III
Spike had been ready to do something to her before she awoke; Buffy was certain of it. The foggy look in his eyes melted from shock to awe, flecked with sparks of kindness, then fired with lust again when he sniffed at the air. He’d licked his lips with that sultry tongue of his and opened his mouth to speak…
Then her mother’s fist had pounded on her door and the dream-world around her had vanished. Somehow, the night had run away from her. One minute, she’d been with Spike and the next she was back in her room, and woefully alone at that. There were no eyes burning into her. No sexy accent whispering naughty things in her ear. No Spike. No Spike anywhere. And aside from her mother’s persistence that she haul her behind out of bed and in the shower before she was late, all was quiet.
Buffy wasn’t sure how she made it through the day. While logically she knew she’d done nothing wrong, she couldn’t help the way her insides flushed with guilt whenever she thought of Angel or…well, Angel. It wasn’t like she could control her freakishly realistic might-not-be-dreams.
It was the realism that ultimately did it for her. After last night—after waking up with a lake of fire between her legs—Buffy was all but convinced there was nothing fake about her time with Spike. Everything was too real—too specific. There were no crazy turns or random idiosyncrasies; even the room was the same. Always the same. Dreams were never that specific—she didn’t care if she lived on the helliest of hellmouths. Something was going on. She spent every day in training learning about Spike, and every night in Spike’s company. There was nothing fake about it. Nothing fake at all.
She wondered if Spike thought of her this much when he was awake. She wondered if he thought of her at all.
And if he hadn’t thought of her before, she wondered if he would now. Today. Especially today. He’d been ready to do something to her. Something undoubtedly naughty but very much of the good. There’d been no hatred in his eyes. No loathing. Nothing but confusion and undeniable sparks of desire. Buffy knew desire when she saw it. She might be a biological virgin, but there was no way she was a mental one. Ever since Angel came into her life, she’d given sex more and more thought—not necessarily sex with him, because other than a few tasty kisses, they hadn’t shared anything. Well, she’d danced like a bitch in heat against a very aroused Xander just to drive Angel crazy, but that didn’t necessarily make them soulmates. It made her a tease. A big, lousy tease.
Since Spike barreled into her life, she barely had time for Angel anymore. Her thoughts were occupied by a different vampire. And now that they’d shared something—something that had started out as outright violation but led to something soft and aggravatingly undefined—she didn’t know what to think. All she knew was she couldn’t wait to go to sleep.
She couldn’t wait, but she dreaded it all the same. There was no telling what the night would bring. What daylight and hours away from Spike would do to his outlook. He might decide he was disgusted with himself for letting her touch him—for letting her take control of something that was supposed to be brutal and degrading. He might say nothing to her at all, as had been the norm for weeks. There was no telling with Spike. He was unpredictable.
There was an easy solution to this, of course. Just tell the Watcher. Tell Giles that her nights were no longer hers, and hadn’t been since Spike arrived and starting messing everything up. Tell Giles that, until last night, she’d thought everything to be purely a dream, but she’d learned things—felt things—no dream could replicate. She could tell Giles, and he’d hit the books. He’d either find a prophecy or an antidote or something to explain her very strange life in a very bookish, clinical fashion. If she told Giles, there was every chance she’d never have to see Spike in her dreams again.
And that was why she kept her mouth shut. She wasn’t going to cave. She wasn’t going to run. Oh no. Spike would be there tonight.
There would be no pushing of the pause button. No running away.
Even if every nerve in her body buzzed with dread.
*~*~*
Buffy didn’t know how she knew the woman she’d seen Angel with was Spike’s elusive her; she just did. Granted, the whole Angel-talking-to-a-vamp-without-dustiness went a long way in piecing the puzzle together. There was no questioning the woman was of the undead nation; Angel was weirdly weird about his family, or whatever crazy Anne Rice term vamps used to describe those in their bloodline. He hadn’t even attempted to take out Spike the few times they’d faced each other—not in an ‘ashes-to-ashes-dust-to-dust’ way, anyway. Perhaps it was some bizarre side-effect of the soul. Because Spike and Dru were his…offspring, or whatever, Angel felt responsible for the lives lost at their fangs.
One thing was for certain: if the woman she’d seen with Angel was Spike’s girlfriend—or the one he loved in his vampy way, there were serious issues just waiting to boil over. Because the way she was mooning over Angel was in no way platonic. There was serious lust there. Big heaps of fat, serious lust. The vamp-woman would’ve stripped naked and screwed Angel under the monkey bars if he’d asked.
