Save the Last Dance for Me
By: Passion4Spike
Chapter 26: The Needle's Stuck
Chapter Summary:
Buffy and Spike continue to explore the connection she felt to him during the bite.
Note: Song Referenced: Hooked on a Feeling, by BJ Thomas.
** X-X-X-X-X **
"What what was?" she asked.
"What love was. What effulgent was," Spike admitted.
Buffy frowned. "What is it?"
Spike looked up into her eyes then, holding her gaze as he answered. "You."
Buffy melted a little at his words, sighing dreamily, and reached out to take Spike's hand in hers.
"You must've been quite the romantic poet, William," she surmised. "Must've had the ladies swooning left and right, huh?"
Spike snorted. "I've learned a bit since then, luv. Learned t' keep my poems to myself, for one thing. Your imagination o' my romantic prowess makes me a better poet than I could ever be in truth," he admitted.
"I doubt that," Buffy argued, standing up and letting her robe fall open, revealing nothing but bare skin beneath. Her skin was tan but for the bikini-shaped, ivory silhouette around her breasts and hips, seeming to spotlight those areas in Spike's vision, drawing his gaze like magnets.
She climbed on the bed and swung one leg over Spike's hips, facing him, settling down gently in his lap, atop the sheet. "I bet you can be poetic now," she urged, lifting one of his hands to her bare breast.
Spike cupped the warm, soft roundness, letting his thumb gently caress the nipple. Her body responded immediately, the little pebble hardening under his touch. He dropped his mouth down and suckled her, letting his tongue dance around and around the erect, yearning nub.
"God, Spike," Buffy moaned, her back arching, pressing her breasts against him. "That's the most beautiful poem I've ever …" Her words were cut off by a gasp as his fingers pinched her other nipple, twisting lightly, making her squirm atop him.
"Thought the bit was home," he murmured against her soft skin, switching his mouth to the other breast.
"You'll just have to ... ooooooo … keep … mmmmmm … me quiet," Buffy breathed, her hands reaching behind her to tug the sheet from between their bodies.
Spike's lips roamed up from her tender breast to her neck, kissing, licking, suckling all the while. Gooseflesh erupted over her skin, sparks of desire radiating from his touch directly to her aching core, consuming her with need.
"How d' ya propose I do that, luv? Killin' ya would be the only way," he informed her.
Buffy pulled back slightly, taking his face between her hands so he would look at her.
"Bite me," she suggested, tilting her head to one side slightly, a silent invitation. "That was quiet, right?"
"What?" Spike cried, more than a little shocked. "Nearly killed ya the last time," he reminded her.
"No, you didn't. You didn't take too much, that wasn't why I … why I had a hard time getting back. It was the darkness. I got caught up in it, tangled and a little lost. It tried to hold me there, not let me come back. But I won't go there this time, I'll stay in the light. I just want to show you – the light is there," she insisted.
"No," Spike refused flatly, taking her hands in his and removing them from his face. He kissed her knuckles gently but kept shaking his head in denial.
"William was a good man," Buffy announced, changing tactics. "You are a good man."
"No," he repeated.
"Yes, you are. I've seen it," she insisted, extracting one of her hands from his and placing a gentle finger beneath his chin, raising his eyes back to hers. "I can prove it.
"Do you trust me?" she asked him gravely.
"You know I do, with my life," Spike replied, just as solemnly.
"Then do this for me so I can show you. William will not let the demon hurt me.
"Make love to me. I want to feel you inside me, Spike. I want to be inside you, to show you the light is still there and it's growing," Buffy pleaded, her eyes searching his, beseeching him to trust her.
"William's a bloody ponce," Spike argued.
"He's a good man," Buffy insisted.
Spike's eyes searched hers for some clue to guide him. He wanted so badly to believe her, but so many years in the dark was too hard to ignore. He had felt that flame, though, when he was with her. And she seemed to know things that she had no way to know. Could she be right? Could it be kindled? Could he be a good man, and not a monster? Could he really be worthy of her?
There was the slightest nod of Spike's head, so small Buffy wasn't certain that she'd seen it. Then he leaned forward and kissed her, softly, gently, languorously.
When their lips parted, Spike trailed a line of butterfly-kisses from her lips, along her jaw and up to her ear. "I trust you," he whispered against her, his breath a tickle of silk against her flesh.
"I trust you, too," she murmured as she lifted up and guided his hardness into her aching womanhood.
