Chapter 3


“You’re leaving?” Joyce looked regretful.

“Yeah,” Spike muttered. “Found a way to support myself. Found a place to stay. Just a crypt. But I’ve got it shaping up nicely.”

Buffy wasn’t looking at him. They had been carefully avoiding each other’s eyes since that night at Willie’s and Buffy hadn’t been to Revello Drive for several days. The only reason she was here today was because Joyce had found a really good new artist for the gallery and wanted to celebrate. This was the first indication that the flowers and the chocolates that Spike had brought her were not just because of that.

“And is it legitimate, the way you’re supporting yourself?” Buffy asked the air.

“Got a job,” he shrugged. “Bouncing demons.”

That made her turn to stare at him. “A bouncer? At Willie’s?”

“Nah. Wouldn’t work for that git. Smack him upside the head before half an hour had gone by. Wouldn’t care about the pain. There’s other demon bars, y’know. Ones where they won’t let humans in. Private. And, no, I’m not telling you where they are, Slayer.”

“Wasn’t asking.”

“Not exactly an official bouncer.”

Buffy frowned. “What does that mean?”

He grinned mockingly. “More...enforcement.”

“Ah!”

His brow tilted. “Gun for hire. Don’t worry, Slayer. No humans involved. Just demons.”

“Um.”

“Not your business, Slayer. Humans are your bailiwick, aren’t they? Demon affairs? Stay out of them.”

“So not wanting to take on any more duties.”

“Will that pay enough to support you?” Joyce asked worriedly.

“Keep me in blood and booze,” he shrugged, but from the amused, slanting glance he gave her, Buffy thought it would pay considerably more than that. Beating up on demons. Well, she couldn’t call him on that, could she?

“I’m going to miss you,” said Joyce sadly and he smiled—that vivid, genuine smile that always took Buffy’s breath away, long creases slashing down his cheeks.

“Could drop by every now and then.”

“I’d like that,” said Joyce and they smiled at each other. Buffy felt oddly left out.

Okay, it had to be a spell. This whole damn thing with Spike. It had to be the remnants of Willow’s ‘will be done’ spell. Even though Willow swore up and down that there shouldn’t be any aftereffects. There just had to be. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be feeling this way. Wouldn’t be...tempted like this. Thinking of his mouth and the way he kissed and the way he might be in bed. Constantly thinking how hot he was.

What was the name of that psychic demongirl Spike had told her about? The one on Market Street. Shaina, that was it. A Lister. It was weird going to a demon for help, but there was no one else to ask and she had to find out. If there was a spell, maybe Shaina could tell her who could take it off.

There was a spell. But it wasn’t the one Buffy was expecting.

Angel had become human and they had been able to be together. And he had taken it back. The reason that he had given for leaving her and going to L.A. was that he wanted her to have someone normal. And there he had been—normal. But he had taken it back!

For her own good. Again, for her own good. But those words were starting to lose their meaning to her.

“But he always said...” she whispered and Shaina, looking down at her hands, murmured very quietly:

“It’s not really what the man says that’s important in a romantic relationship. It’s what he does.”

And what did Angel do? Press reset, escape, delete, break. Angel with his unilateral decisions. Angel, static and unchanging, bending the world and her and everything he cared about to that iron will of his because he was incapable of bending himself.

‘My will be done.’ Not that far apart in their way of thinking, Angel and Willow. Power and control. That was so important to them.

Clearly, for Angel, more important than she was. He hadn’t even made a real effort to adjust. Just taken it back in less than a day.

She wandered through the cemeteries in a daze. In Restfield cemetery, activity could be heard in one of the crypts. She paused, frowning.

The crypt door opened and Spike came out with a wheelbarrow full of rubble.

“Spike? What are you doing here?”

“Slayer. Just fixing up my crypt the way I like. Be right back.”

He trundled the cart down the graveyard, then tipped its contents carelessly into an open grave and pushed the barrow back.

“Wanna see?’

“I guess,” she said vaguely and went into the crypt when he waved a hand at it.

