Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all characters in the show are in no way my creation. And the poem used in this fic was written by W.B Yeats.

Chapter Comments: Takes place between 'Smashed' and 'Wrecked', Season six.

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Passion and Poems

Spike was completely knackered. He was also more sated then he had ever been in his life. His entire body was completely and utterly satisfied. It practically sang in afterglow. He stretched on the floor, his leather duster spread underneath him.

The woman beside him was obviously just as satisfied. She had long since fallen asleep from exhaustion, and there was a small smile on her face that, had she been awake, she would have denied.

But Spike would forever remember the sounds the Slayer made, her screams of pleasure from his touch, and would forever remember her taste, the feeling of her soft skin, and the scent of her arousal.

Buffy had silently refused to sleep in his arms. When they had both been spent and his touch had turned tender she had turned away, turning partially onto her side and covering herself as much as she could with her leather skirt. She had retreated within herself.

He wanted to touch her again. He wanted to hold her. The cold had never bothered him before, but he wanted the warmth of her body close. And if he was honest with himself, Spike was afraid. He had just gotten a taste of something amazing; something beyond anything he had tasted before. Now he didn't know if he could ever let her go.

He had known he was damned (well, more so) the moment he knew he had fallen in love with her. Would this change anything? Was he any closer to her at all? He felt like a nancy boy, worrying if she was going to be there when he woke up.

Spike had decided not to sleep. He didn't want to sleep. No dream could have been better. There was still enough shelter from the crumbled house to keep him from the sun, which he knew was already starting to rise. He would watch his Slayer – his Lover- sleep. Tomorrow would come and bring what it would. He wouldn't know until she woke.

Watching her peaceful face, he was horrified to find William the Bloody Awful poet rising to the surface. Ridiculous sonnets were already floating through his head, but he pushed them aside. Instead, a poem written by a much better man came to mind and that one he didn't push away. He whispered it softly like a prayer.

"Had I heaven's embroidered cloths,

Enwrought with golden and silver light,

The blue and the dim and the dark cloths

Of night and light and the half-light,

I would spread the cloths under your feet"

He swallowed hard, then reached over and softly brushed some of her long golden locks away from her face, his fingertips lingering at her cheek. Just to touch her seemed like heaven.

"But I, being poor, have only my dreams;

I have spread my dreams under your feet;"

He caressed her face, then brushed his thumb across her lips, remembering their taste.

"Tread softly", he quietly begged her, thinking of what the morning would bring. "Because you tread on my dreams."