Their room is all the more stifling after having been outside in the cold air of early dawn. Feeling jittery, and so awake, Buffy closes the door to the small en suite bathroom and runs a shower—warm but not hot—and stands under it for a while, cooling down both her skin and her thoughts.
Tara's words are stuck fast in her head and are spurring new ones on. The words, ready to be said, and demanding to be, patience having slipped its chains and fled—
Just one more thing first, she promises herself. There's still something to claim before that sentiment has its due, liable to be treacherous and change the game.
She takes a deep breath, running her hands through her hair. Despite the fluttering feeling in her gut threatening to tip over into panic, the inevitability of the situation feels amazingly freeing.
She shuts off the water and wraps a towel around herself, drying her hair with the room's built-in hair dryer that sounds like a motorcycle engine, knowing it won't wake Spike up. An asleep-Spike is always incredibly difficult to rouse.
The bathroom light casts a warm yellow glow into the dim bedroom. A quick glance to the bed shows Spike asleep on his back, his arm tucked beneath his head, the other stretched out as though searching for her even in slumber.
Buffy drops the towel and shrugs into one of the shirts from her overnight bag, shimmies into underwear; annoyingly practical. Not sexy, just standard pink hip-huggers beneath her Sunnydale High T-shirt.
She catches sight of her reflection in the dresser mirror, appraises herself, her teeth digging into her lip as self-consciousness sinks its talons straight into the soft flesh of her belly. Her hair is mussed and frizzy as though just awoke from sleep. She rummages through her bag and finds a hairbrush, scraping out the worst of the tangles with shaking hands.
Better. No make-up though. Nothing pretty to wear. She hasn't even shaved for a while, and the fuzz on her legs makes her ready to call the entire thing off.
He won't care, she steadies herself as she runs her hands through her hair again to dispel some of the static the hairbrush created. If there's one person in the entire world who won't care, it's the one behind you on the bed.
She turns back to him, pumping her hands into fists. She stops, realizing they're becoming damp with sweat—from the heat but mostly from nerves. She stands by the foot of the bed, not ready to move onto it just yet, and clears her throat.
"Spike?"
In the yellow light from the bathroom, she catches the flutter of his eyelids at his name being called.
"Spike?" she tries again. Her throat is starting to feel like it's clogged with bees, buzzing over her heart and making it beat all the faster.
Calm down, jeez…
When he still doesn't wake up she places a knee on the mattress, then a hand, her other hand, crawling slowly up until she's kneeling next to him.
Buffy places a hand on his chest—her fingers finding the dip beneath his shirt where the scar over his heart creates a divot—and bends to kiss him. After a heartbeat, he responds, his hand finding her thigh and squeezing lightly. Even three-quarters of the way asleep he kisses like he means it, stealing her breath like it belongs to him anyway.
He stretches as she pulls back.
"Hi," she whispers.
"Hey, gorgeous," he whispers back, a smile quirking his lips. His arm reaches up to cup her shoulder and bring her down into an embrace, back into sleep as his eyes drift closed again.
She stops him with a gentle hand blocking his forearm. "Wake up, I need to tell you something."
Spike grunts and shifts up to rest on the pillows, eyes still mostly closed. "Something wrong?"
Buffy shakes her head and swallows, resisting the urge to tear at the skin on her lips. The vision before him is—in her opinion—flawed enough without making it worse.
Okay… Here we go.
"You said to… to say the word," she says, her tongue darting out to ineffectually wet her lip. "So… I'm saying it."
"...It?" Spike asks as he rubs a knuckle into his eye, clearly not following along in his just recently conscious state.
Buffy winces internally, realizing she's been having this conversation solo in her head all evening, and that he hasn't had the script for his part of the dialogue.
This has got to be the least sexy proposal in history. Great job.
"I'm saying… yes. I'm saying yes to… to now." She pauses, watching as Spike catches on with a jerk of understanding, eyes snapping to hers as his lips part in awe. "I'm sort of done with the later-slower-thing."
Fully awake now, no trace of lingering drowsiness, he raises up onto his elbows.
He's speechless. And breathless, which is unusual for him since he mostly maintains the habit. The look on his face she's seen only a handful of times; raw devotion, as visceral as if he'd cut himself open to pull his chest apart and show her his heart. His cheek twitches as though his subconscious has jabbed him into action and he blinks out of his bewilderment.
"You want to…?"
He leaves it hanging but she nods in confirmation.
"Fair warning, I am not The-Kama-Sutra-Is-A-Good-Place-To-Start girl," she says, because if she doesn't at least fracture the tension it's going to crush them both.
He rolls his eyes at her glibness before sitting up properly.