They both gasped as she pressed down, taking his yearning flesh into her soft, slick depths. She lowered down gently, her supple walls opening for him, then molding to his girth, embracing his hardness rapturously with strength and desire.
Spike continued his rain of kisses and suckles down from her ear to the spot on her neck where the pulse pounded. There, he stopped, letting his lips and tongue make love to her blood, thrumming just below the surface. Her heart galloped beneath his mouth, while her hips moved gently atop him, riding his cock in a slow, erotic motion.
He waited. Getting lost in the feel of her body against his. Her tits pressing against his chest. Her ass sliding in his lap. Her quim quivering and throbbing around his prick. Her blood boiling beneath his tongue.
And still he waited. Waited for the surrender. They always surrendered. There was nothing sweeter than the blood of a woman who had surrendered.
His fangs sunk into her flesh with no warning, sharp and swift. The moment he felt her give herself over, the demon struck, soft lips replaced on her tender flesh with razor-sharp fangs.
Buffy gasped and stiffened against him, her body consumed with the deadly pleasure of his invasion.
"Cum for me," the demon purred against her bloody skin. "Cum while I drain you."
Buffy was lost in the rapture of him. Penetrated by his fangs and his cock, he took everything she had to give, and she gave it willingly. Her hips jerked madly against his, impaling herself on his sword. She thrust against him, demanding and fervent. Her lifeblood flowed into him until stars exploded all around her, sending sparks of rapture cascading like fireworks over her body.
And then she was there, in that hollow cavern with the little, injured bird. The flame had grown, as she knew it would. It was now a good-sized fire, on its way to becoming a roaring inferno. It burned warm and bright, spreading its light out further and further with each passing moment, driving the darkness back.
She reached a hand out toward the little sparrow and it fluttered gently up to meet her, its broken wing mended.
Buffy laughed, watching it spread its tiny wings as it perched upon her hand. "I told you, William," she whispered to it, touching a soft kiss to the little brown beak. "You can fly … you're stronger than the darkness. I know it. Together, we're stronger than the darkness inside us."
And with those words she stepped directly into the center of the raging fire.
Sparks flew like dragon's breath, filling her vision with a billowing spray of sizzling flames. The darkness retreated from around them, clinging to the shadows, watching warily as the light bloomed. Buffy felt the flames licking her body, dancing over her skin like the touch of Spike's hands, passionate and yearning. Yearning for the spark of her touch, the fuel of her belief, the flame of her love.
Next to her, the sparrow rose up from the flames, twirling and writhing like a tornado, emerging from the ashes like a Phoenix. Then the rising figure morphed within the effulgent, dancing flames, transforming into the man Buffy had realized must still be inside.
He was Spike, but not. Wavy, light brown hair framed his face, which, at first glance, was a mirror of Spike's. Then Buffy looked closer. His eyes seemed more tender, more tentative somehow, as they regarded her with awe and wonder. His mouth, too, seemed softer, perhaps less prone to smirking than Spike's. The corners of it tugged slowly into a breathless smile as he took her in, utterly astonished.
"William," she breathed, stepping forward and wrapping her arms around him fervently.
Their lips met as the bright, glowing flames blazed around them, encompassing them in the dazzling light they both sought so desperately. They were engulfed by it fully, though fleetingly, as the inferno that she had ignited began to slowly flicker and wane – but not die. It wouldn't die now; it would only grow. Spike didn't have to hide it or deny it, didn't have to snuff it out, didn't have to be what he wasn't. He could feed the light with her, stoke the flames, and let it hold the darkness at bay.
The darkness and the light would always be there, yin and yang. Spike could choose which path to follow, which side to stand on. And for him there was only one path now – the one upon which Buffy tread.
Buffy came back to herself in Spike's arms, sharing a tender but ardent kiss. She was breathless and glistening, her body filled with little electric shocks of pleasure and release which rippled through her. She still tingled from the touch of the dancing flames and from Spike's … ahem … double penetration – hard flesh and sharp fangs.
As the kiss broke, she leaned her forehead on his, her eyes closed, panting for air that suddenly seemed in short supply.
"Tell me … you … felt that," she gasped out, finally pulling back to look into his eyes.
He had. It was written all over his handsome, expressive face, his blue eyes wide with wonder.
A slow smile spread over her lips.
"You stopped … on your own," she pointed out, catching her breath and touching a finger to her neck. It wasn't even bleeding. He'd not only stopped but healed it over also.
"I think this deserves a 'You were right, I was wrong,' apology," she proposed. "In writing would be nice so I can hang it on the fridge."
