Absolution in Vein
By Moirae
E-mail: moirae_13@hotmail.com
Rating: R
Disclaimer: In Joss we trust. They don't belong to me. Please don't sue.
Spoilers: Season 5, post "Blood Ties." Riley is gone, but Spike hasn't made any admissions of love to Buffy.
Description: B/S Buffy wrestles with inexplicable dreams while she and Spike are trapped together.
Feedback: Would love it! Thanks for the reviews I've already received. Keep it up--they make me write faster. ^_^
Author's note: See Chapter one for notes on Christian references.
Chapter 2: Dreams, Death and Desire
~Created in His image, from the dust of the earth...
Bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh...~
Scavenger birds circle high above Golgotha in anticipation of the coming feast. With unfaltering dedication to their pray they linger far longer than the bulk of the human rabble gathered at the base of the hill since midday. Bored by the slow death of the three men staked in front of them, most have retreated to their dismal hovels and barren lives. What remains is a scattered accumulation of the most devoted or the least enterprising--the former, determined to finish what they have begun, the latter, too listless to find other employment.
Sentries form a broken fence around the crucified forms, supporting themselves on otherwise unemployed spears or shifting foot to foot under the angry sun. For most of these soldiers, death is a familiar companion. It accompanies them in battle, stands watch with them in the weary night, and follows them into dreaming. It is the pulse and breath of their lives--and still, none are at ease with its lingering stench.
Magdalen stands away from the other onlookers, a graceful marble statue amid a sea of dull, clay formations. Her cerulean eyes never leave the gaunt figure in the center of the trio, and in waves of lucidity, his gaze meets hers--a mixture of pain, passion, and acceptance blazing in its depths. His skin is ashen and taut with dehydration, and he has long since lost the strength to fight the flies swarming his face and body. From his wrists and ankles rivulets of blood anoint the earth, swelling in crimson pools before merging with the dusty surface of the hill. She examines his outspread form, suffering etched on his face, and swallows a hint of bile rising in her throat.
In a moment of indulgent escape, Magdalen opens the caverns of her memory and roams through them. The lives she has lead, the people she has been, flash before her eyes.
whore, lover, disciple...
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Through thatched walls, she hears the strangled sounds of desperation and lust--the air is heavy with the smell of sex. She reclines on rough cotton matting and idly fingers her robe, awaiting her next patron. This day is like any other in her vile life--a series of sweaty embraces followed by an even more dreadful solitude--and she again contemplates withdrawing altogether. But there is no escape for God's little fallen angel--she is tainted with the curse of her sin as if a devil resided inside her lithe frame, and she fears what tortures she might face even in death.
Suddenly, a shadow from the hallway slides into her room. The figure pauses just inside the door and for a moment her breath fails her. He studies her with a look of longing and... hope. His very presense suggests divinity, and reflected deep in his hazel eyes is the promise of her redemption. She reaches out for his hand and wordlessly he leads her out of hell...
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Candlelight flickers in the quiet room, casting the dancing shadow of the lovers' intertwined bodies against a clay wall. They move in unison, mindful of nothing but the feel of flesh against flesh and the sweet scent of their coupling. Their oceanic rhythm rides over wave after wave of bliss until the rising tide in both of them swells to its peak and breaks, crashing down in ecstasy. Silent minutes pass while their passion ebbs and she falls into a dreamy trance. She is reborn in his embrace, his name a prayer on her lips...
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
In another room she sits among his followers and shares the Passover meal. Bread is broken and wine is poured. She basks in the knowledge that she is his beloved and will follow him to the ends of the earth. But theirs is another fate. With horror she listens to his determined speech. Tonight it will begin--betrayal and death and sacrifice--and none may stop it. His words fall on the shocked ears of his disciples, but he silences all protest. Within the depths of the glass of wine before her, she is certain she can see his grim destiny unfolding. Silently, she drinks from it.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
A movement from the sentries startles Magdalen to the present. In silent agreement, two guards leave their stationary post for the first time since their arrival and ascend the hill to the wasted men at its crest. In the east, the scarlet orb of the sun lingers on the horizon, casting its dying hue on the broken peaks of Israeli mountains and bleeding into the somber twilight sky. Night approaches, and with it the death sentence of the crucified forms with be completed.
