"You do realize that I'm not even technically old enough to get into half the places you play?" she challenged.
"Yet you've managed to sweet-talk your way around the burly bouncers at both Smash and Demo and I believe the Hellmouth as well," he pointed out to her.
She still had that shy smile on her lips.
"I do have a way with big, scary men, I suppose," she said cheekily. "Are you propositioning me?"
He choked a little at her play on words. She had no idea how he would love to proposition her. And in some of the most impure ways imaginable.
"Just asking," he smirked. "You'd have to get the thumbs up from my mates, of course. Oz and Xander. But I don't see that really being much of an obstacle. Pretty girl, great voice. Gits would be fools not to chomp at the bit."
She was worrying her bottom lip, refusing to make eye contact with him. Not that he'd be able to tell through her dark sunglasses.
"You really think I could fill the pointy stilletoes Goth-Girl left behind?" she asked him, uncertain.
It did thrill her, though, that if she was in Spike's band she'd see him all the time. And it gave her something to look forward to outside of being used by Cordy and Harm and being ignored by her mother.
"Don't want you to be like Goth-Girl," he told her. "Want you to be Buffy. I like Buffy a lot better."
She never thought she'd hear him say the words 'like' and 'Buffy' in the same sentence. Sure, she was really reaching, but it made her feel warm all over.
They made the remaining ten minutes of the trip in a relaxed silence. As Spike pulled into the parking garage across from the beach access, she was jolted back to the reality that he would be seeing her in a bathing suit. Shit! Should have worn that one-piece, she thought. The bikini she had chosen would allow maximum sun-access, but it left little to the imagination. She had bra and panty sets made from more material than the tiny black string bikini she was wearing.
Spike noticed how different Buffy was from his step-sister and her friends. She was far from Goth, but she tended to dress in the darker spectrum of colors. She wore a lot of black, red, grey and dark purples and maroons. But her skin was sun-kissed and her hair was full of shimmering light.
He remembered when he had first met her. She was only 12. He was 15. She was the girl with the golden smile, swathed in pastel pinks and shades of peach. She even had her hair in adorable twin braids. It seemed that she slipped further and further into the darkness as the years wore on, but her smile was infallible. If anything, it had gotten even more beautiful and bright. At least when he saw her, that's the first thing he noticed.
Now, as they grabbed their bags from the back seat of the DeSoto before raising the top, he started noticing other things that had blossomed as much as her smile. Soft, feminine curves were visible under that loose, black concert t-shirt.
He thought back to when she'd acquired the shirt. She went to The Damned concert. Alone. And she ran into him there. He was with Oz, Dru and Xander. Dru had been extremely catty when he'd asked Buffy to come sit with them. And Buffy had met her with claws of her own.
"Thanks, Will, but no," she'd smiled sweetly before turning to meet Dru's fleying eyes. "Oh, but don't worry. I'm sure I'll be able to feel the daggers you're shooting just fine from where I'm sitting." And then she walked away without a backward glance.
He couldn't help but snicker a little as Dru scowled and asked what the Hell her problem was. And then she started digging into to the whole "Will" thing.
"She talks to you like she knows you, my Spike," Dru had groused. "Yet she calls you by that wanker's name that doesn't hardly suit you any more. Tsk! Tsk! Such little girl dreams. She reeks of your past. And the stench is like rotting flesh."
Dru had a way with melodrama. He had felt sorry for Oz when things finally went pear-shaped. As much as Oz should have seen it coming, it still hit him like a bitch when the cold, hard truth punched him square in the nose: Drusilla was the uber-slut.
Buffy began spreading towels out on the sand as Spike stood watching her. She'd managed to pilfer three or four of the larger beach towels from the linen closet and was trying to cover as much of the soft, sugary sand as she could with them.
"A little help would be nice, Will," she shot at him lightly.
He started smoothing out the towels and then looked to her for approval.
"For a pasty little man, you do pretty well at beach towel arrangement," she joked. "Definately passable."