"Buffy… I'm already impressed, luv. It's you, I'm already blown away. Not wanting circus-level theatrics here." He tilts his head, smiling warmly. "This is just about us, right? Just comfort."
A shard of apprehension melts away from her heart. "Yeah?" she asks, feeling stupidly grateful. Comfort sounded good. Sounded really good. Just her and her friend finding each other in the warm dark of pre-dawn.
"If that's what you want?" he asks, one last chance for her to change her mind. She doesn't need it.
"It is."
He reaches for her hand, squeezing for a second before falling back into the pillows.
"Come and kiss me then, Slayer," he commands, beckoning her with a crook of his fingers. She snorts at his overplayed nonchalance, and follows him down, putting weight on her hands so she can move on top of him, settling over him the way she had in his crypt.
They meet in a kiss—natural, simultaneous, neither one the instigator—and after a tender couple of seconds, Spike deepens it, widens it, his hand cradling the back of her head lest she attempt to break away.
He moves slowly. Inch by careful inch his free hand slips up her thigh, brushes across the cotton hugging her hip.
Before his fingers dip beneath her shirt to touch the bare skin of her back, his hand tepid from the heat of the room. As it slides up her spine, a firework of electricity ignites, making her whole body lurch forward, bringing her into deeper contact with him.
A vibration thrums between them and Buffy realizes she's moaned into his mouth.
"That's a good start," he murmurs as she pulls away for air, a grin creasing the corners of his eyes. Enraptured rather than smug.
"Good start," Buffy whispers back and with a hooked leg around his, rolls them both so he's half on top of her, propped up on an elbow as the hand at her backstrokes higher.
She slips a hand under the collar of his dress shirt—creased from being slept in twice—and eases it down to his bicep, down by his stomach to where she raises the hem of his t-shirt. She breaks away for a second to take the opportunity of seeing him so disheveled from her touch, a prelude to his skin against hers.
Like she knew it would, it makes a ferocious hunger ignite in her. She pushes him back so he's on his knees, straddling her leg.
Smiling down at her, he takes the cue and shrugs the dress shirt off and she sits up so she can explore him more. Her hands wander up underneath the cotton of his black t-shirt, rucking it up from the inside as her fingers search out his muscles, the slight curve of his waist, and the dip of his scars earning a slight shiver from him.
"Got a bit of a fixation, you do," he murmurs.
Buffy glances up at him. "What do you mean?"
His hand presses over the top of hers, flattening her fingers over the gash across his ribs. "You keep touching me there," he answers.
"Oh…" she nods in agreement. She hadn't realized quite how often she'd touched him there. How much the sight of the scars, the feel of them, continued to affect her.
"If I knew scars got you hot, wouldda asked that permed monstrosity for a couple more."
She snorts and reaches up to pinch his nipple. He draws in a sharp breath, the sound tripping into a chuckle.
"Don't joke," she warns, fighting a smirk off her face.
"You like when I joke," he parries, and after a pause dips his head to steal a kiss.
She catches the hem of the shirt with her trailing fingers, gathering it in her hands and caressing as she goes, brushing the sides of his chest, the hair under his arms as he raises them for her. He ducks his head as she takes it off him completely.
He links his wrists at the back of her head, leaning on her shoulders as her fingers stroke over his stomach.
Buffy touches the buckle of his belt, staring up into his eyes—practically black with need held tightly in check.
"Not gonna stop me this time?" she teases, brushing a thumb across the trail of hair that runs from his belly button to beneath the waistband of his jeans.
Spike chuckles. "Oh, luv, I've not got the willpower to do that twice."
She smirks up at him and slips the leather belt loose of its buckle. Her hands shake a little as she struggles with the button but he doesn't reach down to help her, choosing instead to card a hand through her hair, letting it spill through the gaps in his fingers.
"Always loved your hair," he mutters quietly just as she gets the button free.
She tilts her head into his palm, needing her friend's comforting touch to stop her heartbeat from pounding hard enough to rattle her ribs, the irreversibility of the next step making her jumpy and breathless.
The sound of the zip being pulled down is loud in the silence between them, overfilled with anticipation. His hands cover hers as she takes hold of the denim, and he pushes with her until the jeans are off his thighs.
"Okay," she says as her gaze takes him in; the tightness of his hips, the sharp valley of muscle that tapers his stomach down into his groin, the slight glisten at the tip of his erection. "Okay, very real now."
Spike quirks an amused eyebrow.
"Want me to put him back in his house?" he asks with a chuckle, and Buffy's eyes flit to his, blushing at the slight grin pulling the corners of his mouth at how agape she probably looks. His thumbs rub soothing circles over her wrists to steady her. "We can just—"
He's cut off as Buffy lurches up to catch his lips with hers, winding her arms around his neck with such force that he over-balances and crashes down over her against the mattress with a pleased grunt. It takes only half a second for him to match the ferocity of her kiss, his stomach flexing as he kicks his jeans the rest of the way off his legs.