And for whatever reason, Buffy didn’t care. She didn’t care. She was climbing into bed after a rather uneventful patrol—save the vamp soap opera—and she could care less that her alleged honey was out there with another woman. She didn’t care.
She didn’t care because she knew she was going to see Spike tonight.
It was no longer a question of if, and if she was truly honest with herself, it never had been. Oh sure, she would go through the motions of pretending he might not show up in her dreams, knowing always, of course, that he would be there the second she shut her eyes. They’d been doing this for weeks now; it was their standing date. He would be there. And he’d either be nasty or wonderful or completely silent. There was every possibility, after last night’s explosive encounter, that he might not say anything at all. That the silence to which she’d begrudgingly grown accustomed would once again dominate her evening.
She didn’t want that. And she wasn’t sure she wanted him to talk, either. Well, okay, she was anxious to see him, but she didn’t know how she should feel about that. About her obviously ill state of mind if she could anticipate spending yet another night in the company of a killer. A killer whom, not twenty-four hours ago, had shoved his cock in her mouth and pounded against her face so hard she was genuinely surprised she hadn’t awoken with a sore jaw this morning.
But it hadn’t lasted. He’d been so angry last night; so incredibly angry. But it hadn’t lasted. And by the time the night was rolling toward its conclusion, he’d looked at her as though she were precious. As though she’d been touched by God.
Last night had her confused. God, confused and more than confused. And knowing that she would have to see Spike and face even more confusion made her dread sleep but pine for it all the same.
Oh yeah. Her life was screwy.
But for some reason, she couldn’t bring herself to change it.
*~*~*
Spike always made it first. He was always the one waiting. The one sitting on the bed, staring intently at the corner from which she always materialized. It was something she’d come to depend on—the promise of his presence. Because no matter how confused these nights together had her, there was some measure of solace in them as well. Even nights as volatile and potentially damaging as the last.
There was so much in her life that didn’t belong to her. This did. With as twisted and dangerous as it was, it was real. And it was hers. No one could take that away.
Spike was, as usual, on the edge of the bed, his hands clasped and his eyes bright with contrition. He didn’t wait for her to collect herself. Instead, he opened his mouth and said, “’m sorry.” And it took everything that she had to keep from falling over.
Buffy blinked, dumbfounded. “You’re what?”
“’m sorry,” he said again.
“…you are?”
“Last night…I wasn’ myself, Slayer. Not till…” A long, tortured laugh tore through his throat. “I’m sorry, all right? I shouldn’t’ve done it. Never mind why I shouldn’t’ve done it—I jus’ shouldn’t’ve.” He was quiet for a beat, though he couldn’t keep from twitching under her scrutiny. “Let’s jus’ leave it. Yeah? Do you need to know every sodding detail?”
Buffy licked her lips and exhaled slowly. Great. Two seconds here and she was already trembling like a tectonic plate. “Every detail…of what, exactly?” she asked slowly. “I know the details of last night. What other details are there?”
Spike opened his mouth to reply, then paused and frowned. There was nothing for several long, endless seconds.
And then something happened. Something very strange.
Spike laughed. He really laughed. Softly at first, and then hard. He laughed until his body shook. He laughed until his chuckles grew so high in pitch she would have questioned his sanity were she not already questioning her own. It was both relaxing and unnerving; seeing Spike laugh. Not knowing if he was amused or devastated. Not knowing why she really cared, and fearing the answer to her own questions.
“We’re a bloody pair, aren’t we?” he asked, spreading his arms hopelessly. “I don’t know what to do, Slayer. Fuck me, I’ve run outta ideas. I go for violence, an’ you kiss me. I try to ignore you, an’ you…you jus’ sit there…with me but not with me, yeah? Can’t bloody well wish you away. An’ then last night, I tried to…God, I don’ even know what I was tryin’ to do. I jus’…seein’ you, an’ then seeing you…I snapped.” He exhaled, his shoulders rolling back. “An’ why the bleeding hell do I care? Why have I wracked my buggering brain tryin’ to get over the idea that I might’ve hurt you? You’re the enemy, right? I should wanna snack on your innards, but the thought of what I did…” A tortured, pitiful laugh filled the air. “If there was any bloody justice in the world, you’d be six sodding feet below me now an’ I could forget…” He trailed off helplessly, leaving her to drown in his azure eyes. “I could jus’ move on.”