A breathless, "Bloody hell," was the best he could do.
"Exactly," she laughed.
"That was fun! Let's do it again!" she suggested, suddenly, inexplicably giddy. She began bouncing up and down atop him, making the mattress springs squeak loudly.
"Oh! Bouncy!" she exclaimed, her eyes growing large as saucers with excitement. The Slayer stood up on the mattress then and began jumping enthusiastically, like a kid with a new trampoline on Christmas morning. Her head nearly hit the ceiling with every Slayer-strength jump on the mattress. She pushed back down with her arms, and sprang up with her strong legs, making herself a high-velocity bouncy-ball between the bed and the ceiling.
"Slay—" He was going to tell her to stop, to be careful, but it was too late. He was cut off by the bed collapsing beneath him with a deafening crash.
Buffy fell, bumping her head on the headboard, which was now being held only partially upright by Spike's back against it.
"Owwww…" she whined, rubbing her head and pouting. "Bad bed!"
"Bloody hell," Spike repeated, but with a completely different meaning and tone than his earlier declaration. "You're stoned again."
"Am not! I'm … I'm … I'm … hooked on a feeling… high on believing, that you're in love with meee," she crooned, badly offkey.
"Lips are sweet as candy, its taste stays on my mind, boy, you got me thirsty, for another cup of wine," she continued, standing up and jumping off the downed bed and onto the floor. The Slayer grabbed a hairbrush off the dresser and used it as a microphone, swaying to the unheard music as she sang. Her pink, fluffy bathrobe was still on her shoulders, barely, and it swung around her calves as she moved.
"Ooga-chaka, ooga-ooga, ooga-chaka, ooga-ooga, ooga-ooga, ooga-ooga, ooga-ooga," she continued, swirling around to make her bathrobe plume out around her like a cape.
"The bloody needle's stuck. And had t' be on that rot Blue Swede added," Spike groaned, reaching out a hand to poke her in the ribs.
She immediately switched back to, "I'm hooked on a feeling, high on believing, that you're in love with meeee.
"I said, I'm … HOOKED ON A FEELIN'! HIGH ON BELIVIN'! THAT YOU'RE IN LOVE WITH MEEEEEEEEE!" she bellowed, putting her whole body into the performance, doubling over at the waist and pumping one fist as she sang into the hairbrush.
When Buffy took a much-needed breath, the pounding on the door could finally be heard, at least by Spike. Buffy was starting to get back into the ooga-chakas again.
"Hold your piss!" he yelled at the door, sliding away from the headboard, letting it crash down the rest of the way onto the mattress.
"What's going on? Are you okay? What's that noise? Is that Buffy? Singing?" Dawn's voice came from the other side of the door.
"All fine," Spike replied, trying his best to get to his feet. He hadn't actually stood up since the Suvolte war and he wasn't having a good time of it now. He wasn't entirely sure the clay demonic cast thing could stand his weight or not, or how painful it would be to try.
"Just a little …uh, community theatre. Buffy's thinking o' trying out for a rock opera," he called back, grimacing as he got to a seated position on the side of the now abnormally-low mattress, which was resting on the box springs, which were resting the floor.
"What was all that banging?"
"Just … the drums. You know … gotta 'ave drums. Rock opera, yeah? Can't rightly have rock without banging on the ol' skins," Spike explained logically.
"Lips are sweet as candy, its taste stays on my mind, boy, you got me thirsty, for another cup of wine," Buffy continued singing as if Dawn and Spike weren't talking at all.
"Are you sure you guys are okay?" Dawn asked again, clearly not believing a word of what Spike was saying. "Can I come in?"
"Errr … not just now, pet. Buffy's just gettin' to the finale … can't be disturbed, yeah? Bad for the circulation, getting cut off right at the finish like that. Could cause some damage."
"All the good love when we're all alone, keep it up boy, yeah, you turn me on," she sang, sauntering in a half-circle around him like a seductress, swinging her hips and letting her fingers trace lightly over his shoulders, still holding the hairbrush-microphone.
With her within reach, Spike grabbed the Slayer around the middle and tossed her down onto the bed on her back next to him. He rolled over atop her with a cursed oath of pain before clamping one hand over her mouth.
"Let's play a new game, shall we?" he whispered, his face right above hers, his blue eyes boring into hers.
She smiled behind his hand, her green eyes alight with interest.
"Let's play 'shut the bloody hell up', yeah?"
Buffy frowned and stuck her tongue out of her mouth, licking Spike's palm.
