They made their way slowly back to her house, but their progress was interrupted every twenty feet or so by a passionate exchange of kisses. After the fifth or sixth such interlude, Spike pulled back from the heaven of her embrace to complain. "I don't see why we have to head back to your house. I may not have much in the way of a bed anymore, but there was a perfectly good horizontal surface back at the crypt - and some vertical ones, too-"
Buffy blocked any more words with her mouth on his, and he redirected his energy into returning her kiss, pulling her tightly to him. When she finally broke away, she placed her fingers on his lips to forestall any further comment on his part. "I want to go home," she said, simply. "I want to sleep - or not - in my own bed. To pretend, if only for a little while, that this is a perfectly normal relationship."
He laughed through her hand. "I thought by now you would have had enough of make-believe."
"Indulge me," she said with a smile.
"Oh, I plan to, love. Repeatedly." He drew her fingertips into his mouth and sucked on them gently, making her tremble.
It was then her turn to complain. "We'll never get home at this rate." Buffy extracted her fingers reluctantly from between his lips and tweaked his nose playfully before quickly stepping back.
"Why is it always the nose?" Spike protested, moving to recapture her. "Gonna teach somebody a lesson," he threatened.
Buffy danced away from his hold with one of the first - maybe the first - wide smile he'd seen on her face in many months. "Have to catch me first," she taunted, and broke into a run for home with Spike close at her heels all the way.
At the front door she stopped unexpectedly and spun to intercept him as he bounded up the stairs. His momentum carried them down onto the porch with her underneath him. "This is more like it," he murmured, leaning forward to kiss her again, when she suddenly clutched at his lapels and rolled them both, reversing their positions.
"You're right," she teased. "It is." Before he could recover and seize her again, she was on her feet and opening the door. Spike was on his own feet in moments and followed her through into the silent house. She gave him a conspiratorial wink and brought one finger to her lips warning him not to wake the sleepers upstairs.
They made it up the stairs with only the occasional pause to grope and clutch at each other, but when they reached Buffy's bedroom door Spike held back.
"What is it?" Buffy asked, clearly puzzled by his uncharacteristic reluctance.
"Last chance to change your mind, love," he said. "And I'll just kiss your cheek and go."
"You could do that? Now?" she asked breathlessly.
"Only just," he admitted with a grin. "But I would, if you asked."
"Well I won't," Buffy said, reaching for his hand.
"Good. Offer withdrawn." Spike pushed open the door, pulled her inside and then closed it again quietly behind them.
Once inside the room, their mouths locked together again fiercely. Buffy pushed Spike's duster back from his shoulders with both hands and he shrugged out of it, letting it fall to the floor behind him. Her hands continued down his arms, enjoying the feel of him.
Freed from the coat, his arms slipped around her to pull her closer in a crushing embrace. Buffy spread her hands on his chest and pushed away, breaking his hold to gulp deep breaths. "At least one of us here has to come up for air every now and then," she scolded.
He only laughed and then growled deep in his chest, creating vibrations that tickled her fingertips through the silken fabric of the shirt he had changed into before they left. A delicious shiver ran through her, and Spike smiled wickedly when he saw it. One by one, her nimble fingers opened the buttons of his shirt and spread it wide. When she reached the last, Buffy ran her hands up the pale sculpted muscles of his chest and over his shoulders, and the shirt followed the duster to the floor.
Spike's cool hands returned to her waist. One pressed gently into the small of her back to draw her close while the other slipped under her shirt along the firm skin of her belly to one warm, lace-covered breast. He rolled her taut nipple gently between his fingertips, making her moan low in her throat and throw her head back. Letting his fingers continue to tease her, he lunged forward and closed blunt teeth on the delicate skin of her neck, growling even more fervently. Buffy's hand closed tightly in his hair at the back of his head, holding him to her.
All of a sudden he pushed aside her bra, baring her breast to the cool air and his hot gaze. He bent and greedily sucked her hard rosy nipple between his lips, teasing it with his tongue and teeth. His other hand came up to knead the neglected breast gently, then freed it as well, suckling each eagerly in turn.
He left a trail of wet kisses down her body as the riveting scent of her growing arousal brought him to his knees. Spike's hands went to the button of her pants, opened them and pushed them and her panties down her hips while Buffy pulled her shirt and bra over her head and tossed them aside.
She stepped out of her pants where they puddled on the floor, leaving her shoes behind as well. For a moment, Spike could only gaze up at her, as a worshipper at some holy icon. He brought his hands up her bare legs and then along her back as he stood again. Buffy stepped back as though suddenly shy and turned away, bending over to pull back the sheets on the bed. He came up behind her, pressing his denim-clad hips against her sweet rounded ass. As she straightened, he skimmed his hands up to cup her breasts and pull her back close to him. His tongue delicately explored the curves of one ear when she laid her head back against his chest with a moan.
"And easy on the furniture, right?" he murmured into her ear.
"Mmm? Ah, right. There's no money in the budget for a new bed," she laughed.
He drew her more tightly against him. "I know this little place we might try later. A bit wrecked, and it still reeks a tad of smoke - but I happen to know the landlord personally, and he'll not say a word about any damage done."
