Chapter 13
Elizabeth was in better spirits the following day, having had a dreamless sleep. As much as she wanted answers, the confusion and agony of not understanding those strange dreams wasn’t worth finding out. Besides, she had a party to attend, a host to humiliate for daring to flirt with what was hers and a man to make swoon with desire.
The last part wouldn’t be difficult at all to achieve. William had been following her around all day, as much as he was allowed to, giving her sly glances and flirtatious winks, adding more fuel to the fire of anticipation for their evening together. It was only an hour ago that he’d finally left her alone to get ready for the evening, happy that amid the various selections of day dresses in her trunk there was a party dress. She and Evelyn spent quite some time deciding on the best way to style her hair and settled on a delicate up-do on one side and left the other to cascade down her shoulders in loose curls, affixed with a crystal comb that Anne let her borrow. Her pink sateen dress was trimmed with wide burgundy velvet ribbon along the neckline and sleeves which fell just below her elbows. The bodice was fitted with large, fabric covered buttons that ran down the side beneath her arm and down to her waist, stopping above an intricately folded waistline of pink fabric that billowed out and hung to the floor. Her white lace gloves completed the look and after inspecting her reflection in the mirror a final time, she walked towards the stairs to meet with William.
She stopped halfway down the steps when he came into view, placing a gloved hand on her chest when she gasped. Someone had gone to the tailors because William looked deliciously dressed and extremely handsome. He wore a gray ascot and black waistcoat beneath a neatly fitted double breasted overcoat that stopped high on his waist in the front and had long coat tails in the back. And the man was wearing gray breeches and black riding boots, the devil!
“Are we going riding?” she asked coyly once she finally found her voice and descended the rest of the stairs towards him.
“No,” he said softly and whispered in her ear, “but I liked the way you looked at my legs the last time I wore these.”
She blushed and hid her eyes from view, embarrassed that she’d been caught.
“Oh, none of that,” he smiled and placed his gloved hand on the small of her back. “And you look like a plate of petits fours.”
She didn’t know what those were, but it sounded nice.
“Tiny decorative cakes,” he said with a chuckle when he saw her confused expression. “Good enough to eat.”
“William,” she blushed again, turning away from his silken chuckles as Anne came in to send them off. “Thank you again for loaning me your comb, Mrs. Pratt.”
“Not at all, Elizabeth. You two make a handsome pair,” she said proudly with tears in her eyes.
“Oh, Mother, don’t get weepy on me now. We’re just going to a party.”
“I know,” she sniffled and shook her head. “I’m being silly. You two have a wonderful time. And remember to thank your hosts and not to drink too much.” She paused, thinking of more warnings to give them. “And don’t overeat!”
“Mother,” William rolled his eyes and ushered Elizabeth out the front door. “We aren’t children.”
“I know, I know. You’re just so handsome,” she smiled and kissed him on the cheek. “My handsome little boy is all grown up.”
With all due respect to William’s new image and confidence, he couldn’t help but soften to his mother’s words and he blushed, kissing her on the cheek as well. “We’ll be late, don’t wait up for us.”
She waved as they got into the carriage, watching them go down the dirt road. As much as she wanted him to become a man, it was painful for a mother to finally see it happen. She wondered if she could fake illness and live with them when they were married…
* * *
“It is a long drive to the Underwoods’,” William said as soon as they got in the carriage.
“How long is it?”
“At least an hour if we’re traveling at top speed,” he said as he lowered the window flaps to conceal them from the outside. “But I told the driver to take the scenic route.”
“What are you doing?”
“Absolutely nothing,” he said with a smile as he got on his knees in front of her.
She swallowed and her lungs clenched as his hands rested on her knees. “I think you’re doing something.”
He tilted his head as he looked at her, all the while raising her skirts. “What are you talking about?”
“You know what I’m…oh!” He’d flipped her skirt up and bunched it around her waist.
Truth be told, William didn’t know what the hell he was planning on doing but he had an hour and he wasn’t going to waste it. And now she was spread before him in beautiful cream stockings and a look of anxiety and lust on her face. He couldn’t back out now, as if he would.
“Elizabeth,” he tsked, sliding one hand up her thigh, “I am a perfect gentleman.”
“Uh huh,” she said as she tucked her tongue in one corner of her mouth, daring him to do something else.
“Scoot forward, please.”