He was talking circles around her, muddling her already confused thoughts into a pounding headache. “Move on?” she asked, trembling. There was nothing in Spike’s body language to warn her that she might be in trouble; she didn’t even know if he could hurt her here, beyond the impression of a nonexistent bruise. “I don’t understand…”
“I can’t get you outta my bloody head,” he whispered, his eyes falling shut. “Doesn’ matter where I am. Who I’m…who I’m with. It’s wrong. I’m not some nancy puppy with a soul stuffed up my arse. I don’t want to think about you, but what ole Spike wants doesn’ matter anymore. You’re haunting me, Slayer. You’re with me all the sodding time, an’ I can’t get away. When I wake up, you’re there. When I eat, you’re there. When I sleep, you’re there. You’re always there. Always.” He paused. “In a hundred years, I’ve never looked at another woman. I might be the only monogamous vampire in the bloody world, but I’ve never wanted anything else. Even when she did. An’ suddenly you’re…suddenly you’re all I think about.”
“I don’t mean to be,” Buffy whispered, hoping against hope he wouldn’t hear the lie in her voice. The lie that betrayed her uncertainty—the part of her that was torn between loving and hating this. “God, Spike, I have no idea what’s going on. All I know is, I go to sleep and I’m here.”
“Me too,” he replied miserably.
“So you think it, too?”
Spike glanced up, arching an inquisitive brow. “Think what?”
“That…well, that we’re sharing dreams. Or that…it’s real?” She bit her lower lip uncertainly, her insides quivering at the shadow that fell across his face. “I mean, obviously not real real. Because…I’m very much with the tucked in my bed right now. A-and you’re…wherever you are.”
He shook his head hard. Too hard. Hard enough that she knew immediately he’d given the probability a lot of thought. More than likely, he’d figured it out long before she had, and was rather content remaining locked in denial. “No,” he whispered furiously. “That’s impossible.”
“One of the things I’ve learned while living on the Hellmouth: nothing’s impossible.”
“I don’—”
“She was with Angel tonight.” Buffy froze, her eyes widening in horror. Where the words had come from, she didn’t know; she just had to say something. She had to say something to get him off this kick where he thought he needed to remain faithful to a faithless whore-vampeven in his mind. And granted, announcing something like that was probably not the best move, but she needed it out there. She needed him to know.
“She what?” Spike rasped. He didn’t bother to ask to whom she referred. It was there—one of the many unacknowledged elephants in the room. “H-how do you know?”
“I saw her. Well, I’m guessing it was her. I don’t know.” She licked her lips nervously, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. “But she was with Angel and he wasn’t…you know…killing her.” A cold beat of silence stretched between them. Buffy swallowed hard and slowly raised her right hand to demonstrate an approximate height. “Yay tall. Thin. Dark hair. Very…umm…pretty.”
“Shut your gob!” Spike barked, though she knew immediately it was more out of hurt than anger. “She’s a fucking goddess.”
Buffy’s hands came up defensively. “I didn’t—”
“You’re not worthy to lick dirt off the bottom of her shoes, Slayer. Not even worth the blood in your body. You—”
Each word slashed a deeper cut into her flesh. “I didn’t mean to…look, she was there. I saw them. I—”
“With Angel.”
She nodded, the motion nearly indiscernible. “Yeah, she was with Angel. I’m…God, I don’t know what I am anymore. I just…I thought you should know.”
“You thought I should—”
“Yes!”
The world spun off its axis. One second, Spike was glaring at her and panting with fury, his ocean eyes blazing with shards of yellow as he attempted to rein his demon in; the next, he’d stormed across the room, captured her face between his hands, and smashed his mouth to hers. And that was it. That was the proverbial it. Everything around her melted. Spike’s tongue slipped between her lips, and with a long whimper, she became his completely. There was no taste in the world that could rival him; and the more she took, the hungrier she became. Boundaries blurred and her moral compass all but vanished. The longer she was with him, the less she cared about right andwrong. This couldn’t be happening unless it was at least partly right…right?
The part of her that gave a damn was growing smaller and smaller. Perhaps none of this meant anything—she didn’t know. All she knew was that Spike was pressed intimately against her, stroking her tongue with his as his lips made love to her mouth. His hard cock rubbed against her pajama-clad pussy, inciting small, involuntary whimpers from her mouth and stirring the fire he’d started that first night back to full glory. Her skin was hot all over. Her blood rushed with excitement. She was wet and burning at the same time, and while the torture was sweet, her body begged for relief.