When she looked around, she had no idea what he was working at. The interior looked untouched, still dusty and cobwebby, with the usual stone benches, urns, statues, couple of sarcophaguses (sarcophagi?)—all the things one would expect to see in a crypt. The only things he seemed to have added were a small fridge in one corner and several banks of candles, their flames lending a warm, golden glow to the place.

“Gonna do the upstairs last,” he explained, pushing the barrow along to park it beside a large hole at the back of the crypt. She realized that there was a ladder leading down to an area below and lamplight coming up from it. “Wanna take a look?”

She followed him down the ladder.

“Be right with you,” he said and went into an opening on the far side of the area. She heard water running and guessed he was cleaning up.

She stood looking around. The lower level was clearly what he was concentrating on. There was a big bed with lighted lamps on the night tables beside it. He had somehow managed a power hook-up to somewhere. There were rugs and tables and shelves of books. Even though there were roots twisting through the walls and the ceiling, everything was cosy and comfortable. Rubble lay scattered about the opening Spike had gone into and she realized that he had tapped into the mains there and was now taking the tunnel further, constructing an escape route to the sewers.

“Clever,” she muttered as he came out, pulling on a clean black silk shirt and tossing away the dusty tee that he had been wearing.

“Thanks.”

He waved a hand at the ladder and she went up again, stood leaning against a sarcophagus while he went to take a beer out of the fridge.

“Something wrong, Slayer?” There was a crease between his brows as he watched her.

“What could be wrong?”

“Don’ know. You look kinda shook.”

She looked down at her hands resting on the sarcophagus. The knuckles showed white, she was pressing her fingertips so hard against the stone.

“You know that Shaina lady you told me about?”

He nodded. “The psychic. What about her?”

“I went to her because I wanted to find out whether Willow’s spell was still doing something.”

He laughed, giving her that sideways, mocking glance, knowing exactly what she had been worried about. “And is it?”

“No. It’s gone. But there’s another one running.”

His brows rose. “There is?”

She told him what Shaina had seen, about the Mohra demon and how its blood had turned Angel human and how he had gone to the Oracles and had them turn back time so that he could be a vampire again.

“All for the best, you know,” she said. But her voice shook. “For my own good.”

“I see.” He was frowning. He came and took her by the elbows and pushed her gently down on one of the stone benches. “Stay there.”

He went and picked up a bottle from beside the fridge, tipped a little of its contents into a glass and brought it back to her. She shook her head.

“No...”

“It’s only brandy, Slayer. A little won’t hurt you and I think you need it.”

She sipped at the glass and gagged at the taste. But it sent a warmth through her shaking limbs. She hadn’t realized how cold she was until the warmth of the brandy began to ease the chill.

“Shock,” said Spike simply.

“Spike...why?”

He didn’t pretend not to know what she meant. He swung himself up lightly to sit on the sarcophagus and sighed. “I’m not the one to ask, Slayer.”

“Because you’re his enemy. Because you hate him. But you know him, Spike. You’ve known him for a hundred and twenty years. If anyone can tell me why, it’s you.”

“For your own good, huh?” he mused. “Means he thought he’d be a liability to you in your fight. Your weak point. Give the devil his due. Noble really to reject that.”

“All his rejections are noble!” Buffy spat. “He left me because he wanted me to have a normal boyfriend. And I accepted it because I thought he was right. But any normal boyfriend would be a weak point. I can see that now.”

“Could be made a hostage against you,” Spike nodded. “Normal. What a crock. Always thought that was daft. You’re the Slayer. You’re special. You need someone as fast and as strong and as powerful as you are.”

“Kinda limits my choices,” she said bitterly. “The point is, after all that talk, he didn’t want to be that normal boyfriend. That’s what it comes down to.”

“He can’t stand being second banana on anything. Likes to be in control.”

Angel had always wanted her to submit to his judgment, do as he told her. Never liked it when she made the decisions, always tried to angle things so that they would go the way he wanted.

“Is it a vampire thing?” she asked, trying to understand.

Spike shook his head. “Gender is unimportant when establishing dominance among vampires. Vampire females are as strong and as fast as the males. Age and experience and cunning are what matter.”

