She hadn't stopped clinging to him, clawing at him, since she'd shrugged out of the wool of her sweater. Hot skin pressed against his, making his legs weaken. Even in the deep chill of the crypt's underground cave, even pressed against the cold silk sheets, everything, every part of her was burning. Burning him too it seemed, fingers no longer just under room temperature, skin no longer starkly white. Every part of Spike seemed to be thawing under her touch.
Drowning in heat. Smothered with it. Every breath she draws in pushes her breasts against his chest, soft and warm and beating with a heaving heart rate. Every breath out spilling hot air down over his skin, into his mouth as she wraps her tongue around his.
The gel had splintered from his hair under her grip, hard nails scratching his neck and scalp as they wrapped around each other tighter.
Buffy resurfaces out of a long biting kiss for air, feeling out of breath, feeling drained, arms still wrapped around his neck. The room feels like it's on a tilt and she pulls him in a bit closer to stop from slipping down underneath the spinning feeling.
She lets him kiss down her neck, when a slight chuckle escapes her lips.
"What's funny, Slayer?" Spike glances up at her, blue eyes singing in the half light, mouth still working further down over a collarbone.
"Nothing. I just didn't realise you had curls under all the hair gel." She hooks a finger through a curl, wrapping it round her finger like a little white ring.
So soft...
"Uh huh. Bed head's not a side of me you've seen before."
"I like it. Makes you look less psychotic."
"It's not a look I tend to cultivate." He nips at her finger as it slides down over his cheek, grinning meanly. "Prefer the sweet schoolboy curls, do you?"
"It's definitely more accessible than the full helmet." She runs both hands through his hair up from the nape of his neck, pulling it into her fingers and he groans at the hard pressure. His eyes flutter shut as she pulls a little harder, releasing more curls with her nails.
"You like accessible?" He sighs as she runs her fingers deeper into his locks. He moves in closer, running his lips over her jawline, moving hands up to cup her face so she can't look away from him.
"Yeah. I like."
"You like me?"
Buffy swallows, trying not to squirm as his eyes burn, meeting hers, mouth mere millimetres from hers. Messy emotions spilling over one another, sweet safe strange feelings tangled up with bad memories...
I do like him. How cuttingly honest he is. I'm so sick of boys, men, sugar coating everything for me. Pretending around me, acting like I'm just a weak little girl, and looking the other way when I save their lives... it's patronizing.
Oh God... I like Spike...
Maybe a bit more than like. When he looks at me like that... maybe a lot more.
"Sometimes."
He can tell the direct eye contact is making her panic a little.
Too much honesty too fast...
He moves in closer, running his lips over hers.
"Careful, luv. You're implying this is more than a one time thing." He rests his head against hers, running his teeth over her skin, feeling the wave of her lungs breathing in underneath him, feeling like he's floating.
"Is that what you want?" There's a gulp in her voice that she's trying to talk around. Hoping he doesn't notice it.
"You know it is."
Her fingers are working back down his scalp and they stop dead as they cross over the scar at the back of his head. A hot screaming mess of Initiative memories bursts over her brain and she struggles not to lose control at the thought of the pit. And the thought of the cells.
What did they use to call demons?
Hostiles?
This feels like the opposite of hostile though. This whole past week with Riley... that felt hostile.
I'm kidding myself if I pretend that he hasn't been more than hostile for a while. With me. Even the way he was around Oz, when he found out what he was underneath. I can tell he's still weighing that against me. I know he thinks I should've killed Spike on sight after he escaped their lab.
I think, in his opinion, I shouldn't be... what's the word... subjective. Everything should be black or white. Humans good. Demons bad. But it's not that simple. Nothing is ever that simple. Maybe it was once, for me, when I was just a kid, but not anymore. Because it's not demons versus humans. It's demons living in humans, controlling them. For days, like with Oz, or millennia. With Anya. With Spike. They started off as people.
As victims.
How do you untangle that? How do you just decide that half of what they are, who they are, doesn't count?
Can you be a good person in spite of the demon in you?
She wants to ask him how long Riley had been visiting the den for. How long he's was watching him before tonight. Several days at least considering the bandage on Riley's arm. Maybe even longer, when was the last time she saw his bare arms? The lights were always strategically off, sleeves always strategically long, even during the sweltering Sunnydale heat. The betrayal stings fresh and new.
Spike would never have done that to Drusilla.…. didn't even lie to Harmony as far as I could tell, even when she wanted him to. Even if it would've spared her feelings.
