Dedication

For the phenomenally talented, wonderfully creative, unerringly supportive CD85: Claire~ you are the wind beneath my wings! Happiest of Birthdays! Your number one fan, Grace xx

"It'll be a Buffy birthday do-over!" Xander announced as Anya nodded at an already enthusiastic Dawn and Willow.

"It'll be a what now?" Buffy asked, having only caught the end of the conversation as she slumped in from another tortuous shift at the Doublemeat. She tried to arrange her face into an expression of 'pleasantly surprised'—instead of 'exhausted and burdened'—at seeing everyone congregating in her kitchen.

"Xander and Anya have a pool!" Dawn blurted out, bouncing in place with unstoppable teenage fervor.

Buffy furrowed her eyebrows at the revelation of a suspiciously secret swimming pool they'd never heard of before.

"Since when?"

"Since this weekend!" Anya explained, obviously giddy at being the center of attention. "They've finally refurbished the one at the back of our apartment complex after that whole Sunnydale sinkhole epidemic made it a… well, a much deeper pool."

"And we thought, hey! You know- why not have an all-out barbeque pool party before the whole wedding extravaganza?" Xander continued. "Plus you didn't really get a party."

"Or rather too much of one." Willow smirked from her end of the kitchen island.

"So poolside fun this weekend?" Xander prompted with caution, seeming to read the fatigue on his friend's face like it was written across her forehead in permanent marker. "Beers, burgers, probably a Beach BoysGreatest Hits CD on the boombox? You in?"

Despite the eight-hour shift sitting heavy across her shoulders, a flare of excitement sparkled in Buffy's heart at the prospect of something fun for once. Fun and normal. And above all else, free.

She could definitely get behind that.

"I'm totally in," she said with a nod as Dawn squealed. "Except for the burgers part. I'll be sticking to chips."

"Are you gonna invite Tara?" Dawn turned to Willow with a salacious grin, hope glinting in her eyes.

Willow huffed in disappointment. "She's busy with finals. But you should invite someone, Dawny?" she added, earning another excited squeak, that domino effected an eye-roll from Buffy.

But with just that little nudge of something to look forward to, the rest of the week picked up pace, sliding effortlessly into Saturday—a lazy, surprisingly warm day for early March.

Buffy kicked her legs happily at the side of the pool, her glittery green bikini drying on her skin in the late evening warmth, and watched in contentment as Willow and Dawn splashed each other with obvious delight in an aggressive water fight over a flamingo pool floaty.

It had been a perfect day, a solitary island of good vibes and laughter that she'd felt adrift from since being back. It rekindled some life into her like a seed unfurling into a bud after just a bit of sunshine.

Her hair was starting to dry into choppy waves after an exhaustive bout of chicken against Willow and Xander. Dawn hadn't stopped beaming, regardless of nearly strangling Buffy to death with her legs as Willow tried to gain the upper hand by tickling her bare stomach. Despite the bruise she could feel blossoming at the base of her skull, Buffy couldn't help smiling at the memory of Dawn finally being dislodged from her shoulders, tumbling into the water with a deafening shriek.

She sipped her beer, leaning back on one hand, enjoying the way the approaching sunset looked nostalgically rose-colored through her pink heart-shaped sunglasses.

She sighed contentedly. Snatches of time like this made her feel like she could almost forget it all. Every scar, inside and out. Every loss that weighed her down. The day had been like a reset button to the past's traumas, the way only a sky filled with color could be.

"Nice shades, Barbie."

Buffy paused, then very deliberately swallowed her mouthful of beer to avoid a choke, before glancing over at Spike as he lowered himself next to her, dipping bare legs into the water. The sun had almost set, casting the white expanse of his chest into shadowy relief, the valley of his stomach muscles disappearing into the waistband of a pair of severe black trunks. Perhaps what a lifeguard would wear to a funeral.

"You own swimwear?" she asked incredulously, blinking as he took her sunglasses off her head.

"I do now," he replied as he slipped the glasses on. The swelling around his eye had finally faded to just a mauve bruise sweeping his cheekbone. The dangerous look it afforded his already sharp features was marred somewhat by the bubblegum-colored hearts.

Twin mirrored reflections of a confused Buffy furrowed their eyebrows. "You bought them?"