With horror Magdalen realizes what the sentries intend to do and she deserts her position among the bystanders, rushing toward the lumbering row of guards in a powerful fury. With a strangled cry, she crashes into the immobile forms at the foot of the hill and their faces alight with amusement at the small woman's sudden outburst. She thrusts her hands around the wall of bodies and reaches futilely for her love--her life--willing the men who approach him to abandon their task. They ignore her pleas and continue their trek up the hill.
For the first time today, the flood of tears threatening her eyes breaks, and a torrent flows down her cheeks, splashing onto the tunic of the man restraining her. The reality of impending death has suddenly smashed through her thinly veiled wall of denial, and she sobs in violent bursts, her control dissolving in a monsoon of grief.
Her frantic gaze travels over the tableau in front of her--three outstretched sacrifices flanked by their military assassins--and when her eyes reach the figure in the middle, he meets her with a piercing stare. His calm expression quiets her lament and urges her to find peace. With shame she realizes the selfishness of this outburst--her tears cannot help him now; he needs her strength to see him through this. She steps away from the sentries and offers an apologetic smile, wiping the offending streams from her face.
It is swift. The guards mean merely to end the criminals' suffering, not to torture them further. The two men on either side of him expire quickly and he watches the soldier approach him without regret. She is there. She will carry on in his name--they are bound forever. Bound by blood. Without warning, the blade of the staff slips into his side.
"It is done."
As the last of the crimson sun is swallowed by the mountain range, Magdalen steadies her shaking limbs and looks into the dimming eyes of the man she loves.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Buffy crashed out of sleep and sat up with a violent start.
"Oh my god..."
Her breath came in ragged bursts and her heart hammered against her ribcage.
"What? Who?...What's wrong?" Spike had been torn from sleep by her outburst and now scanned the room blearily for signs of danger.
"That can't be." She ignored his questions and continued in a private meditation. "That's not possible."
"What's not possible, luv? What's going on?" He was standing now, slowly gaining his senses and slightly irritated at being surprised out of slumber.
"What?" Buffy noticed the lean vampire hovering above her and came back to reality. "Oh. Nothing, Spike. I'm sorry. It was just a dream."
She was not going to get off that easy. "Powerful dream, pet, to have you all shaken up. Was it a prophecy?" He could feel her furious heartbeat and unconsciously he licked his lips. "Did you see how we might get out of here?"
"Prophecy?" Shaky fingers combed over her scalp as she recalled the details of the disturbing dream. "No, I don't think so. This felt like the past. Like something that happened a long time ago. But I was there. It was me." Confusion mounted in her voice. "But that can't be true--there's no way."
Spike sensed her rising anxiety and knelt down in an awkward parody of compassion. "It's okay, pet. I'm sure it was just a dream. Nothing to get upset about." Unconsciously, he reached a hand to her back and tried to sooth the tension from her shoulders. Her skin scorched his cool hand, striking him with the reality of who he was touching, and regretfully he pulled away.
She barely noticed the gesture. "It felt so real."
The shaken figure in front of him was quite the enigma. Buffy rarely let her guard down around Spike, and he wasn't sure what to make of the fact that these unusual emotional collapses were occurring with more frequency. The stress of her mother's illness and Riley's sudden departure surely accounted for most of it, but her willingness to share this vulnerability with her former enemy mystified him.
Spike settled himself next to her and instantly realized his mistake. Her blood thrummed against her skin, and he was painfully reminded that it had been over twenty-four hours since he had last fed. Momentarily subduing his demon, he tried to focus on the matter at hand. "What was it about?"
"About?" Spike's proximity suddenly made itself apparent to Buffy and she shrunk from him, drawing a familiar curtain over her anxiety. "Nothing, Spike. I'm fine. Sorry I woke you."
