply too overwhelmed to speak, lost in the throes of intense passion.

“Who’s in control, Spike?” she demanded again, clenching her muscles tighter around him, so that he moaned aloud in a heady rush of pleasure-pain.

“You! You are, Buffy!” he cried out with abandon, forgetting the ruse entirely, swallowed up in his need for her.

A warning thrust of her hips toward him, her body still a vice around him, reminded him of it, and he amended in a hoarse, desperate voice, “*Slayer!* Oh, *God*, you are, Slayer! Only you, only you!”

The words, the raw, desperate sound of his voice, intensified the feeling for Buffy as he thrust into her again. “*I’m* the one!” she declared forcefully, lowering her voice to gasp, “The one you want – the one you need – only me – only me, Spike…”

“Yes, Slayer, yes…yes, Slayer…” he cried out, his desperate hands clutching her hips as he plunged himself deeper within her. To those who could not see the scene, it sounded like a pained plea, a submission to her power. But in truth, in was an admission of his devotion, declaring her claim to be true. “Buffy…Buffy…” he whispered. “I want you…want you…want you, Buffy…” he chanted breathlessly as their motions became faster, almost frantic.

“God…Spike,” she gasped. “I need you…so…hot…*God*!” She felt herself swiftly approaching her climax, and gasped out, urgently, pleadingly, “Spike…now, please….*now*!”

With a final, powerful thrust, Spike gave Buffy that last push that she needed, and she fell tumbling over the edge into an intense ecstasy of pleasure. Her muscles spasmed around him suddenly as she came, and his orgasm followed in the wake of her, intense and powerful.

“Oh…bloody…*Buffy*…God!” he cried out incoherently, not remembering to call her by her title, and screaming out her name. He could only hope that the Slayer’s friends thought he was screaming her name in agony rather than the overwhelming pleasure that fille dhim.

Buffy did not have the luxury of screaming. If she was supposed to be presenting the illusion of giving Spike a brutal beating, the only explanation for the sounds they had heard that would satisfy her friends, then there was no reason for her to be screaming.

In fact, such a sound would only make her friends panic, thinking that the vampire had gotten the upper hand in the struggle – which in some ways, he *so* had, she thought with appreciation, through the wave of sensation that overpowered her. But if they thought that she was in trouble, they might try harder to get in.

And then they might actually succeed.

And that would be very bad.

So, forced to silence, Buffy choked back the scream of release that rose in her throat, pounding her fist back against the wall furiously over and over until the wave of passion ebbed away, and they slumped together to the floor against the wall, gasping for breath. In the total silence that followed, even from her friends outside the door, Buffy had the sudden urge to laugh.

“They probably think I killed you,” she whispered to Spike, barely suppressing her giggles.

“Bloody well nearly did,” he retorted in a whisper with a smile.

“Guess I’d better get that door eventually,” she said with a regretful glance toward the door. “I’ll be right there, guys!” she said, louder. “I’m all right.”

“Um…pet,” Spike whispered, pulling back to allow her to rise and yank her bathrobe down from the door of her closet beside them. “Don’t you think…I mean…after all that violence,” he smirked, “…shouldn’t I be a bit more, well, beaten up?”

Buffy stared at him blankly for a moment. Then her eyes widened in alarmed understanding. “Oh, shoot!” she hissed. “You’re right! Um…okay, get down on the floor by the bed,” she thought fast. “I’m not gonna let them come in, I’m just gonna open the door a little. They won’t be able to see you.”

He quickly complied with her suggestion, which was the best they could come up with under the circumstances, and Buffy smoothed her robe – forgetting her hair – and went to answer the door. Taking a deep breath to ready herself, she opened the door just a little.

She was met with the worried eyes of every member of the little makeshift household, staring at her in various stages of panic.

“Hey, guys,” she said in a small, timid voice.

“Buffy!” Willow gasped, relief clear in her eyes. “What happened in there? Are you okay?”

“Yeah!” Buffy insisted in what she hoped was an innocent voice. “Um…Spike…tried to escape.”

Her friends stared at her expectantly, waiting for her to go on.

“I stopped him,” she assured them with a nod.

“Um, Buffy…” Xander began cautiously, glancing past her into the room. “Where is he?”

As he spoke, Willow tried to enter the room, pushing the door back a little, and Buffy was hesitant to stop them, knowing that would appear even more suspicious. She glanced around the room self-consciously, noticing what exactly her friends would see. The rumpled bed, the cracks in the walls beside it – and the motionless bare feet of the vampire on the floor, the rest of his body hidden from sight by the bed itself.

“He’s, um…he’s unconscious,” Buffy replied matter-of-factly with a nod and a casual shrug.

Willow glared at all she could see of the “sleeping” vampire. “Did he hurt you, Buffy?” she asked with concern.

Buffy laughed, and the sound came out a little – well, a little maniacal. “Hardly,” she smirked. “I can kick his pathetic ass any day of the week!”

“Are you quite sure you’re all right, Buffy?” Giles pressed, frowning in concern – and maybe suspicion. “Perhaps I should take a look…”

“*No!*” Buffy objected, too loudly and forcefully, and then repeated in a more normal voice, “No…I just really need to take a shower, get dressed, all that. Then I’ll come downstairs and you can all see that I’m really all right for yourselves. Okay?”

Her friends reluctantly agreed, and she gratefully closed the door with a sigh of relief.

“You can kick my pathetic ass any day of the week, can you?” Spike sneered, standing up, giving her a challenging smirk. “Care to test that theory?”

But Buffy was ignoring him completely, staring in absolute horror at something just to the side of him. He followed her gaze, and his mouth dropped open in shock, just before their eyes slowly met in silent communication.

“Oh, God…” Buffy moaned, putting her head in her hands.

“Maybe they didn’t notice,” Spike suggested hopefully, trying to help.

Until that moment both of them had completely forgotten – the chains still attached to Buffy’s headboard.