"Nope."

"Ah," she nodded knowingly, taking another sip from her beer. "You stole them."

"Naturally," he leaned back, the angle accentuating the muscles of his stomach and chest. "How do I look?"

"Like a psychotic ken doll." She smirked, but let him keep the sunglasses. Mentally skirting around the fact she'd cast him as Ken to her Barbie. "You're here, why?"

"The Bit invited me," he replied with a nod at the hysterically giggling Dawn, shielding her face as Willow swept an armful of water up at her. "Said it was a second attempt at the whole many happy returns event."

"Hopefully zero returns of that nightmare," Buffy grumbled, finishing her beer and leaving the bottle on the side. "No Clem?" she asked.

"He's over there." Spike pointed towards the barbeque and Buffy followed his finger. Then instantly froze at the sight of the wrinkled demon in shorts and a Hawaiian shirt. Apparently even pool parties were rife with the surreal on the hell mouth. "Making friends with a food donation," Spike clarified as Clem unloaded a box of meat into Xander's hands.

"Uh huh." Buffy winced nervously. "I-it is beef, right? Not kitten?"

Spike grinned. "Scouts honor, luv."

"You know, coming from you, not all that reassuring."

His foot grazed hers under the water and she shuffled a little further out of his reach.

"Stop it," she warned, though not with her usual icy reserve.

Spike smirked back, a pleased pinch to his lips that told her he'd registered the slightly softer tone. Make me, he mouthed—a phrase he'd adopted regularly with her and that she had yet to rise to the challenge of—before slipping into the water, resting on his elbows next to her. The backs of his fingers trailed over the side of her thigh, unseen by the others. Just a barely-there caress that could be written off as accidental.

With a dart of her eyes, accounting the attention of her friends and finding them all otherwise occupied, Buffy held her breath and widened her leg towards his touch—

"Oh look, your boyfriend's here," Spike sneered, quietly so only she could hear. Buffy's spine straightened—her leg flinching away from his hand—as Richard opened the gate leading to the front of the apartment complex, walking stiffly and greeting Xander with an awkward co-worker-outside-of-work handshake. Xander smiled, said something, and nodded towards Buffy, who ducked her eyes down to the water as Richard looked her way.

The reaction, unfortunately, did not go unnoticed.

"Oooh, playing bashful are we, Slayer?" Spike mocked.

"Shh!" she hissed and kicked a leg out at him. He caught her by the ankle, and didn't let go even as she struggled against his hold. With a sharp tug he yanked her into the pool with a yelp and a splash.

Buffy had presence of mind enough to hold her breath to stop water rushing up her nose and as she resurfaced, she clipped him hard around the head.

"You ass!" she shouted as he held his stomach in laughter, and shoved him hard back into the water, before making for the side. She pushed herself out to grab a towel and plopped down on one of the pool loungers, grumpily watching the widening ripple where Spike had been.

After a surprisingly long pause he resurfaced like a crocodile—heart-shaped eyes just above the surface, swimming with the same movementless grace—and commandeered the pool floaty Willow and Dawn had forgotten about amidst their water battle with a deft leap upwards.

Buffy shook her head in tight-lipped indignation as he stretched out over the pink plastic, tucking an arm underneath his head. Flexing shamelessly.

That's so not going to work on me, she thought even as her mouth ran dry.

"Soda?"

She turned to find Clem standing next to her, a Diet Coke offered in his wrinkled and long-nailed hand.

"Thanks," she said, smiling pleasantly up at him as she took the can and popped the tab, letting it fizz over the grass next to her before taking a grateful sip. "I like your shirt," she added, deciding conversation was going to be the best distraction from the way Spike's touch had set goosebumps pebbling over her thigh. Easily explained away by the chill of the water droplets still clinging to her skin, but not so easily ignored.

"Oh, yeah?" Clem smiled with a bashful half-shrug, straightening the shirt over his shoulders. Rather than take up room on a lounger he sat down on the pool's edge, relaxing back on his wrists."Spike gave it to me," he explained, gesturing at the pale figure twirling contentedly in the water.