“Then why didn’t Darla rule your pack? She sired Angel.”

“She didn’t want to. She was essentially a loner, wasn’t really interested in a pack. Also she was used to being ruled by the Master, a dominant male. When Angelus wanted to be boss, she let him. Angelus always wanted things his way. Angel does too. But for a different reason. He wants order. Needs to be in control to keep things in that order.”

“He doesn’t really change,” she said quietly.

“Not really.”

“You do.”

He was always changing; always Spike in his essence, but still always in flux. Constantly trying out new things, searching for and embracing whatever worked best.

“I adapt,” he said simply.

“These male dominance games,” she said scornfully, unable to keep the bitterness out of her voice. “Angel, Xander, Giles, they all try to tell me what to do. Only Giles has any excuse because he’s my Watcher. The truth is that Angel can’t accept any relationship in which I’m dominant.”

“He’s two hundred and forty years old, set in his ways, old-fashioned. Dominance? I’m a good fighter, Slayer. Better than Angel, though he doesn’t know that. Back in the day, I didn’t have a chance against him. He’d been around for a hundred and twenty years and that made him a Master, while I was just a raw fledgling. And when he turned into Angelus again a couple of years ago, I was in a wheelchair, with a busted back. But if we got it on right now, I’d take him. He wouldn’t rule the pack anymore.”

She suspected that he was right. And that would shatter Angel’s worldview, shake him right down deep, where he lived.

“But you can take me, Slayer. I’ve fought you and you’re better. Gender has nothing to do with it. Excellence is what counts.”

She studied him with interest. He never failed to surprise her. “If you can see that, why can’t he?”

“Doesn’t want to. We’re different people, Slayer. Almost polar opposites. I never wanted to be important. Just wanted to be me. Angel, he wants to make a difference, wants to redeem himself. Can’t if he’s human.”

And that mattered to Angel more than being with her.

Spike swung around to lie back on the sarcophagus, frowning thoughtfully at the ceiling. “He’s afraid of passion and he doesn’t trust himself. Passion is Angelus’ gambit. He uses it. Twists it. Manipulates you with your own emotions. So Angel distrusts it. Only problem is, passion and trust are what love is made of. Deny that and you throw love away.”

“You’d never do that.” The Council said that demons couldn’t love and yet here was Spike who had loved an insane Drusilla for a hundred and twenty years, never leaving her in sickness and in health until she had rejected him. Angel keeping himself to himself. Spike giving himself away with both hands.

He turned his head to smile at her. “I’m love’s bitch, Slayer. May not have a soul, but I have a self. Angel’s always fighting his demon, always split in half. Me, my self’s intact and love’s the only constant.”

It was. For him.

“Never thought I’d hear a demon say that.”

“There’s demons and demons, Slayer.”

“Getting that.”

She looked at him as he swung himself off the sarcophagus. The one button that had been holding his shirt together had come undone and the shirt hung open on either side of him. He was beautiful under it, totally ripped, alabaster satin skin, solid supple muscle, strong clean bone. The shifting candlelight washed gold down the planes of his body, threw those spectacular cheekbones into high relief, lit tiny flickering flames in the intense blue of those intent eyes watching her so narrowly.

God! Why couldn’t she have met him first instead of Angel? There wouldn’t have been all this pain and anger. This abandonment. He would never have left her. How strange was it that, even without a soul, Spike should be a truer lover than Angel was with one!

“Dru was a fool for dumping you,” she said. She hadn’t meant to say that. But it was true.

He tilted his head, with a little, sharp, indrawn catch of breath. There was an odd look on his face, as if he were nerving himself up to something.

“She said I was covered with you. That she could see you floating all around me. That when she looked at me, all she could see was the Slayer.”

Her head came up in shock. “What?”

“Thought she was crazy. But she was right. Always did see what nobody else could. She knew, even back then, when I didn’t.”

“Spike...” She was on her feet, staring at him, her eyes wide.

“Willow’s spell showed me what I really wanted.”