Disgusted, the vampire stood. "Right. You've got it all under control. Everything's just peachy in Buffyland." He pulled a cigarette from the pocket of his black t-shirt and strode back to 'his side' of the cave, avoiding the tangle of thin sunbeams now scattered throughout. He was sick of her obstinate self-reliance and he wasn't going to let her get away with it this time. Ruthlessly, he attacked her. "That's your bloody mantra now isn't it?--'I'm fine, Mom. I'm fine, Giles. I'm fine, Spike.' Say it enough times and you'll come to believe it."
"What the hell do you know about anything?!" With a furious flash of blond, Buffy was on her feet. She refused to be pulled into his stupid mind games--pretending he cared about her one minute, ripping her apart the next. "I had a dream. Big deal. You don't know anything about me or what I'm going through so you can just fuck off with your psychotherapy bullshit."
"Touchy, touchy, luv." The cherry tip of his cigarette flared. Theatrically, he addressed an invisible confidant, "She doth protest too much methinks."
"What is this?" Buffy examined him suspiciously. "Why do you care about what I'm dreaming? About how I feel? Has that chip given you a mental lapse? Because the Spike I know hates me and my friends and wouldn't give a rats ass about my problems."
"You know fuck-all about me, Slayer." Couldn't she see how he felt by now? It had been a great deal of time since he had felt anything resembling hate towards this fiery girl. "You think I haven't learned a thing or two poncing around with you silly twits? I know enough to see that you are falling apart at the seams and if you don't pull it together, something's going to come bite you in the arse." His steal blue eyes took in their stone prison, and with dawning realization, he said, "But I guess it already has."
Buffy's fury waxed and her face set in a threatening grimace. "I should have staked you years ago."
Spike's voice was frozen. "That song is getting old. Stop badgering me with your empty threats and actually do something, if you think you can."
In a flash, she was across the room and pummeling into his frame. Spike abandoned his cigarette as she crashed into him, their tangled bodies tumbling in a heap against a hard stone wall. He grabbed her wrists in a defensive measure and they rolled, fighting for dominance. Careful not to hurt her and activate the chip, he used her momentum against her and gained the upper hand. When they came to a halt, Spike was positioned over her thighs, pinning her arms to the floor.
She glared up at him, just inches from his face, her eyes pools of hatred and mouth a slash of rage. He smirked arrogantly, his sharp cheekbones carved in self-satisfaction. "Look who's on top..."
"Get off me, you bastard," she spat.
Her body hummed against his and Spike was assaulted by a kaleidoscope of sensations: breath and flesh, blood and arousal, anger and frustration and lust and life. The pure essence of life that flowed from this creature was intoxicating, and he wanted to drink her to the last.
"No... I rather like this... I mean, I've done slayers," he murmured, eyeing her hungrily. "But I've never *done* slayers." The barriers of their relationship were dangerously close to crumbling, but he just couldn't care.
Buffy struggled against his fierce grip to no avail. Her fury was rapidly bleeding into another type of passion and an unwelcome flush crept up her skin. "You disgust me."
"Funny way of showing it." Molesting eyes traveled down the soft hollow of her throat and across the bare expanse of her chest, teasing over her suddenly inadequate white tank top. "I can smell you," he purred, inhaling deeply for emphasis. "Get off on violence, do we? Or is it just me?"
Mortified, she shifted under him and squeezed her legs together to mask the evidence of her lust pooling there, but the movement exposed a greater problem as she recognized with horror the pressing issue between his own legs. Reigning herself in, she managed to stammer, "Not in your wildest."
"Oh, but I thought we were talking about *your* wildest, luv." With that, he smashed down on her lips in a violent kiss. He punished her mouth with his fury and lust, tugging at her lips until she opened the gates and engaged in battle with his tongue. At first Buffy was too shocked to respond, but soon enough, shock was replaced by desire and she devoured him with equal fury.