"...Did he," Buffy said. It wasn't a question, but a subtle accusation. That shirt was notorious…

"I knew it!" Xander called from the grill, recognising the white, green, and burgundy leaf pattern for the first time. "Thief!" He pointed at Spike with the spatula, who simply smiled angelically.

"Did you a favor, mate," he replied with a wriggle of his shoulders as though getting comfortable and hitching one leg wider in an exaggerated lounge. "Looks better on Clem anyway."

"He's right," Anya nodded as she restocked the cooler with beers and sodas. "It would've been one of the many things I accidentally left behind when we moved in together."

"That you what?" Xander sputtered.

"Yeah, you remember those brown corduroy pants I said fell off the back of the moving truck?" she continued, still not looking up.

"Ahn!"

Buffy sipped her soda, deliberately not looking at the way water glistened on Spike's chest as he basked in the pool, somehow still wickedly beautiful even whilst floating in the pirated flamingo.

Ridiculous, she rolled her eyes and tried to ignore the way his fingers trailed in the water, lazily brushing the surface into delicate ripples.

After a beat Dawn kicked away from the pool edge and Buffy tracked her as she swam casually towards Spike. Swimming with languid strokes as if she were just passing by—no nefarious intent whatsoever—until she righted herself, and with both hands, pushed the floaty over, tipping Spike into the pool.

She screamed as he burst up and after her.

"Get back here, brat!" he hollered as she bolted for the poolside, leaping out and legging it across the grass with him in hot pursuit.

He cornered her against the gate.

"No-no-no," Dawn stammered, still giggling, as she tried to escape past him, only to be grabbed round her middle. "Spike, NO!"

Buffy chuckled as he heaved her up in a fireman's lift, striding back across the grass as she tried ineffectually to twist out of his grip.

As Buffy watched him throw her bodily into the pool—accompanied by delighted shrieking and laughter—a flare of affection caught her, making her almost forget their strange and hostile past, their intense and complicated present.

Like this, watching him give Dawn such brotherly bullying, she could almost flirt with the idea of having more than just a shameful affair with him.

Her sister loved him so much. That was clear. Whatever time they'd spent in each other's company had cemented a permanent connection between them.

So what if there's a really weird, dark history between us? Buffy thought as Spike sat down at the pool's edge, shielding himself from a tidal wave as Dawn resurfaced and splashed him viciously in revenge. He kicked water back playfully—shouting an indignant Oi! as she swiped the sunglasses off his head—and Buffy bit down a grin that felt too close to giving in to something unnameable.

What if she did let him in just an inch closer? What would it matter if the others knew?

None of us are perfect here…

"Who's ready for the meat party?" called Xander, startling her out of her contemplation.

"Could you have phrased that in a more appetite suppressing way?" Buffy laughed—relieved at the rescue from dangerous waters—as her stomach contradicted her question with a desperately hungry growl.

"Seconded," Willow said with a smirk. "Graphic hetero imagery aside, wiener please!" she demanded, reaching out with grabby hands.

"Now who's appetite-suppressing?" Xander mocked back, as he slipped a hot dog onto a plate for her.

Despite Buffy's earlier objections, the burgers turned out to be pretty good. Enough for even her grilled-meat weary stomach to relent its apprehensions and succumb as Good Vibrations started its third repeat on the boombox.

By her second burger (plus second hot dog, and third soda) the glow of early evening had slid definitively into night, but the heat only seemed to solidify in the air. Buffy lounged in the water to stave off the sweat threatening to dampen her hairline, not quite ready to call it quits, even as the stars started to twinkle overhead.

Xander shut up shop as grill cook and took a respite next to Richard on a pool lounger, while the entire party happily digested the food and the good vibes the unseasonably warm day had brought with it.

After a lengthy silence and a collective group sigh, Willow was the first to stir.

"All this summer fun has me beat," she said, sitting up on her lounger. She towel dried her hair, and slipped a dress over her one piece. "What d'you say, Dawny? Round off the evening with trashy tv and popcorn?"

"Definitely," Dawn replied, stuffing the last third of a hot dog into her mouth and ruffling Spike's hair as she pulled her legs out of the water.

"I'll give you a ride," Xander said as Dawn toweled off, slipping into shorts and a t-shirt that dampened immediately under her wet hair. "It'll give me an extra half hour of freedom from planning what wedding-butts sit where."