She licked her lips and wiggled to the edge of the small carriage seat, panting when his eyes raked over the thin cotton drawers that he’d pushed up from her knees to her thighs. “This is inappropriate,” she smiled, spreading her legs wider for him.
His hand brushed over her mound and he chuckled cruelly, placing a kiss on the thin strip of exposed flesh on her thigh. “Not yet it isn’t.” He brought his hand to his mouth and bit down on one fingertip of his glove and pulled it off, flinging it on the seat. “I have no idea what I’m doing,” he looked into her eyes, bringing his unsheathed hand back to her sex and rubbing between her folds.
“I think you do,” she gasped, closing her eyes and letting the sensations sweep over her.
He pulled open the long slit of her drawers and his breath caught in his throat. So that’s what it looked like. “God…I…”
“What?” she panicked, trying to close her legs but he held her open.
“I need to…” without finishing his sentence, his head lowered and he kissed her tenderly, unknowingly sending a wave of pleasure up Elizabeth’s spine as he’d placed his lips directly on her clit.
“Holy shit!” she shouted and William raised his head, his eyes wide in shock at her profanity. She covered her mouth and William laughed, dropping his forehead on her thigh.
Still chuckling he said, “Dirty mouth.”
“I’m sorry,” she giggled. “I don’t know where that came from.”
“I do,” he waggled his eyebrows and descended upon her, kissing and nipping at the tiny bud that he’d discovered moments before. She flailed helplessly above him, her chest arching forward to the point of almost breaking when his tongue swept over it and he hummed his approval. “We’re going to hell,” he chuckled, bringing one finger up to run the length of her slit.
“Me? You’re the one doing the…oh, GOD!”
* * *
London, present day. A few minutes before the portal opened
Giles stood calmly in front of the glowing orb that appeared in the large room. He knew it wouldn’t be long before he could walk through the portal but his patience was growing thin.
“Come on!” he shouted with a whisper, fidgeting nervously with his glasses as the witches completed their spell. Days, he’d waited for them to get on with it and suddenly, it was time.
* * *
Elizabeth looked down at William, only able to see the top of his curly brown hair bobbing above the large bundle of skirts bunched around her waist. Her legs twitched involuntarily and she clutched the seat at her sides, moaning loud and high as his finger pumped inside her and his tongue drew a myriad of patterns on her clit. William dove right in, his lust addled brain going into overdrive as he was nose deep in her pussy, devouring and rolling his head from side to side as if he were drunk on the taste of her, desperate to bring her over but in doing so, he’d worked himself up to the point of bursting in his pants. Reluctantly, he snapped his head away and looked up at her with his reddened, glistening lips and his heavy lidded eyes, still working a finger inside her.
“I can’t wait, Elizabeth. You’re…God, I need you.”
She nodded dumbly, reaching for him with weak arms. He rose to his knees and reached in his coat pocket, pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his mouth clean before tucking it back in his coat. He leaned forward and kissed her, jerking slightly as the carriage ride turned bumpy on the dirt road. The sounds of the horse hooves clomping on the dirt and their heavy breathing seemed to follow in time with one another.
“I love you,” he said sweetly, kissing her neck and chest and carefully removing his finger from inside her.
“I love you, too,” she said as she reached between them to help him with his breeches.
“I’ll be careful not to mess up your hair,” he smirked, hissing when her lace covered hand wrapped around his cock. God, this was it. He was really going to make love to her and he couldn’t think of anything else but her, of being inside her, being in that sweet, warm embrace that his hand had been enveloped in seconds before. “Are you sure?”
“Yes! Please don’t change your mind.”
“Never,” he smiled, groaning as she ran the tip of his cock along her moistened center. And then she let go, wanting him to thrust his way inside and he smiled at her, waiting just a moment longer before his virginity was completely stolen. She was perfection, had changed him into the man he’d always wanted to be, wanted him before it had even happened and loved him as much as he loved her. There wasn’t any hesitation when he shifted his hips forward slightly, entering her just barely so she could get used to the size of him. “This might hurt,” he said consolingly and Elizabeth’s heart almost broke. She wouldn’t tell him, wouldn’t say that he wasn’t her first. She clenched her muscles as hard as she could, making it as tight as possible, and then he abruptly entered her, causing her to cry out in a mixture of pain and pleasure. Perhaps it had been a while…
“Oh, Elizabeth,” he said in awe, kissing her cheeks, her eyes, her throat. He’d never felt anything so exquisite in his life.