How insane is it that I'm lying here with Spike, weighing him against Riley and he's coming out on top…
His lips touch over a tendon in her neck and she gasps. All thoughts of Riley and the Initiative vanish like a candle flame being snuffed out. Tension about Riley melting out of her rapidly... being replaced by a whole new tension lower down. Much lower.
"Spike-"
He sinks his mouth down over the spot, hard teeth biting skin to a pinch, sucking a little for pressure and she moans.
Sucking a lot actually-
Fuck-
"Spike! Don't, you'll leave a mark!"
He bites a little harder before releasing her neck from his mouth.
"So?" He whispers, making her spine shiver.
"So it's probably not a good idea to leave a giant flashing love bite over my jugular! Not least because I'm still technically with Riley and he'd more than happily stake you chip or no chip."
"Concerned for my well being all of a sudden are you?"
"Spike, I'm serious-"
"I'm not scared of your toy soldier, pet. He won't know it's me anyway." He moves back towards her neck but she's still got him by the hair, stopping his mouth with a firm pull.
"You don't think he'll figure it out? After you went and bragged about helping me the other-"
"Oi, I didn't brag!" He pulls back away from her so he can look her in the face. "I slipped up, but I didn't brag."
"Is that what you call it? A slip up?"
"Oh fine! Spike couldn't possibly keep anything to himself, is that it? I might not be the most discreet man on the planet, sweetheart, but I don't kiss and tell!"
"You leave a huge bite shaped bruise over my neck you won't exactly have to."
Spike rolls his eyes, clenching his jaw, swallowing a pout.
Getting further than I ever dreamed I could. Don't fucking sulk and ruin it all.
"All right, fine. Fair point." He brushes her neck with his fingers softly, trailing lightly over the little pink dents his teeth have left behind. Wanting to leave more. Harder deeper bites. Harder, meaner kisses. Ones that would make her moan again. Scream a little. Ones that would take days to fade.
Wanting to leave them further down-
Hmm...
His hand trails down from her neck, over her collarbone to a breast, beating skin thumping against his fingers. His throat clenches shut.
She didn't say no to me... she just said no to there...
Riley pulls the shirt out from underneath the pile of laundry. It's crumpled. Has unmistakably been there, lying underneath her things, for a few days.
A few days at least.
Was it here when I was here? After we found out about Joyce, that evening, was it here then?
The thought of it, tucked in amongst her things like a festering secret, while he touched her, kissed her, makes his stomach feel like a lump of cold concrete.
Is it here because he was? Must be, people don't go around leaving their stuff all over the place for no reason.
He was here.
And she took it off him.
His looks back to the empty slot in the mirror's frame, wishing he could remember when he last saw the photograph there.
Guess it doesn't matter. It's been a while that much is clear. The way she's been pushing away from me, keeping me at a distance. Because of him. That's why. Made it seem like it was my fault, when all the time she was...
With sheer will power he drags his mind back from the spiralling jealous mania threatening to flood through him entirely.
No. That's not true. None of it.
He takes a long steadying breath. Get it together.
The other night, she was there with me I know she was. He's just got in her head that's all. After everything with her mom. And looking after Dawn...
She wouldn't... not with him.
He probably planted his shirt here. Hoping I'd find it. If she was messing around he wouldn't leave it here, would he? He'd wear it back to his disgusting mouldy crypt.
He probably took the picture too. He's just doing this to get in my head. In both our heads.
He lets out a low bitter chuckle.
Almost worked too.
He heads back out of her room, down the stairs, still clutching the shirt in his fist.
He works his way down over her collarbone, fingers slipping up her stomach to cup her breasts and her eyes flutter open, catching his.
Green dangerous eyes flashing like a green light in the bedroom's glow, begging him to keep going as he slips down further. His mouth grazes a painfully stiff nipple teasingly and she lets out a deep low moan, wanting to feel lips there. Wanting to feel teeth. Her hands are on his shoulders, nails sinking into hard muscle, pulling him closer but he doesn't answer the call for more pressure, keeping everything light and soft and teasingly out of reach.
His tongue darts out and licks under a breast, just across a rib cage and she gasps, stomach crunching in a half-sit up as he scrapes his teeth over skin covered bone. The sensation of it is heart stopping. Breath stealing.
He wraps an arm right round her back and with the other pushes her hard back down into the bed. The slight extra height of his arm pushes her ribcage up a little against her skin and he sinks down over her side, tongue darting out before lips kiss over the soft curve of her hourglass.