Wise-ass, he thought as he lifted his t-shirt over his head and wadded it up into a ball to use as a pillow. And then all his thoughts turned to mush as Buffy began pulling her own t-shirt over her head.
Holy shit, she'd gone and grown breasts. Not that he hadn't noticed that she'd grown them before, but to see them covered by nothing more than small triangles of black fabric certainly put things into perspective. She was no longer that little girl in pastels and pigtails. She was a young woman with... oh, fuck! She was taking off her shorts. More skin... less material.
He willed himself to look away and think about anything but her... Freddy Krueger... worm-infested apples... Grandma in a g-string. God, any less material and that's exactly what Buffy would be wearing. She threw her shirt and shorts on the towels next to him and then began rummaging through her bag for suntan oil. His senses were invaded by her cherry-vanilla scent as her clothes landed next to him with a soft thud.
She flipped open the top of the Coppertone bottle and squeezed a large amount of oil into her palm. She seemed unaware of him laying there staring at her as she rubbed the oil into her legs and arms, then onto her chest and belly. And then she was saying something, but he was too dazed to make it out. Saying something about the oil? To him?
"Earth to Will? Hey!" She said sharply as she tossed the bottle down to him. She laid down on her belly and then turned to shoot him a mischievous smile. "Do my back, Will?" she asked sweetly having no clue what she was really asking.
He couldn't form a coherent thought while he was looking at her and now she wanted him to pour oil over her tanned, firm body and slide his hands over it? He nodded dumbly and grabbed the bottle. He fumbled with the flip-top and then squirted some of the fragrant liquid into his palm. He could feel his hand start to shake as he moved it to the soft spot between her shoulder blades. She didn't seem to notice his trepidation.
Jesus Christ, Mate! You're a grown man! It's just a little oil between friends, he silently scolded himself. Easier thought than carried through, though. His hands continued to tremble as he slid them over her golden skin, dipping down to the small of her back and stopping at the waist-line of her bikini bottom. He was suprised at what he saw peeking out from the taut black material. Little Buffy got herself inked, he grinned as he wondered how many people knew about the little dragonflies dancing around her tailbone.
"You stopped," she said dreamily.
"I'm done," he replied softly.
"Oh." She sounded a little embarrassed. "I guess you are. I, uh... guess I went all Jello-kneed with the back rubbing. Don't mind me."
He rolled back to his own side of the beach towels and sighed. Did she just say he made her Jello-kneed?
"Any more secrets you care to share?" he asked her.
Huh? Had she just revealed a secret?
"The, uh... bit of ink on your backside," he said pointedly.
"Oh, that." That secret. "It, uh... well, it was originally meant to piss off my mother. And then it turned into this weird fascination with pain and with proving to myself that I was strong enough to endure a needle tapping into my spine for over an hour. And then it turned into the realization that I'm a little bit in love with pain." Way to go, Buffy. That'll scare him off.
She could hear him chuckling beside her. What the Hell was so funny? That wasn't supposed to be funny. He wasn't supposed to laugh. He was supposed to go "Bloody Hell, Summers... nutter much?" Or whatever little Britishism fitted her declaration.
"What's so freakin' funny?" she asked, propping herself up on her elbows. He shut up immediately.
Damned cleavage. It sobered him up as soon as he got an eyeful of it. Made him want nothing more than to bury his head between the soft pillows of flesh and...
"Answer me, Will!" She was still talking. "What the hell is so funny?"
"Nothing," he mumbled. "Nothing at all. Just was surprised to see you inked up... and more surprised to hear your reason, is all. Got a couple of my own. Not like I can't relate to the whole pain is pleasure connection, Love. Wouldn't have gone under the needle myself if a part of me didn't feel that way."
"Oh... so you don't think I'm a nutter? I mean nuts?" she corrected herself at the appearance of his raised eyebrow. He was definately amused by her use of British slang.
"Ah, no. Don't fancy you to be a nutter one bit," he grinned. "'Sides, you were just being honest. One of the things I like about you, Kitten."