"You suck," Anya chided, though lovingly, and with an already distracted look in her eye that foretold she was itching to pull out the seating chart.

"Yeah, I better make a move too," Clem said, pulling his calves from the water. "I'm starting to get wrinkly."

Buffy bit her cheek to stop the chuckle that was threatening to make a faux pas of itself.

"See you back at the house after patrol?" Dawn asked, and Buffy nodded.

"Probably be late getting in, so don't wait up."

From his recline against the opposite side of the pool Spike's pleased grin sent heat melting into her belly, spreading lower—the assumption that patrol would end in his arms writ clear across his face. Buffy pointedly looked away as she attempted to subdue the fluttering of her heart his unwavering stare was causing.

"Hey."

She jumped as Richard lowered himself onto the pool edge, dipping his legs in the water next to her. "Mind if I join you?"

"N-no. Sure." Buffy shook her head, smiling politely, ignoring Spike's eye-roll that she would have anticipated even if she didn't catch it in her periphery.

"Amazing weather, huh?" Richard asked.

She bobbed her head. "Uh huh."

A seed of weariness sprouted in her gut at having to make small talk with him. Again. Their brief conversations at her birthday-party-from-hell had only marginally been the second-most endless part of the evening.

"Unbelievable for this time of year," he continued.

"Completely."

She flinched at the snort from Spike—mocking their inane chit-chat without subtlety—but Richard didn't seem to notice. He briefly looked away from her to pop the cap off his beer and Buffy shot Spike a warning glare. It did nothing to tame the leering look in his eyes.

Go away, she mouthed.

He raised an eyebrow, his meaning obvious. Is that really what you want, sweetheart?

Rather than think about that answer she made a show of ignoring him, playing it up to make it clear he wasn't going to singe her with that burning look and get what he wanted, no matter how many times it had worked before. How many times it kept working…

"Almost as nice as the company," Richard winked at her.

Buffy giggled obligingly, a laugh that was affected and flirtatious and not her own at all. A sinking feeling hollowed her stomach as she noted a responsive sparkle in Richard's eyes.

Okay, overdoing it, she cautioned herself.

The next time she glanced over, Spike was gone, and a pang of regret stung her.

She bit back a sigh so as not to draw unwanted attention to the turmoil in her heart. Why was she so upset he'd gone?

You wanted him to stay, she berated herself bitterly. You wanted a bit of back and forth banter: he threatens to eat Richard, you threaten to kick him out, he tells you where to stick your uptight bitch attitude, and then maybe something happens on a pool lounger because you have no self-control…

She hadn't even seen him go, and an ache of loneliness that he wasn't there making a nuisance of himself—thwarting any abysmal attempts at flirting that Richard might care to make—cut deeper than she cared to admit.

Stop! Get a grip! She scolded herself, forcefully pushing aside that lingering look of his that was still fraying her nerves. I don't care if he's gone. I am Spike-feeling free! I am a feelings-for-Spike barren wasteland.

"Night Buffy!" Xander called from the other end of the pool as they disappeared through the gate and Buffy jolted back into awareness, suddenly realizing it was just her and Richard now.

"Oh, uh-" she fumbled, attempting to stall them, but they were gone.

"I hope you don't mind me not getting in the water," Richard said, and her eyes snapped back to his.

"What?" she asked, blinking dazedly.

"The whole…" he gestured to his stomach. "It took twenty-nine stitches in total."

"Oh! R-right. Of course." Buffy nodded. Jeez, twenty-nine stitches? The most I ever had was five and I've been fully kebabbed…

"I'm still healing." He shrugged bravely as if he'd just come back from fighting overseas. "Can't get the bandage wet."

"No, definitely not," Buffy agreed, relieved at the barrier to semi-naked-flirtations that his injuries supplied. Although truth be told, being the only one in a bathing suit at the now party-of-two was making her feel exposed. She sank further into the water. At least it was nice to just float and enjoy the stars, even if it was accompanied by boring conversation.

"Kinda wild, right?" Richard said, obviously playing out a script he'd rehearsed several times to himself. "What kind of maniac brings a sword to a birthday party?"

"Absolutel—"

Buffy lurched upright, her eyes widening briefly.