He moved towards her with that flash of vampire speed, was standing right in front of her, just inches away but not touching her in the slightest. She was intensely aware of his body vibrating so close to hers, so quick and fine, undead but so much more alive than any living being she had ever known. His pupils had dilated and his eyes were all black intensity with a thin rim of flame-blue. She found herself falling into them, drowning in them.

She could hear the shudder of his breath between his parted lips. Vampires didn’t need to breathe. But Spike did, as if it were hardwired into him, that need to breathe during passion, the depth of his feeling so profound that it needed some outlet and found this.

Her hands came up, hovering over his chest, caught between wanting to touch him and knowing that she should push him away.

“What do you want, Buffy?”

Her hands moved higher and dropped onto his shoulders, sliding under his shirt, over that cool, smooth skin, pulling him to her.

“I want you.”

And then they were kissing, mouths fused together, avidly devouring each other, passion flaring insistently, imperatively. She had never known kisses like this before, so intense, so raw. When they had kissed during Willow’s spell, it had been sweet and romantic, both of them sure of each other, willing to wait for the wedding, playing with each other, all easy and happy and unaware of repercussions.

Here they knew that what they were doing was forbidden, knew the rules that they were breaking, knew that they should be enemies—and didn’t care. They were both risking too much, risking everything; and the knowledge of that added an intensity, a raw hunger, to their encounter that turned every touch to fire, every sensation so acute that it was on the edge of pain.

She pushed his shirt off, her hands sliding and clenching over his body. He shoved her denim jacket away, pushed her head back for his mouth to rake down her throat. Her whole body shuddered and melted against him, her bones turning to water.

“Oh, God,” she muttered. “I never knew it could be like this...”

He gasped against the hollow of her throat, then caught her shoulders and held her away a little.

“Is that so?” His eyes were very dark, gold flickering within the blue. “Buffy, are you sure you want this?”

“Yes.” She was. She wanted it very much. Just once.

“And tomorrow?”

There was a long pause.

“I don’t know,” she said wretchedly at last.

“Yeah,” he said and stroked her face very gently. “All right. If we’re going have just one night of it, let’s do it right.” He turned her to lean against the sarcophagus. “Wait.”

She watched him, puzzled, as he went and barred the door of the crypt securely. Then he came back to her and scooped her up in his arms.

“I don’t understand,” she said.

There was an odd little smile in his eyes, a hidden edge of triumph. “You don’t know, do you? You don’t know what it can be like. Those other two wankers, they didn’t do right by you. Gonna show you.”

He carried her over to the entrance to the lower level and she expected him to put her down so that they could climb down the ladder. But he just stepped off the edge. She felt the rush of air as they dropped, then he landed with an easy flex of his knees and recovered himself smoothly. He took her over to the bed and laid her down carefully.

She started to sit up and reach for him, but he pushed her back gently.

“No. You just lie there.” He trod off his Docs, reached out to unzip her boots and pull them off. “Gonna take my time.”

“Spike...”

“If we’ve only got one night, gonna make it memorable, pet.” He put one knee on the bed and leaned over her on his straight arms, smiling. “Any objections?”

“N-no, but...”

He bent and kissed her deeply. “Good.”

He was pulling her top over her head. She raised her arms to help him, then purred as his lips ran the swell of her breasts above the cups of her bra. A moment later her bra was gone. He looked down at her, his eyes darkening.

“God, you’re beautiful, luv.”

His head dropped, then his lips were moving and suckling upon her breasts. Her hands clenched on his shoulders and her body arched involuntarily to his mouth.

“Oh, God...”

“Just getting started, luv. Gonna take your jeans off, yeah?”

“Mm.”

He drew both them and her thong off in one smooth movement, sliding down to the end of the bed, then stood up to remove his own jeans. Her eyes widened and he laughed.

“Like what you see?” He came back up the bed in a lazy, leopard prowl.

“Never really saw properly before,” she confessed. “It was always sort of dim.”

“Always in the dark? Those gits really blew their opportunities, didn’t they? I like to look.”