The cave echoed with the sounds of their dueling kiss, throaty growls and lecherous purrs giving birth to a score of erotic malice.
After a thorough exploration, his mouth abandoned its original target and trailed a bruising path down her chin and neck, alternating wet strokes of his tongue and blunt nips of his teeth. When he reached the hollow of her throat, his demon battered for control and came to the fore, re-sculpting his forehead in irregular ridges and drawing razored teeth into his mouth.
Spike's grip on her wrists shifted--blackened nails raked over fleshy pink palms before their probing fingers met and twisted into a macabre embrace. Buffy writhed under him, pressing her hips against his and arching her neck into his mouth's assault.
His elongated incisors scraped a path along her neck--trailing twin red welts in their wake--until they reached the hint of scar tissue that marked her as another's. This he paid special attention to, teasing it with dangerously-extended fangs, punishing it with violent laps of his tongue--as though evidence of its memory could be eradicated by his perverse ministrations.
As though he could claim her for his own.
It was the sigh that undid him. Buffy took in his attentions and she lost herself. The world faded around her, and this moment--his touch, his kiss--came into blinding focus. The last of her reserve was abandoned in his violent caress and, involuntarily, she let out a sound of pure sensuality. It welled up from the very core of her being, lacking savagery and hatred, and reveling in the pleasure of their embrace.
And it utterly terrified him.
Brutally, Spike was driven to the present--brought to full awareness of the woman that lay beneath him (the enemy that was *moaning* into him)--and he flung himself off of her like a bullet. He flattened himself against a stone wall and peered at her incomprehensible expression.
Buffy was stunned. She felt the loss of his embrace and, foggily, her brain tried to make sense of it. Her forest-colored eyes widened in horror as she realized what she had done, and in a moment she was on her feet, trying to banish the memory of his touch from her skin. She pulled her arms around herself and backed away, unable to break the thread between their gaze. Spike rose shakily to his feet as the demon retreated. Two words expressed it all.
"Oh fuck."
TBC...
By Moirae
E-mail: moirae_13@hotmail.com
Rating: R
Disclaimer: In Joss we trust. They don't belong to me. Please don't sue.
Spoilers: Season 5, post "Blood Ties." Riley is gone, but Spike hasn't made any admissions of love to Buffy.
Description: B/S Buffy wrestles with inexplicable dreams while she and Spike are trapped together.
Feedback: Would love it! Thanks for the reviews I've already received. Keep it up--they make me write faster. ^_^
Author's note: See Chapter one for notes on Christian references.
Chapter 2: Dreams, Death and Desire
~Created in His image, from the dust of the earth...
Bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh...~
Scavenger birds circle high above Golgotha in anticipation of the coming feast. With unfaltering dedication to their pray they linger far longer than the bulk of the human rabble gathered at the base of the hill since midday. Bored by the slow death of the three men staked in front of them, most have retreated to their dismal hovels and barren lives. What remains is a scattered accumulation of the most devoted or the least enterprising--the former, determined to finish what they have begun, the latter, too listless to find other employment.
Sentries form a broken fence around the crucified forms, supporting themselves on otherwise unemployed spears or shifting foot to foot under the angry sun. For most of these soldiers, death is a familiar companion. It accompanies them in battle, stands watch with them in the weary night, and follows them into dreaming. It is the pulse and breath of their lives--and still, none are at ease with its lingering stench.
Magdalen stands away from the other onlookers, a graceful marble statue amid a sea of dull, clay formations. Her cerulean eyes never leave the gaunt figure in the center of the trio, and in waves of lucidity, his gaze meets hers--a mixture of pain, passion, and acceptance blazing in its depths. His skin is ashen and taut with dehydration, and he has long since lost the strength to fight the flies swarming his face and body. From his wrists and ankles rivulets of blood anoint the earth, swelling in crimson pools before merging with the dusty surface of the hill. She examines his outspread form, suffering etched on his face, and swallows a hint of bile rising in her throat.