He'd never called her Kitten before. She found herself wanting to purr in contentment at his new nickname for her. And then she had a wicked idea. He liked honesty?
"Hey, Will," she whispered. "I have an idea."
'Hmm, what's that, Pet?" he asked, sleepily.
"For the rest of the day, let's be honest. No lies. We can ask each other anything and we have to always answer with the truth." She hoped her little game didn't backfire in her own face.
"Thought you were always honest with me?" he teased. He caught the flash of pink as it crossed her cheeks and nodded. "Okay, then. Honest, it is. You think I'm hot, don't you?" he challenged, fire blazing in his blue eyes.
Go figure.
"Uh, conceited much?" was her quick response.
"Eh-eh-eh... got to be honest, Love," he pushed.
"I was being honest. Conceited. Much?" she repeated.
"I'll let that one go, then. For now."
"Besides, that's a rhetorical question," she grumbled as she turned over to her back.
"How's that?" he asked.
"Because it's one you seem to think you know the answer to already," she shot back, her voice teasing.
She lay there silently for a few moments as the grin spread across her lips. She could still feel him watching her even though her eyes were closed.
"Okay, okay," she giggled. "You know you're hot, Will. For a pasty little man."
"Har bloody har, Goldilocks," he teased right back.
Buffy let herself be lulled by the warm sun, soft breeze and soft crashing of the ocean's waves. She could feel herself slipping into sleep. It wasn't until she felt the icy cold of water cascading over her heated skin that she realized just how deeply she had fallen into dreamland.
Spike stood above her, tongue curled behind his teeth, with a borrowed child's sand pail in his hands. As soon as he saw her eyes widen in shock, he dropped it and ran toward the ocean, Buffy just a few feet behind him.
"You are so dead, William Nigel Giles!" she shouted as she followed him into the cold sea.
He tucked into a wave as it rolled toward the shore and she found herself searching for that shock of blonde hair to emerge. When it didn't, she began to dart her eyes around frantically.
"Will, this isn't funny," she called to him. A few more seconds elapsed and she called out again, this time her voice was tinged with a bit of fear.
"Will, where are you? This isn't fun--"
She felt something latch around her ankle and she was pulled swiftly into the shallow water beneath her. She landed, with a splash, on her behind. Panic had firmly settled in and then she saw him. And a little bubble of rage replaced the panic in a heartbeat.
"Jesus Christ, Will!" she yelled, pummeling his chest with her small fists. "That was so not funny!"
She felt warm tears stinging the backs of her eyelids and fought furiously to keep them at bay. She was still trying to push him away, but it only made him tighten his grip around her waist even more.
"Buffy?" He was trying to force her to look into his eyes, but she knew that would be her undoing.
"Get. Off. Me. Will." she seethed. He loosened his grip, but still held her to him as the water lapped at their skin. He started wading them toward the waist-deep water.
"I'm really, really mad at you," she pouted, crossing her arms over her chest in resolve.
"Why?" He had a cocky grin plastered on his face.
"Because..." For the rest of the day, let's be honest. No lies. "Because you dumped water on me while I was asleep!" There, that wasn't a lie.
"And?" Pushy bastard.
"And what? And it made me mad," she insisted.
"Yeah. Got that part. But that's not what I'm asking about, Love," he pressed. She was trying to keep her head about her, but his strong chest settled under her hands was making it rather difficult.
"Is it because maybe Buffy was worried about Big, Bad Spike?" he asked lightly.
She bit her lip. Who's stupid tell the truth idea was this again?
"You are my friend's step-brother," she said in her own defense.
"Uh-huh," he responded, finally capturing her eyes. "And it would just break the Cheerleader's heart if I had drowned to death."
"Sure it would," she told him, not believing that herself. She wasn't even sure that Cordy had a heart.
"And what about you, Kitten?" he asked. "Would it break your heart if I had become one with the fishes?"
He was enjoying this way too much.