She put a hand down to explore, but he caught it and pulled it away.

“Do that later, pet. Gonna do you proper a couple of times and then you can play.”

She blinked. “You can do it more than once?”

He folded up in laughter. “Oh, pet! You’re serious, aren’t you?”

She blushed. “Uh...”

Spike couldn’t stop laughing. “I can understand Angel. He went all Angelus right off, didn’t he? But that Parker git? Even a human should be able to do it more than once. And you with that Slayer stamina. What a waste! Well, you’re gonna need that before we’re through tonight, pet.”

His mouth came down and his hands slid over her body, kneading and caressing, and she gasped and gasped again as he turned and twisted her to that wicked, knowledgeable tongue. She had never realized before that the whole body could become an erotic zone, that the back of a knee or a shoulderblade or the small of the back or even just a middle finger sucked into a knowing mouth could become an incredible turn on.

“Oh, God, Spike!”

“Gets better, luv.”

His eyes had gone gold and the tongue had turned raspy. ‘Think of that all over,’ he had said. Now he showed her, that tongue working her from brow to ankle, coming back again and again to scour and suckle on breasts and belly and pelvis.

“Oh, God!” Her hands clawed down his back.

He gasped, then caught her hands and pushed them above her head, closing them gently about two of the rails of the headboard.

“Hold onto that, luv. Not half through yet.”

“I am!” She was arching and writhing helplessly under him. “Oh, God, Spike, come on! This is torture!”

“But you like it.” He was smiling against her navel. “Still. Wouldn’t want to be cruel, I guess.”

He slid suddenly downwards. Then that raspy tongue was on her clit and two long fingers had slid into her, precisely locating her G-spot.

“OhmiGod!”

No one had ever done that to her, let alone a wickedly knowing vampire with an evil tongue and sinful expertise. She just about came apart, her brain shorting right out.

She came back to herself to find him leaning over her, laughing.

“Oh, God. Oh, God. I think I stopped breathing. Thought I’d died...”

“Not dead yet, Slayer. Maybe by the end of the night.”

“You’re evil.”

“I do love compliments. Let’s get back to where we were.”

“Oh, God, I don’t think I can.”

“Haven’t learned your own stamina yet, have you, Slayer?”

Fangs joined that cat tongue and those big, clever, sensitive hands. The light, sharp pinpricks of his fangs in her flesh was incredibly arousing. In only a few minutes she was twisting against him again, panting helplessly. How the hell could he do this to her so easily?

She must have said that aloud because he laughed against her breast where that raspy tongue was flickering once again over her nipple, hardening it almost to the point of pain.

“Hundred and twenty years of practice, pet.” He looked down at her, his eyes going from gold back to blue, a quiet still smile in them, a look she couldn’t understand. “All working up to this one night.”

She smiled. “With a Slayer.”

His lips opened as if to say something, then he bent and kissed her.

“Buffy. Let me in.”

“Oh, God, yes...”

His hands hit the bed on either side of her and he thrust into her in one smooth stroke. She gasped and arched to him. She hadn’t expected how big he would feel inside her; he filled her to the point where it was almost too much. But it wasn’t too much, it was just exactly right, perfection.

“Spike...”

For a moment, she saw him watching her with that strange, dark intensity. Then his eyelids shuddered shut, surrendering to her, and he gasped against her face. They strained against each other, driving each other higher and higher. Her hands clawed down his back as he pistoned into her and her sheath clenched involuntarily with Slayer strength upon him. He groaned in helpless rapture.

“God, those Slayer muscles...”

They both laughed breathlessly, then lost laughter in passion, lost thought in pure sensation, striving higher and higher up that hill to fly free an eon later into the golden air beyond. She felt him shudder violently against her as he came, flared over the edge herself, her brain blanking out in utter ecstasy.

“Again, Slayer.”

“You’re mad,” she groaned.

But he was still partially erect within her and rapidly hardening, starting to move again.

“Vamps recover fast. And so do Slayers.”

“I think I’m gonna die.”

But her body was already responding.

“One night? Gonna make the most of it,” he muttered.

TBC