In a moment of indulgent escape, Magdalen opens the caverns of her memory and roams through them. The lives she has lead, the people she has been, flash before her eyes.
whore, lover, disciple...
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Through thatched walls, she hears the strangled sounds of desperation and lust--the air is heavy with the smell of sex. She reclines on rough cotton matting and idly fingers her robe, awaiting her next patron. This day is like any other in her vile life--a series of sweaty embraces followed by an even more dreadful solitude--and she again contemplates withdrawing altogether. But there is no escape for God's little fallen angel--she is tainted with the curse of her sin as if a devil resided inside her lithe frame, and she fears what tortures she might face even in death.
Suddenly, a shadow from the hallway slides into her room. The figure pauses just inside the door and for a moment her breath fails her. He studies her with a look of longing and... hope. His very presense suggests divinity, and reflected deep in his hazel eyes is the promise of her redemption. She reaches out for his hand and wordlessly he leads her out of hell...
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Candlelight flickers in the quiet room, casting the dancing shadow of the lovers' intertwined bodies against a clay wall. They move in unison, mindful of nothing but the feel of flesh against flesh and the sweet scent of their coupling. Their oceanic rhythm rides over wave after wave of bliss until the rising tide in both of them swells to its peak and breaks, crashing down in ecstasy. Silent minutes pass while their passion ebbs and she falls into a dreamy trance. She is reborn in his embrace, his name a prayer on her lips...
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
In another room she sits among his followers and shares the Passover meal. Bread is broken and wine is poured. She basks in the knowledge that she is his beloved and will follow him to the ends of the earth. But theirs is another fate. With horror she listens to his determined speech. Tonight it will begin--betrayal and death and sacrifice--and none may stop it. His words fall on the shocked ears of his disciples, but he silences all protest. Within the depths of the glass of wine before her, she is certain she can see his grim destiny unfolding. Silently, she drinks from it.
~ * ~ * ~ * ~
A movement from the sentries startles Magdalen to the present. In silent agreement, two guards leave their stationary post for the first time since their arrival and ascend the hill to the wasted men at its crest. In the east, the scarlet orb of the sun lingers on the horizon, casting its dying hue on the broken peaks of Israeli mountains and bleeding into the somber twilight sky. Night approaches, and with it the death sentence of the crucified forms with be completed.
With horror Magdalen realizes what the sentries intend to do and she deserts her position among the bystanders, rushing toward the lumbering row of guards in a powerful fury. With a strangled cry, she crashes into the immobile forms at the foot of the hill and their faces alight with amusement at the small woman's sudden outburst. She thrusts her hands around the wall of bodies and reaches futilely for her love--her life--willing the men who approach him to abandon their task. They ignore her pleas and continue their trek up the hill.
For the first time today, the flood of tears threatening her eyes breaks, and a torrent flows down her cheeks, splashing onto the tunic of the man restraining her. The reality of impending death has suddenly smashed through her thinly veiled wall of denial, and she sobs in violent bursts, her control dissolving in a monsoon of grief.
Her frantic gaze travels over the tableau in front of her--three outstretched sacrifices flanked by their military assassins--and when her eyes reach the figure in the middle, he meets her with a piercing stare. His calm expression quiets her lament and urges her to find peace. With shame she realizes the selfishness of this outburst--her tears cannot help him now; he needs her strength to see him through this. She steps away from the sentries and offers an apologetic smile, wiping the offending streams from her face.
It is swift. The guards mean merely to end the criminals' suffering, not to torture them further. The two men on either side of him expire quickly and he watches the soldier approach him without regret. She is there. She will carry on in his name--they are bound forever. Bound by blood. Without warning, the blade of the staff slips into his side.
"It is done."
As the last of the crimson sun is swallowed by the mountain range, Magdalen steadies her shaking limbs and looks into the dimming eyes of the man she loves.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Buffy crashed out of sleep and sat up with a violent start.
"Oh my god..."
Her breath came in ragged bursts and her heart hammered against her ribcage.