Something had touched her leg in the water, a light brushing feeling tickling over her calf. She glanced down but only her rippled reflection in the inky black water stared back.

Maybe it was just a leaf or something?

Maybe it was just-NOPE-

Hand! A hand was on her leg! Curling inwards around her knee, cool fingers stroking higher-

"Did the cops ever catch the guy?" Richard asked, and Buffy swallowed, trying to wrestle a look of nonchalance onto her face.

"Oh… uh… no, I-I don't think so-" The hand slid purposefully up towards the dazzlingly sensitive skin between her thighs. She clamped her legs shut around it.

Practically 99.99% certain it was Spike feeling her up under the water, she submerged a hand and ran it down his cheek, feeling out the sharp jaw with and the scar along his eyebrow. Suspicions confirmed, she made to retract her arm from the water, feeling the nip of his teeth as her hand brushed too close to his mouth.

"I mean, the whole get-up screamed 'unhinged,' huh? With the rubber mask and horns thing?" Richard continued and Buffy managed to hum in agreement, though his words were barely making it through the white noise in her ears as Spike's trapped fingertips grazed the crotch of her bikini.

"Yeah," she said, suppressing a jolt and forcing a relaxed appearance as she rested back on her elbows, even as every muscle in her body buzzed with tension. With goading nips and bites, Spike spread her legs further, and Buffy gulped as he finally had space enough to move closer.

"Must've been an escaped psychiatric patient from the hospital or something," mused Richard, taking another swig of beer.

"Definitely," Buffy replied as Spike's lips found her inner thigh and the blood drained out of her face, eyelids almost fluttering closed as open-mouthed kisses caressed her skin, nudging her knees wider.

Buffy swallowed nervously. The flick of a tongue, the graze of teeth… it was all too much…

If this is payback for what I did when I was invisible you are taking it too far—

As if in answer he bit her in a hard suck that made her yelp before she could stop herself.

"You okay?" Richard asked, breaking from his one-sided conversation to raise an eyebrow at her as she nodded reassuringly.

"Fine!" she squeaked as Spike's tongue licked up to the hem of her bathing suit—along the crease where thigh met pelvis—forcing her to hold back another gasp. "Just… leg cramp."

She reached under the water and pinched Spike hard on the arm. Undeterred, his fingers trailed up the backs of her legs, sending a shiver wherever they touched as he grazed her thighs before cupping her ass.

They squeezed, hard blunt-tipped fingers digging into her flesh and causing her feet to lift onto tiptoes.

"Couple more weeks and I'll be back at the construction site," Richard said, swirling his legs in the water, and for one heart-stopping moment Buffy thought his foot might intersect with Spike's shoulder.

"Y-yeah?" she prompted as Spike wrapped her thighs around his neck, wincing at how high her voice sounded.

"It's the internal stomach muscles that take the longest to heal," Richard explained. "I wasn't allowed to lift anything heavier than a tea kettle for the first couple of weeks…"

"Wow," she said, far too breathlessly, as Spike's fingers slid back to her hips, lightly grazing the ties of her bikini.

She froze.

Don't you dare! she thought, heart pounding frantically, and squeezed his head with her thighs in warning. His hands squeezed back just as hard, but he left the bikini in place. Instead, he worked his fingers underneath the fabric and slid them back to her ass, stroking her bare skin as his kisses inched inwards—

"They said the puncture nearly nicked my liver," Richard said, thankfully not expecting much in conversation from her as he continued to lecture on the different facets of stomach stab-age. Buffy dutifully nodded and mmhmm-ed at any intervals between his words—unsure what it was she was actually agreeing to, it being impossible to hear anything over the deafening pulse drowning him out.

Spike's mouth reached the crux of her legs. A long lick over her bikini sent a shiver straight up her spine. She bit her lip hard as his teeth scored the join of her leg, incisors hooking the fabric and pulling it aside.

Buffy held her breath as tepid water rippled across her naked mons, and cast a glance at Richard to make sure he was still droning on without her, unaware of what was happening below the surface.

The first flick of Spike's tongue against her clit nearly forced a shocked yelp from her. She managed to strangle it in her throat before it could escape, rounding it out into a hum of agreement at whatever Richard had just said as her fingers clenched round the pool's edge.