* * *
Giles rubbed his eyes and stood up on shaky legs, trying to get a grip on his surroundings. He’d made it through the portal unscathed and landed in a clearing. He took a step forward and tripped when his foot caught on something. Looking down, he saw a felled tree with a nasty pointed and gnarled branch sticking out on one side.
“That would’ve hurt to land on,” he chuckled, glad he’d turned up where he had and not on that dreadful looking thing. It was twilight, casting an eerie light on the clearing though if it were any brighter, he would have noticed the long coiling tracks of dried blood on that very branch, the branch Buffy had actually landed on. If she weren’t the slayer, she most surely would have died from the injury.
He pulled out a pocket watch and the map that they’d drawn up, realizing that it would be far too late to go to the Council, not that he should anyway with Buffy missing. They’d think him a lunatic, might still think so with or without her. So he consulted his map and used his watch as a compass, taking the shortest route into town. He’d have to stay at a hotel for the night and come morning, he could set about to find Buffy. He would go now, but knowing this day and age, he wouldn’t be warmly welcomed as a stranger in the night looking for a missing girl, locator spell or no. Better to get some rest and start at first light.
* * *
Elizabeth jerked beneath William, her eyes opening wide as her body was overcome with a painful sensation that spanned every pore and cell with gripping realization. William took this to be a reaction to her maidenhead rupturing and stilled above her, holding her gently and kissing her apologetically, wiping away the tears that streamed down her cheeks.
She remembered. Everything.
Her calling, her friends, her family. She remembered Spike, how he loved her, how he’d died. Her mission and leaving Giles behind. Remembered it all, and William, God, William. She’d had him all this time and never knew, hadn’t shown him how much she loved him, spent hours in his home making moon eyes at him without ever knowing what he would come to mean to her, to the world. She inhaled deeply, crying with a grateful smile and turned his face towards hers. His hair was different, his cheeks fuller, not yet hardened by years of fighting and anger, but his eyes, his lips, his expressive face was undeniably Spike.
“It’s you! Oh my God, it’s you!”
“Elizabeth?” his cock still nestled inside her, poised gently above her not to cause her any more pain and his expression melted into awe by the way she was looking at him, as if he’d fallen from heaven, a gift to her. “What is it?”
“Oh, William!” she was sobbing, wrapping her arms so tight around him that he almost couldn’t breathe, her legs twining around his to trap him, keep him there forever. “I love you, you jerk!”
He smiled and wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled up to look at her. “You’re so romantic,” he laughed.
“Shut up and make love to me,” she smiled, tears still flowing in disbelief. Her eyes remained open, not wanting to miss one second of this, straddling the edge of sanity as she felt like laughing at the powers that stole him from her, only to have him moving inside her, loving her, kissing her. The only difference was his warmth, his life, and his lack of fangs but that didn’t matter. She had him, God, she’d had him all this time!
“You feel..” he trailed off, embarrassed by his thoughts as his cock slid in and out of her tight warmth, wringing him expertly.
“Tell me,” she pleaded, wanting to hear his confession. She’d always loved how vocal Spike was when they were together, even if she blatantly ignored him only to hide her burgeoning feelings that she’d stupidly denied for years. She wanted it now. Wanted him to experience everything he’d wished for.
He kissed her throat, grinding his pelvis against hers and Holy Mary was it a delicious sensation. “You feel like heaven, and a little like hell,” he winked and she giggled joyously. “Can’t believe I’m…God, Elizabeth.”
“Buffy,” she panted, pivoting her hips as they picked up speed.
“What?”
“Call me Buffy.”
“Buffy,” he said quietly, reverently, and she about died from the sound of it, smashing her lips against his, inhaling and devouring every particle of his being through her mouth, moaning as her walls tightened around him with a promise, throbbed with a building need and he groaned, sliding above her as his hips rolled and pushed, rolled and pushed. “Buffy, I love you.”
A choked sob tore from her throat at those final words and she came, wrapping him up with her limbs and love, dragging out the sensation for as long as he’d allow while he grew closer to climax. He was so warm, so sweet, so pure and he’d given himself to her willingly, fell in love with her all over again, in a different time, a different set of rules and yet they’d still found one another, still came to this union as lovers.
He thrust his hips forward violently, groaning into her throat as he came inside her, finally relaxing as she turned his head to kiss him, scratch his neck and rub her calves along his thighs. He held her gently, breathing in that same way Spike always had, that desperate attempt to calm down, such a human response that only showed what a passionate lover he’d been. God, she loved him.