"I definitely want this," Buffy gasps, head swimming with how perfectly he fits between her thighs. The rigid shaft of flesh presses against the crux of her legs, sending stars across her vision as his kisses burn down from her mouth to her jaw to her neck. "I want you, Spike."
He shivers, his arms hugging her waist as they twist around each other.
"Dreamed those words," he whispers against her throat. "So many times. Never thought I'd hear them for real."
A momentary pang of guilt knots in her gut that she's not giving him every word, not telling him every truth.
I will, she promises herself.
After.
This first—
Despite his slim frame, he's got her pinned in every sense of the word; his mouth holding her down with long kisses over her skin, his chest crushing hers, mimicking her panting with his own, hips bucking lazily between her thighs.
He rolls onto his side, taking her with him. Her shirt rucks up in the process, flattening her bare stomach against his. He's only slightly cooler than her, a welcome relief from the stifling heat and she sighs contentedly.
"Spike," she murmurs. "So good…" Memories wash over her; of the time she'd nearly confessed it all after missing him so desperately for a week, burning in her bed until he returned and brought with him cool touches and soft words. "Feels like I'm always in a fever… you cool me down."
She clings to him tighter, soothing skin against hers that's flushed with heat; a beautiful counter-weight, keeping her balanced in ways she hadn't expected.
"Bloody perfect together, aren't we?" he purrs, holding her just as tight as he bites her neck gently, nips her ear. "Knew we would be. You're so warm, Buffy, so hot against me."
The hand beneath her shirt strokes down to the edge of her underwear, kissing her deeply before pulling back for a gentle pinch of his teeth over her kiss-swollen lips.
His thumb curls beneath the strip of cotton over her hip and dark blue eyes wait for her to connect the dots, a slight raise of his eyebrow prompting her.
When she finally clocks his intent she nods in a rush of agreement, and he slips her underwear down her thighs. She wriggles to accommodate, closing her legs and bending her knees so he can take them off her completely. A moment of bashfulness scorches her face and she tucks her head into his shoulder.
His hand strokes over the line of her closed thighs, light and barely there, but still, she jolts as he glides close to her mons on the sensitive skin between hip and thigh, up to below her stomach. His middle finger travels a line over her belly button, meeting the hem of her shirt.
"M'not gonna be the only one in my birthday suit, am I?"
She turns into him and presses a kiss to his lips before pushing him back and straddling his legs.
"If I said yes, would you complain?" she asks, smiling in a way she hopes reads as coy.
He moves up into the pillows so he's not so flat on his back.
"You know I wouldn't," he answers as his gaze travels over her, briefly flicking across her naked hips and thighs and everything in between before smiling devilishly up at her. "Definitely not complaining, luv."
She smirks and moves his hands from off her waist onto the hem of her t-shirt. He sits up, widening his knees behind her so she's in the slope between his thighs and his stomach, his fingers raising the shirt slowly. She's keen for his hands to be on her already, for his chest to be pressed against hers so he can feel her heart beating over his own, but he's obstinately taking his time, his fingers brushing each freckle, counting her ribs with his thumbs before the shirt reaches the swell of her breasts.
Okay, naked-point-of-no-return… I can do this…
She raises her arms above her head and likely sensing the nervous shiver running through her, he doesn't torment her further, just slips it up and over her shoulders and off her arms.
She shakes her hair out, and his mouth is immediately over hers, hands on her back drawing her into him.
"Gorgeous girl." His mouth works down her neck, nuzzling and kissing and leaving nips of pleasure over her pulse down to her collarbone and Buffy draws in a breath, waiting for the cool mouth to reach the hardening peaks already unbearably responsive to his touch.
He cups her first, kneading as she bows her back, arching into his hand as he drops his head and with sharp teeth draws her nipple into his mouth. She gasps, fingers burying themselves in his hair for stability as she grinds languidly against his cock. A growl escapes him, reverberating through his teeth into the flesh trapped between them.
He lathes his tongue against her, earning a low moan as he pinches the other, and the stimulation starts to make her walls ache, clenching around nothing and needing something desperately.
"Can we…?" she starts, cut off by a mewl of protest when he pulls his mouth away.
"Want me?" he asks, peppering her skin with more kisses that feel like they burn as well as soothe.
"Yes…"
"Need me?" He grips her thigh in his hand, squeezes higher, brushes his thumb across the plane of her stomach between mons and belly button, inching downwards, encouraged by Buffy's quivering gasps. "Need me here, luv? Like I need you?"