A deliberately slow lick almost had Buffy's teeth puncturing the lip clamped between them, suffocating a whimper as he pulsed his tongue in hard circles.

The groans that were going unspent clogged her throat painfully as she continued to push them back down, her breathing ragged as she resisted the urge to cry out. He wasn't gentle—had never once been gentle with her—and appalled as she was at herself for it, his brutal adorations never failed to escalate her desperate pleas into keening howls.

His lips worked downwards, teeth biting at her folds—not painfully, but enough to remind her of his ferality for her—before his tongue penetrated her.

Buffy gasped at the intense fluttering feeling, and she clamped a hand hard across her mouth to try to smother it, but it was too late. She looked up at Richard in panic, thinking he must've figured out by now what was going on.

But… he was nodding?

Her sudden intake of breath had apparently coincided with a particularly gruesome moment of his time spent being stitched up, and he'd misconstrued her gasp as one of sympathetic shock.

"Yeah, it was pretty bad, but they managed to stop the bleeding in time." He smiled, clearly reveling in her overreaction.

"R-really?" Buffy croaked, her throat raw, knuckles white against the concrete edge as Spike pumped his tongue inside her. He kneaded her ass in time with his strokes in a way that refused any retreat, and would've made her feel like she was floating even if she wasn't currently riding his shoulders in a swimming pool.

The fingers of her right hand yearned to reach down and grip his hair, to hold him close until the swelling orgasm that was already building crashed over her, but the shamefulness of the situation—the burning feeling of perversion from being observed this way, regardless of Richard's blissful ignorance—had her trapped in the taut ascent of it.

Her walls started to ache, twitching desperately against his tongue as the nails of her hands curled and bit into her palms.

I'm going to kill him for this, she thought as her lungs began to burn from panting exhales held in place.

And yet still she didn't push him back. The thought of simply slipping out of the pool—away from his tongue and his teeth and his hands—didn't manifest in her mind. Not when she was so close…

Spike replaced his tongue with two fingers, gliding into her soaked core without any resistance. Her walls clenched around him, grateful for something to ease the ache that was starting to make the muscles in her legs spasm, edging her another millimeter over the edge.

Maybe she'd scream as she came. Maybe she wouldn't even care what Richard thought of her. God knows her depravity with Spike was getting out of hand, and had spilled more than once into a public setting. Why not add unintentional voyeurism to the growing list of sins?

His tongue flicked cruelly over her clit before he sucked it into his mouth, adding pressure with his teeth to deepen the intensity, and the previously unattainable release started to burn in her thighs—

A car horn startled her down from that final peak, and Richard broke off from his biographical monologue. "Ah, that's my ride. I'm still not supposed to be driving on the pain pills they gave me." He flashed her a winning smile that was clearly meant to be swoon worthy.

"Oh," Buffy managed weakly, not trusting her mouth enough to try to form words just yet.

"Would you mind if I asked Xander for your number?" Richard asked, clearly bolstered by her breathless attention. "I'd love to take you for a drink sometime?"

How much Spike could hear underwater, she wasn't sure, but he took his mouth away and set his teeth against her inner thigh, his fingers still pumping in and out of her with a clear threat that she better say no.

"O-oh- um- I-," Buffy stumbled over her words as Spike's teeth bit down in a love bite-flowering suck. "I… I-" a nip made her leg muscle twitch, insinuating she was taking too long issuing the rejection. Clearly meant as punishment, his fingers stilled inside her, teeth pinching just an ounce away from pain as she tried to ride his hand without making waves in the water.

"I'm sort of… seeing someone," she ended lamely.

The phrase fit nicely.

She was seeing someone.

She saw a lot of him. Whether she enjoyed seeing him or not was a question left carefully unanswered. She felt a ripple against her thigh—just a fluttering vibration that made her shiver—that could either have been a chuckle or a groan if there had been any air in Spike's lungs.

"You have a boyfriend?" Richard asked, looking a little blindsided.

The pressure of Spike's bite released. He was definitely listening, and to prompt her into answer, he licked a slow tongue over the bite mark on her thigh, laying a soft pleading kiss on her skin. Her vicious monster turned lap dog.

Buffy swallowed. And took a dive into those dangerous waters.

