"This is wrong."
"Yeah. So you keep saying. And yet you keep on coming back for more. Why's that, then?"
Buffy swung her legs over the edge of the bed and began to fish for her clothes in the darkness. "Yes, but – this is stupid. I mean, I don't even like you. " Thrusting one arm angrily into her blouse, she managed to rip the sleeve. "Dammit!"
Spike raised his eyebrows. "Well, if it's any consolation, I don't like you much either. You're stubborn, and annoying, and incredibly self-involved, and much too stuck-up for your own good, and –" he lunged forward and grabbed her round the waist, "God, I love you, Slayer. I love you so much."
Buffy closed her eyes and gritted her teeth momentarily, then grabbed a handful of his hair, jerked his head towards hers and kissed him fiercely, sinking her teeth into his lower lip as she did so. Then she shoved him away and carried on rummaging for her clothes, ignoring the furious pounding of her heart and the insistent nagging question at the back of her mind – why was he the only one who really made her feel alive?
"More where that came from, Slayer?" He was leaning back against the pillows now, watching her with that incredibly infuriating smirk that used to make her want to punch him in the face and now, annoyingly, had the effect of turning her insides to warm mush.
"No. Shut up."
"Because it's wrong?"
"It's not just wrong It's perverted. It's against all the laws of – everything!"
The "P" word made him lose the smirk abruptly. "Perverted? You want to know what's perverted?" He sat up, jabbing a finger at her. "Look at me! I'm supposed to be an evil, bloodsucking creature of the night and you – you – you make me want to be a bloody hero!"
Buffy dropped the shoe she was trying to put on. "What?"
Angrily he threw back the covers, grabbed his jeans and started pulling them on while still talking. "As you keep reminding me, I'm evil. But when I'm with you, what do I do? I fight evil. I'm on the side of the bloody puppies, and there's not a sodding thing I can do about it, because of you." He thumped his chest angrily. "You're in here, and -" pointing to his head "here, and - and all around me, and with me every second of the day and night. Like a bloody disease." His voice dropped an octave. " I know I'm a monster. But I'm your monster. I'd – I'd save the world for you. You always made me want to save the world. And if that's not perverted, I don't know what is – "
The other shoe dropped.
Buffy picked it up angrily, stuffed it on to her foot and stomped out of the crypt without another word.