Buffy's mind flares with white hot emptiness for a brief eternity.
That's insane. How does he make everything feel like it's on fire? He's barely even touching me-OH GOD
He bites down with blunt teeth, sucking skin into his mouth, tongue lapping at nerve endings singing underneath as she screams and grabs the back of his head. Her nails scratch the back of his neck and he moans, causing a wave of vibrations to ripple over the skin in his teeth, through every bone in her body.
Harder. Oh God, harder.
She bites back the words, not ready to give in to wanting him that much but he seems to read her mind anyway, sucking harder, catching bone and skin and muscle between his teeth as she pants for it.
More... I want more...
God, maybe I have a bite fetish if that's what that feels like-
Like a sudden cold shower thoughts of Riley sprawled out underneath a vampire splash across her mind. Teeth sinking into his arm as his eyes rolled back into his head. Her stomach lurches suddenly at the parallels, ice filling her veins.
Am I like that? Is this where I'm heading if I... if I want this am I no better than those sad people in that factory?
I've got to stop... this is too much...
She pushes him away hard, harder than necessary, but it's too late. A deep crimson love-bite decorates her ribcage. Spike's chuckling, still kneeling between her legs.
"What's wrong, luv? Bit too much?" He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.
She's staring transfixed by the mark on her skin. Her cheeks flare with a hard blush, mirroring the intensity of its color.
"God, what are you, 14? Who still leaves a hickey at your age?"
"I like having you in my mouth. I'll take whatever I can get." He fingers her ribcage, wiping a thumb over the red bite mark. "Let me do it again."
"No!"
"Yes."
His hand moves down to her hip, to the edge of her sweatpants. She jumps as his fingers dip below the waistline, catching a line of extremely sensitive skin that makes her feel as though she's suddenly been electrocuted.
"What about there?" His thumb trails a line of pale skin at the top of her leg where her underwear would normally cover. Buffy raises her leg to stop the waistband of the sweatpants dropping even lower. "What do you think, sweetheart? Bet that would feel really good for you."
His hand is moving inwards, closer to heat radiating out from between her legs.
If I don't stop him now I won't be able to at all.
"I..I have to go." Buffy pulls his hand from under the hem of her sweats, starts to untangle her legs from his but he catches her wrist in his hand, confusion clouding his features.
"What's with the sudden bashful blushes, pet? Thought we'd moved passed that?" He wraps a hand around her other wrist, moving her hands up back to his neck as he slides in closer again.
"Stop it, I really do need to go."
"Why? Riley?"
"To begin at the top of a very long list-"
"Buffy-" He dips his head to hers, catching her lips briefly in his before she pulls back sharply. "Why is it always one step forward two steps back with you?" His hand is moving back down to her ribcage and she bats it away hurriedly, trying to slide out from underneath him.
"Don't."
"Is that what it is? You didn't like being bit a little?" He grins, then stops, noticing the red of her cheeks. "Ah huh. Liked it a bit too much?"
"I'm not like that." She pushes him off her, moving to the edge of the bed. Slipping off onto the cold concrete and stooping to grab her sweater.
"Not like what, pet?"
"Like that. Like them. I don't... get off on it."
"Well that's not exactly true is it?"
"Spike-"
"I know. I know what you mean, but you shouldn't feel guilty about liking a little bit of teeth, luv. It doesn't mean you're headed in that direction you know?"
He stops her hands before they can pull the sweater back on.
"If vampires got you hot I don't think I'd have to persuade you half as hard as I currently am to just stay, would I? If it really was just that I'm sure you could find any number of willing vamps to satisfy you. Although I don't honestly like the idea of sharing you with the entire demon population of Sunnydale, sweetheart. "
Buffy sighs a little, biting back a bit of a smile before slipping on the sweater.
I like him. That's weird enough, without overthinking all the rest of it.
"I really do have to go though. It'll be light soon, and mom's coming home today."
"Oh yeah?" Spike wraps his legs around her hips pulling her in close. "All sorted? No more prod and probe?"
"Yeah. She's just got to take some stuff for a few months. All good."
She smiles, genuinely, feeling a little bit of relief about it all.
"Back today, huh?" He grins, tucking a hand underneath her waistband at the back, fingers gliding over the soft skin of her back. "Maybe I'll drop in and see the patient. Got to get the matriarch on my side early on, anyway."
Buffy can't help but laugh.