"Uh huh?" she stuttered, and was rewarded with fingers moving inside her again, slipping in and out at a deliciously steady pace and just a touch more tenderly than before.

Another impatient honk from the car horn halted any further questions from Richard and he graciously offered her a friendly smile. "Well, he's a lucky guy," he said as he pulled his legs out of the water.

"Th-thanks," Buffy nodded as Richard grabbed his shoes from the grass, offering her a weak wave as he glanced back over his shoulder before the gate shut behind him.

As though they suddenly had all the time in the world, Spike's ministrations deliberately slowed, feeding the glow of her approaching orgasm with crooked fingers massaging against the bundle of nerves at the back of her, matching the pace with his tongue over her clit.

Buffy dipped a hand and wound her fingers into the drifting tendrils of his hair. The silk of it made her heart lurch unexpectedly, triggered an emotion that caused a flinch in her heart.

His usually sculpted-back gelled mane only ever splintered in her grip and it was a shock to find a piece of him that wasn't harsh lines and sharp barbs. The softness of it as it floated over her fingers made a piece of her melt. Some crucial part that was holding her heart in a fierce grip of denial.

Love that… love that so much…

Her eyes closed drowsily while the swell of release began to crest. Her low moans—mercifully given free rein again—rose into high-pitched gasps as her orgasm finally broke over her in a warm wave that relaxed every muscle. Her head lolled back against the concrete lip of the pool as she panted through the last dwindling spasms.

Spike held his tongue flat against her—letting her ride the pressure of his mouth, until her fingers released their grip on his hair—before gently pulling his fingers from her, shrugging her legs from his shoulders as he rose out of the water. He tugged the fabric of her bikini back into place and he smoothed his hair away from his brow, lips widening in a smirk that would normally set her blood boiling.

Buffy glared at him—a force of habit she couldn't quit—and straightened herself with her feet on the bottom of the pool. For once, her heart was strangely void of the instinctive need to flee the scene that usually flared after the glimmer of electricity dulled in her veins.

"You're the worst," she managed, her breathing still uneven as he pulled her close with linked arms at the small of her back.

"Agree to disagree on that point, luv," he purred, kissing her with an aching tenderness that made her stomach drop.

"No, really, I could kill you," she said as she pulled out of it, her cheeks still scandalously scorched at the near miss she'd had with death by embarrassment.

"Sure you could." He brushed the hair away from her face, smiling as if she'd all but confessed her love for him. "Wanna try drowning me again? You know, if you think I need the practice."

"You do. You definitely left a mark on my leg," she grumbled.

"Don't regret it, either," Spike replied as he encouraged her arms to wrap around his neck, gently guiding her by the elbows. "Worth it to get a little honesty out of ya."

"Honesty?" Buffy blinked as his nose slid against hers, angling for a kiss. He pulled her in closer so she was flush against him.

"Just a crumb. Was something though," he said as his hands rested on her hips. "And I am a lucky guy, to have a girl like you."

She smiled back before she could stop herself, floating in his arms as her hands linked around his neck. She let her legs wind around his hips as his tongue tangled with hers, and deepened the kiss until weightlessness made her swoon.

Crickets began chirping, the air shimmering with a heat that felt like a comforting shroud around them both. The scent of cut grass and hot concrete mingled into a perfume evocative of late August evenings.

"My girl," he purred as he broke away, nuzzling into her neck as his arms enveloped her in an embrace so affectionate it was almost heartbreaking. Buffy sighed into it, and thought to herself that just now, in this sweet, summery moment…

…maybe she wouldn't correct him.

End note: When I got this banner prompt from CD85 I already knew exactly where this was going, because I'd had the idea in my head ever since 'Swimming Pool' and 'Pool Sex' were on the Elysian Fields - Drabblemania boards. But no way would I have been happy with squashing this into 1k, so Claire - I owe you big time for helping me get this scene out of my head!

Endless thanks to my betas RavenLove12 (who never bats an eye at the absolute nonsense I spew forth - Buffy's glittery green bikini is a nod to their sexy fourth of July fic 'Fireworks' xx), and to foxfaceinthewindow, (who polishes the nonsense until it shines - the joke was mine but the wiener was yours xx)