His forehead pressed against hers and he licked his lips. “Well, that certainly makes the top of the list.”
She giggled, trailing her hands up and down his back. “You have a list?”
“Oh yes,” he smiled, pulling out of her and kissed her chest. “William Pratt’s List of the Most Amazing Things I Never Thought I’d Do, Ever.”
She started laughing and smiled sweetly at him as he cleaned the both of them off with his handkerchief. “What else is on the list?”
“Don’t know. Just started it.”
She poked him in the stomach and bit her lip. “Hey.”
“Hmm?” he said drunkenly, his mind and body floating in the afterglow.
“I love you, you know.”
He sighed happily. “I do. You were amazing. That…was amazing. Holy shit, that was amazing,” he chuckled, poking fun at her earlier exclamation.
“Don’t make fun of me when I feel like a wet noodle.”
“Not making fun,” he smiled, kissing her sweetly. “I can’t believe we just did that.”
“But we did and it was beautiful.”
He didn’t think he could feel any more joy, didn’t think it was possible to feel any better than he had moments ago but those words she’d said, combined with her watery eyes and gorgeous smile just about undid him.
“Did you mess up my hair?”
“No, you look sensational. Glowing.” He sat next to her after he’d buttoned up his pants and lowered her skirts. He took her hand in his and exhaled blissfully, rolling his head to the side to swallow the vision of her with his eyes. He still couldn’t believe she loved him, that this gorgeous creature had given him something so precious. “Is it wrong of me to not want to go to this party and instead make love to you for the next several hours?”
“No,” she smiled, dropping her eyes to their joined hands. He continued speaking about how wonderful everything was, how he couldn’t wait to make her his completely and she had to close her eyes to stop from crying. She wanted it too, wanted to live in this fantasy world where William loved her and was alive and she didn’t have to worry about her calling or demons. But she also knew that it would only be temporary. Giles would find her, take her away from him, bring her back to the lonely place she’d lived for the past year. How could she leave him now? How, when she’d only just found him?
“William?”
“Eli-Buffy?”
She smiled slightly at his quick correction. “From now on, I’m yours. Whatever you want, no matter what it is, we’ll do it.”
He studied her curiously for a moment. “But I want you to be happy as well.”
“I’ve had my chance,” she said quietly. “It’s all for you, William. Nothing would make me happier than to know that you are.”
“But I am,” he brought her hand to his mouth and kissed it. “I am happy. As long as you’re with me.”
She sniffled and turned away, nodding. “Ok.”
“Buffy, look at me.”
“I’m ok.”
”Look at me,” he said firmly.
She obliged him, ducking her head to hide that she’d started crying. She’d done it again. She’d been completely selfish, ruined William’s life because she wanted him, not even thinking of the consequences of her actions. All she saw was him, how she had to prove something. She felt awful. Here she was, offering this man something he could never have, doing the same thing she’d done to Spike. Giving him a taste and yanking it away when it got too serious.
“Why are you sad? We’re together, we love each other, what could be better than that?”
She wiped beneath her eyes and forced a smile. “You’re right. I’m just afraid.”
“What are you afraid of?” He was truly worried now and he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her against him, trying his best to soothe her. Where this was coming from, he didn’t know and it was most troublesome.
“Nothing, I guess. I just don’t want it to end.”
He smiled and kissed her on the temple, his lips lingering for a moment to savor the feel of her hair tickling his nose. “I suppose everything will come to an end, Buffy. But we won’t have to worry about that for some time. I don’t plan on going anywhere. Let’s just enjoy the time we do have, yeah? We’re young, in good health, have the whole world ahead of us. Don’t worry about things we cannot avoid.”
She closed her eyes and nodded, nuzzling into his warmth and inhaling his scent, memorizing every second they had together. He was right, even though he had no idea what he was talking about. She shouldn’t waste her time sniveling and crying when she could make the most of it, for both of them. And in pure Spike fashion, William cracked a joke to ease the tension, something she adored about him; the fact that he always knew the right thing to say.
“I would offer you my handkerchief to dry your tears but I’m afraid some harlot went and drenched the thing with her spendings.” She giggled against him, wrapping an arm around his waist and sighing when he kissed her forehead, feeling his smile against her skin. She would hold on to this moment for the rest of her life.