"Later is good," she sighed. "But you had better be thinking about here and now, first." Buffy turned in his arms to face him again, kissing him softly before pulling away to sit on the bed. She drew her legs up and under the covers, leaving room for him beside her. His eyes never leaving hers, Spike tugged his belt open. Buffy had never realized before how erotic just the sounds of someone undressing could be. His pants and boots soon joined the collection of clothing on the floor, and he climbed in beside her - the one place he'd never thought to be welcome - and drew the covers over them both, cocooning them together.
At first Buffy simply enjoyed the feel of the cool length of him stretched out beside her, but he soon found ways to distract her with more sensations. His tongue opened her mouth as he kissed her deeply, and when his hand slipped between her thighs, her legs parted for him like water. Talented fingers entered her, moving knowingly in exactly the ways that pleased her best.
She dug her nails into his shoulders in response, marring his porcelain skin and adding to the marks she had made on him earlier. "Ah, that's it, love. Make it hurt just like that," he hissed.
Buffy cried his name into his mouth as she came hard and fast under his hand.
"Now we can take our time for a while," he sighed against her lips when she had quieted again. "And for a change." He brought his fingers to his mouth and tasted of her, smiling. She shivered at the adoration in his eyes.
Spike rolled between her spread legs and pinned her under him. She shifted slightly to accommodate the sweet burden of his weight and cradled him there, then curled warm fingers about him possessively before helping to guide him into her. He slipped deeply, silkily into her with one long, maddeningly slow thrust that made her clutch at his hair and toss her head.
"No," he whispered. "Look at me." She obeyed, mesmerized by his rough voice and intense sapphire gaze. "I told you once I could change. I didn't know then that it would be you who remade me. Everything I am-" Another forceful thrust made her gasp but she didn't look away. "Everything I might become is yours. You own me, body and-" To her surprise, he was the one who turned his face aside.
She took his face between her hands and brought him back to look at her. "Body and soul, William, I know," she said softly. "But not owned. Held in trust for you until you're free." With that, she curved one hand behind his neck to draw him near and brought her legs tightly around his waist. "I love you."
**********
Hours later, Buffy examined the painted wrought iron of the headboard ruefully. She supposed that she could use her own strength to straighten that one piece, and then the broken weld wouldn't show. His belt had held his wrists well enough without breaking, but the bed hadn't been quite so lucky.
She turned her face back to him. Their bodies had had enough of each other for a time that she felt no immediate need to reach for him again. She raised her head from where it rested on his bare chest to look at him more closely.
"Change," she demanded. "Let me see your other face."
"Love, I don't-"
"Do it."
He reached inside and summoned the will for the transformation, savouring the delicious pain of bonecrack and musclestretch as his features rearranged themselves into those of the hunter and killer. Golden eyes met green, unashamed, and curious as to her intentions.
Heartbreak gold, his eyes. This was the face she mustn't forget lay behind the face of her lover. He was a killer, as much as she was, but both of them were so much more than only that. Ironic to consider that she had finally accepted the death-dealer in her nature, just as Spike had been forced to accept he was something more than that.
She surveyed the ridges of his brow with gentle fingertips, and he closed his eyes and rumbled satisfaction at her touch. Looking back, Buffy realized she hadn't seen this face of his in anger for years, practically back to when they had first met. It was when the Initiative had placed the chip in his brain that he had changed. After that, when he fought demons and his own kind, and even when he had discovered he could fight with her after her return, he had done so in human guise. Does that make the vampire the mask now?
When he had been Randy, and she Joan, he had worn this face without even realizing it. But he'd fought with her and for her against their attackers. How could this face be his true nature if it had surprised even him?
Buffy let her fingers trail down the hollow of his cheek and into his mouth to explore there. Her fingertips examined his fangs and incisors, careful not to nick her skin on the sharp edges of his teeth. Dangerous, to let him taste my blood. But cruel, even more so, when he's given all that up for me. I won't taunt him that way. She brought her hand back to his chest.
"Looked your fill, pet? Because I don't feel any particular need to be fangy right now." She nodded, and vampire features melted back to human ones. The man looked at her quizzically. "What was that about?"
"Just something I needed to know," she replied elliptically. "Does it hurt? When you change?"
"A bit," he admitted. "'s alright - happens to fall into the category of pains I like. As you should know something about." He grinned, and tightened his arms around her. "Care for another go?"
With some effort she broke his hold and pushed back from him in mock indignation. "You promised me candles, wine and music, I recall. What happened to that?"
"What's the world coming to when a bloke can be held to every promise he made, trying to get a bird to sleep with him?" he teased. "Ah, no fair pouting, love," he said, nudging her lower lip back with his thumb. "You know I'll spend my life keeping my promises to you - and to Dawn."
And me, mine to you. Allowing herself to be appeased, she settled back into his embrace. Another go certainly seemed to be what their bodies had in mind, in any case. And another, and another, until I can't even stand. I can think of worse ways to go. Hell, I have gone in worse ways. She tilted her head up to kiss him again.