2

Through the whispers and moans streaming from Buffy's mouth, there was a sudden word, quiet, but certain. "Uhhnn, wait."

Surprising.

I try not to look too stunned as her pelvis stops moving against me. I pull away from her sweet wet curls and slide off of her, I'm not sure what she wants. Once we start, she hardly ever stops til she's climaxed.

I edge up the bed til I'm just below eye-level with her. Her face is a book. I know she would never be this vulnerable with anyone. Accept Willow, but that was before. I don't think she'd ever want me to see her like this. She's scared of herself, I can tell, but why?

I search her eyes.

These looks she's just given me are not why I love her. Pain, fear, lust, need, all of these have been here the past months. No happy Buffy. Now laughing, beautiful girl, filled with life, out of reach in the sun where I would never have her. Now she's in the dark. I can't stand it.

She wants me for reasons I cannot explain. I want her to tell me her reasons, though I know some of them, but I'm too scared to ask about the others. I might lose everything if I do.

Hey, I am a vampire, so her violence isn't exactly painful in the physical sense - to tell the truth, I love it - but even my evilness doesn't like being used, fucked, lead on, beaten up and discarded.

It hasn't been like that so much lately. Working at the Doublemeat seems to make her completely hopeless. She's coming to me more and falling apart around me. She just does enough to turn me on, then lets me fuck her into oblivion, her pained eyes trained on mine, mouth closed and grim. I can't resist her, even like this. If I try hard enough I can remember that girl from before, fighting for her sister, hard and dangerous, Slayer, muscles trangling my cock, so hot and tight. Buffy.

She may as well be tied, always acting like my doll. I didn't want it to be like that anymore, maybe I should've just cuffed myself.

I'm a fucking idiot. Imbecile. Now I'm getting fucking British like Watcher-boy, maybe that would help her, a father back to protect her. Why did I do that? I need to let her make the decision, be in control of at least one thing in her life. She can't deal with anything anymore, her sister, her friends, her monsters, her mother. She's alone.

Except for me.

I reach over to the table with a single lamp on it. Key in hand, I slip the cuffs off her and lay them on the pillow beside me. Does she still want to play?

The puzzled look she gives me is the cutest thing I've seen since that puppy Dru once tried to get me to eat. Buffy pout... God, I want those lips.

She giggles when I squeeze her ribs and lip the skin on her should gently. Suddenly she's in my arms, her nose pressed into m neck, one arm looped under mine, the other fingering my chest and shoulder.

I guess I'm not a complete dumbass, I react. I hold her head to me. I reach over her back and tug my gold sheet and coverlet over her naked body. She must be freezing cuddling up to a vampire.

Her hair smells amazing and I bask in her scent. She slowly heats up with most of the blanket snugly around her, only covering me with a corner.

I don't have to breathe, but I like to keep the habit. She seems to syncronise with me, her whole body fitting into the curves of mine, her breath rising and falling.

She's perfect, I wish she knew it. She hasn't done anthing truly wrong in her whole life, the selfishness she's been throwing around after Red brought her back is pretty justified. Abandoned and alone, suffocated and half-blind, demons everywhere... I think she needs only of herself for a while. Everything and everyone's so fucked up now, they all just need a mother. Maybe even Watcher-boy. But he's gone.

I'm there for her because I love her, and she needs someone, I guess that's all I can do or she'll think I'm doing too much and getting too human. I'll take the risk tonight.

"Buffy..." It comes out in a breath. "You never-you never did anything wrong."

She sighs and her voice cracks. "I did. I-I did and I'm sorry. I'm so afraid of myself.

"I'm sorry!"