"Disgusting, that is," he informed her sternly. "And I should know. Got a bloody PhD in disgusting, I do."
Buffy giggled behind his palm and then licked it again.
"Cheeky little duck!" he growled in a low voice. "If ya do that again, I'll bloody…" Spike searched his mind for something to threaten her with. Biting was obviously not a punishment or even remotely scary for her any longer. And fighting? Well … they just did that for fun. He needed something that fit her current mindset.
"… spank your bum!" he finished, glaring at her threateningly.
Buffy's eyes went wide and she nodded giddily, then her tongue licked his palm again, with extra saliva this time.
"Spike? Are you sure you guys are okay?" Dawn asked after not hearing anything for a few moments.
"I think Buffy just needs a rest now, pet," he called back. "Rock opera is bloody exhausting."
"Oh … uhhhh … if you're sure," Dawn replied doubtfully.
"No worries!" Spike called back. "She'll be down in a bit, just gotta have a nip o' rest," he assured her.
"Okaayyy," Dawn agreed grudgingly, and he finally heard her turn and walk away from the door.
"Stop doing that!" he growled at Buffy, pulling his hand away and wiping the spittle on her robe.
"You're cute when you're mad," she informed him, bopping him on the nose with her finger.
Spike glared at her. "Not cute! Don't do that!"
"Are you going to spank me now?" she wondered, an eager gleam in her green eyes. She started wriggling under him, trying to get free. "Do I get to spank you, too?
"I don't have to call you 'daddy', do I? Cos that's just weird. Like, Faith would totally be into that, but—"
"No, no, and no!" Spike admonished her sternly.
"Not now, at any rate," he added more quietly. He'd file that little tidbit away for another day.
"So, tell me 'bout this feeling you're hooked on," he prompted, hopefully.
"Hooked on a feeling," Buffy began singing again and Spike covered her mouth again.
"None o' that caterwauling, just tell me," he instructed, pulling his hand away before she could lick it again.
"You have a bird inside you. A lark! It looks like a sparrow, but it told me: lark. That's a funny name for a bird, isn't it? We burned up and turned into a great big bonfire and all the fishies swam off!
"Dru's not a very good fisher-person. I'm a better bird burner," she informed him proudly. "So that skinny bitch can just kiss my f-f-fine, fat ass!"
Spike quirked a brow at her, slipping off to one side of her since she seemed to be winding down a bit.
"Pay money t' see that, I would," he muttered under his breath before asking, "And that fire in there, it makes you feel … what?"
"Hot! Oh, my God! It was soooo hot! Fire's like that, ya know? Even meta- meta-phor … make-believe fire. Weird, huh?
"And you're hot! Did you ever model for Abercrombie? Dawn says maybe, 'cos you totally could. You are so fucking hot."
"And all that hotness … it makes you feel?" he prodded again.
"Horny. I just want to fuck you. Can we do it again now? You're really good at it."
"In a minute, pet. First, tell me what else … maybe … there's more than my hot, tight little body that you fancy?"
"Your eyes … they're so blue. And your hair … it's so yellow. And your duster … it's black. So fucking cool!"
"So, hot and cool, eh? And that makes you feel …?"
"Lukewarm?" Buffy answered, brows furrowed, unsure.
Spike sighed and flopped over onto his back, eyes closed, utterly exasperated.
Buffy suddenly yawned widely and turned on her side.
"Was that wrong?" she asked, her voice forlorn.
"No, pet, not wrong," he assured her.
She curled and snuggled against him where he lay across the demolished bed, his lower legs hanging off the edge, feet on the floor. Spike wrapped one arm around her automatically, and she settled her head on his shoulder with a sigh of her own.
"G'night, Spike," she muttered, suddenly exhausted, her voice slurring. "I love you."
Spike's eyes flew open wide and he lifted up slightly to look down at her face, but she'd already fallen asleep. He stared at her for a long time, wondering if he had been imagining it. Had she really said it?
The words echoed in his mind, over and over, the needle stuck.
I love you.
**END NOTES**
Buffy said it! Only … she was stoned at the time. Will she ever be able to say it without being under the influence? And what about her building up the light within Spike's soul and freeing William from the metaphorical confines of the little, injured lark? What might that lead to?
Thank you so much for reading! I hope you're still enjoying the story! Please stop in and let me know, I'd seriously love to hear from you!
Thanks also to my wonderful friend, PaganBaby, for sharing her talents with me. Her beta skillz are simply superb - any mistakes here are mine because I just can't stop fiddling!
More to come soon!