She nods frantically. "Yes."
His thumb glides across her clit and she jumps from the hypersensitivity, an answering ache constricting her inner walls tighter.
"Spike…"
Loose circles of movement get her swaying against his hand until the heat of the room and the friction between her legs has her ready to swoon.
"Please…"
With a hand on her hip, he encourages her to move back, raising her off her knees to give him space to center beneath her. Both hands then on her waist bring her down, and she gasps as he fills her completely, her thighs trembling against his hips.
"God, Buffy," he growls as she repeats the motion instinctively, her hands on his chest as he holds her tight. "So hot… God, you're so tight… feel so good."
She supposes she must be excruciatingly tight around him as every raise of her hips is accompanied by a protesting clench inside her, gripping hard enough that she could easily believe they'd be fused together.
Her hands grip his shoulders as she presses her lips over his. He twitches hard inside her when her fingers graze the corded muscles of his neck. She moans, feeling him swell further.
"You too," she mumbles, resting her head against his as she winds her arms around his neck.
"All for you," he murmurs back, sounding just as breathless and enraptured, grinning at her unintentional compliment but with eyes lit with disbelief. "Buffy, all for you. All I am is yours."
Her heart swells with amazement that the words she's still cradling close to her chest seem to spill from him without reservation.
"You're mine?" she asks, not so much for confirmation but to hear more promises that he gives freely.
He hits a sweet spot of nerves and she constricts around him, both of them groaning in awe. His head slumps against her neck.
"God, I am. I'd say m'owned body and soul if I could. The way you burn in me, could almost believe I had one, again." A lovesick sigh brushed cool air against her skin. "Don'tchu unnerstand yet, how much 'm yours?" The lazy cadence of his London accent slurs further like he's intoxicated, drunk on the feel of her. The rolling rhythm of his hips keeps pushing her up; like the tide taking over a shoreline—slow and hypnotic and inevitable. His hands around her waist hold her firmly against him, everything in overwhelming and blissful contact.
"Spike…" Too much, too much, oh my God—
She's going to snap, she's going to melt, she's going to scream. Tears blur her eyes at the impending loss of control.
A last firm thrust pushes her straight through the barrier of her release; a low bass note-like vibration below her belly that's visceral as a sucker punch, a high-pitched groan escaping her as her thighs quake, heaving in a giant gasp of air that feels so exquisitely like a mirrored reverse of the first breath dragged in from crawling back to life. Clean and free of earth in her mouth and dizzying for its oxygen saturation, enough that every muscle relaxes, leaving her weak in his arms as he follows, breathing hard at her neck as he swells and spills in her, holding on tightly as the last shockwaves of dwindling release jolt pleasantly through them.
As their shared spasms fade, soft fingers brush over her spine—down to the curve of her lower back and return again to between her shoulder blades—and Buffy feels his touch loosening her muscles as well as her tongue.
Say it now…
"If I-" she starts and then has to stop to catch her breath as the enormity of what she is about to say perforates her heart again. "If I said I loved you, what would happen?"
His fingers flinch away for a second, suddenly hovering above her skin and no longer in contact as he freezes beneath her. Buffy rushes to fill the impending cavernous silence. "I think I'm cursed… boyfriend-wise," she says, her heart tightening uncontrollably around previous scar tissue. "I don't think I can have that anymore. I don't think I'm… dinner and the movies girl anymore. It just always seems to go super very wrong," she adds with a breathless chuckle that sounds devastatingly forced. She shakes it off. "But I want you. I want whatever we could have together. And we have this, don't we? Being friends, with the 'us' and…" She pauses, closing her eyes to feel the words at their fullest. "...And the me loving you part."
Spike is silent for several heartbeats, shallow breathing belaying his shock, and guilt cinches her gut that he could possibly still be surprised by those words.
When she's feeling brave enough she pulls back and meets his gaze directly. And sees it; a wet shine over his eyes.
"You're crying," she whispers, not meaning to be blunt but too stunned to cushion her tone. He jerks like her words are a slap in the face and tilts his head back.
"Shit," he utters, eyes closing to will the tears back down.
Oh fuck, Buffy thinks bitterly, squeezing his shoulder to get him to open his eyes again.
"Did I do it wrong?" she asks.
He lets out a stunned chuckle that's wet like a sob.
"No," he whispers. "Just… say it to me again, Buffy."
She swallows, and cups his head in her hands, leaning her forehead against his. "I love you."
It's barely out of her mouth before his kiss consumes her, newly possessive and wild. "Buffy, I love you. God, love you so much… so much…"
AN: thank you a million to RavenLove12 and foxfaceinthewindow for all their help here! What an immense journey to get here, thank you so much to so many people for all the support and comments, it means the world!