"What? Who?...What's wrong?" Spike had been torn from sleep by her outburst and now scanned the room blearily for signs of danger.
"That can't be." She ignored his questions and continued in a private meditation. "That's not possible."
"What's not possible, luv? What's going on?" He was standing now, slowly gaining his senses and slightly irritated at being surprised out of slumber.
"What?" Buffy noticed the lean vampire hovering above her and came back to reality. "Oh. Nothing, Spike. I'm sorry. It was just a dream."
She was not going to get off that easy. "Powerful dream, pet, to have you all shaken up. Was it a prophecy?" He could feel her furious heartbeat and unconsciously he licked his lips. "Did you see how we might get out of here?"
"Prophecy?" Shaky fingers combed over her scalp as she recalled the details of the disturbing dream. "No, I don't think so. This felt like the past. Like something that happened a long time ago. But I was there. It was me." Confusion mounted in her voice. "But that can't be true--there's no way."
Spike sensed her rising anxiety and knelt down in an awkward parody of compassion. "It's okay, pet. I'm sure it was just a dream. Nothing to get upset about." Unconsciously, he reached a hand to her back and tried to sooth the tension from her shoulders. Her skin scorched his cool hand, striking him with the reality of who he was touching, and regretfully he pulled away.
She barely noticed the gesture. "It felt so real."
The shaken figure in front of him was quite the enigma. Buffy rarely let her guard down around Spike, and he wasn't sure what to make of the fact that these unusual emotional collapses were occurring with more frequency. The stress of her mother's illness and Riley's sudden departure surely accounted for most of it, but her willingness to share this vulnerability with her former enemy mystified him.
Spike settled himself next to her and instantly realized his mistake. Her blood thrummed against her skin, and he was painfully reminded that it had been over twenty-four hours since he had last fed. Momentarily subduing his demon, he tried to focus on the matter at hand. "What was it about?"
"About?" Spike's proximity suddenly made itself apparent to Buffy and she shrunk from him, drawing a familiar curtain over her anxiety. "Nothing, Spike. I'm fine. Sorry I woke you."
Disgusted, the vampire stood. "Right. You've got it all under control. Everything's just peachy in Buffyland." He pulled a cigarette from the pocket of his black t-shirt and strode back to 'his side' of the cave, avoiding the tangle of thin sunbeams now scattered throughout. He was sick of her obstinate self-reliance and he wasn't going to let her get away with it this time. Ruthlessly, he attacked her. "That's your bloody mantra now isn't it?--'I'm fine, Mom. I'm fine, Giles. I'm fine, Spike.' Say it enough times and you'll come to believe it."
"What the hell do you know about anything?!" With a furious flash of blond, Buffy was on her feet. She refused to be pulled into his stupid mind games--pretending he cared about her one minute, ripping her apart the next. "I had a dream. Big deal. You don't know anything about me or what I'm going through so you can just fuck off with your psychotherapy bullshit."
"Touchy, touchy, luv." The cherry tip of his cigarette flared. Theatrically, he addressed an invisible confidant, "She doth protest too much methinks."
"What is this?" Buffy examined him suspiciously. "Why do you care about what I'm dreaming? About how I feel? Has that chip given you a mental lapse? Because the Spike I know hates me and my friends and wouldn't give a rats ass about my problems."
"You know fuck-all about me, Slayer." Couldn't she see how he felt by now? It had been a great deal of time since he had felt anything resembling hate towards this fiery girl. "You think I haven't learned a thing or two poncing around with you silly twits? I know enough to see that you are falling apart at the seams and if you don't pull it together, something's going to come bite you in the arse." His steal blue eyes took in their stone prison, and with dawning realization, he said, "But I guess it already has."
Buffy's fury waxed and her face set in a threatening grimace. "I should have staked you years ago."
Spike's voice was frozen. "That song is getting old. Stop badgering me with your empty threats and actually do something, if you think you can."
In a flash, she was across the room and pummeling into his frame. Spike abandoned his cigarette as she crashed into him, their tangled bodies tumbling in a heap against a hard stone wall. He grabbed her wrists in a defensive measure and they rolled, fighting for dominance. Careful not to hurt her and activate the chip, he used her momentum against her and gained the upper hand. When they came to a halt, Spike was positioned over her thighs, pinning her arms to the floor.
She glared up at him, just inches from his face, her eyes pools of hatred and mouth a slash of rage. He smirked arrogantly, his sharp cheekbones carved in self-satisfaction. "Look who's on top..."
"Get off me, you bastard," she spat.
Her body hummed against his and Spike was assaulted by a kaleidoscope of sensations: breath and flesh, blood and arousal, anger and frustration and lust and life. The pure essence of life that flowed from this creature was intoxicating, and he wanted to drink her to the last.
"No... I rather like this... I mean, I've done slayers," he murmured, eyeing her hungrily. "But I've never *done* slayers." The barriers of their relationship were dangerously close to crumbling, but he just couldn't care.
Buffy struggled against his fierce grip to no avail. Her fury was rapidly bleeding into another type of passion and an unwelcome flush crept up her skin. "You disgust me."
"Funny way of showing it." Molesting eyes traveled down the soft hollow of her throat and across the bare expanse of her chest, teasing over her suddenly inadequate white tank top. "I can smell you," he purred, inhaling deeply for emphasis. "Get off on violence, do we? Or is it just me?"
Mortified, she shifted under him and squeezed her legs together to mask the evidence of her lust pooling there, but the movement exposed a greater problem as she recognized with horror the pressing issue between his own legs. Reigning herself in, she managed to stammer, "Not in your wildest."
"Oh, but I thought we were talking about *your* wildest, luv." With that, he smashed down on her lips in a violent kiss. He punished her mouth with his fury and lust, tugging at her lips until she opened the gates and engaged in battle with his tongue. At first Buffy was too shocked to respond, but soon enough, shock was replaced by desire and she devoured him with equal fury.
The cave echoed with the sounds of their dueling kiss, throaty growls and lecherous purrs giving birth to a score of erotic malice.
After a thorough exploration, his mouth abandoned its original target and trailed a bruising path down her chin and neck, alternating wet strokes of his tongue and blunt nips of his teeth. When he reached the hollow of her throat, his demon battered for control and came to the fore, re-sculpting his forehead in irregular ridges and drawing razored teeth into his mouth.
Spike's grip on her wrists shifted--blackened nails raked over fleshy pink palms before their probing fingers met and twisted into a macabre embrace. Buffy writhed under him, pressing her hips against his and arching her neck into his mouth's assault.
His elongated incisors scraped a path along her neck--trailing twin red welts in their wake--until they reached the hint of scar tissue that marked her as another's. This he paid special attention to, teasing it with dangerously-extended fangs, punishing it with violent laps of his tongue--as though evidence of its memory could be eradicated by his perverse ministrations.
As though he could claim her for his own.
It was the sigh that undid him. Buffy took in his attentions and she lost herself. The world faded around her, and this moment--his touch, his kiss--came into blinding focus. The last of her reserve was abandoned in his violent caress and, involuntarily, she let out a sound of pure sensuality. It welled up from the very core of her being, lacking savagery and hatred, and reveling in the pleasure of their embrace.
And it utterly terrified him.
Brutally, Spike was driven to the present--brought to full awareness of the woman that lay beneath him (the enemy that was *moaning* into him)--and he flung himself off of her like a bullet. He flattened himself against a stone wall and peered at her incomprehensible expression.
Buffy was stunned. She felt the loss of his embrace and, foggily, her brain tried to make sense of it. Her forest-colored eyes widened in horror as she realized what she had done, and in a moment she was on her feet, trying to banish the memory of his touch from her skin. She pulled her arms around herself and backed away, unable to break the thread between their gaze. Spike rose shakily to his feet as the demon retreated. Two words expressed it all.
"Oh fuck."
TBC...