Spike was the only one who could give it to her.
“Slayer,” he whimpered, slipping a hand between them, his fingers dancing in featherlike strokes across her flat stomach. “God help me, but I want you so much.”
“Mnnaguh.”
Okay, so that wasn’t a word. Was she actually expected to speak coherently as he kissed her lips off?
“You taste so fucking good,” Spike gasped, sucking her lower lip between his teeth. “Could snog you for hours.”
She didn’t know what that meant, but with that tone, he’d have little difficulty talking her into anything.
“Christ, how you torture me,” he murmured, his sliding fingers beneath the waistband of her flannel pajama bottoms. “I want you every second. Every sodding second of every day. You’ve bloody well bewitched me. Want your sweet quim wrapped around my cock. Wanna make you cream so good, you’ll be ruined for anyone else. You’ll be mine.”
“Ohhhh my God.”
“You want that, don’ you, Slayer?”
“Buffy,” she choked, fisting lockfuls of his hair. “It’s Buffy.”
Spike’s eyes glazed over, his index finger sliding further southward. “Buffy,” he murmured. “Buffy…you’re mine, you understand? Angel doesn’ touch you.”
She knew the demand would sound irrational in the light of day, but God, she could care less at that moment. His touch was slipping closer to where she needed him, coating a desert of cold relief over her otherwise burning skin. “Okay,” she cried. “Okay.”
“Say it, Buffy. Lemme hear it.”
She threw her head back and moaned, Spike’s lips instantly pressing a series of hot, wet kisses down her throat. “Yours,” she whimpered helplessly. “Spike…oh my God…”
“Smell so sweet.”
“Guh…”
“Wanted to taste you last night. You disappeared.”
Buffy shook her head. “I woke up.”
“Don’ do that.”
God, if it were only so simple. “Don’t wanna. Wanna stay.”
Spike pulled back sharply at that, his eyes blazing. “You wanna stay here?” he asked softly, trembling suddenly, the awed look she’d admired the night before pouring again across his gorgeous face. “You wanna stay with me?”
Buffy whimpered powerlessly and nodded, thrusting her hips forward in hope of luring his hand lower. He was barely touching her—she needed him to touch her everywhere. “Yes,” she breathed, but she’d already forgotten the question. “I—”
It was a good thing he moaned and covered her mouth with his again, because she hadn’t the slightest idea what she was about to say. Only that it would likely have been a babbling mess of incoherency. He melted her with his kiss, his hands abandoning pursuit of her girl parts to seize her hips and angle her into the sharp thrust of his denim-clad cock. “I gotta taste you,” he murmured between kisses. “Gotta know how purity tastes.”
“Oh God.”
“Wanna sink my tongue into that pussy. Make sure no one else has gotten you first.”
“Oh God.”
Spike pulled back, his eyes twinkling. “Are you stuck on repeat?”
“I have no idea,” she answered honestly, bluntly, her mind fogged. “God, I’m burning up.”
“I’ll bloody say.” With one last hungry kiss, he pulled back abruptly and shoved her back until her legs hit the mattress. He was on her again the second she fell, covering her with his body, running his hands up her abdomen until he had a mound of Buffy-breast in each palm. “These are mine,” he growled, sucking at one of her nipples through her thin camisole. “No one touches them.”
“No one. Oh God.”
He grinned in satisfaction, and before she could blink, cold air touched her skin and her camisole was no more. “Good,” he purred, his tongue flicking her sensitive skin with a delicious growl. “You’re so fucking perfect.”
“Perfect?”
“My perfect, hot li’l slayer.” His lips moved down the valley between her breasts, hands fisting the hem of her flannel bottoms. “Gonna get a good look at you now.” He brushed another kiss across the underside of one of her breasts, tongue flicking out for a quick taste. “My slayer.”
The possessiveness in his voice only made her hotter. Buffy whimpered and nodded eagerly, lifting her hips as he stripped the fabric down her legs. And then, for the first time in her life, she was lying completely naked in front of a man. A man whose cock she’d tasted. A man whose kisses still burned her lips. A man who was her enemy.
Her enemy…
“My God.”
There was something in Spike’s voice that rattled her insides. Buffy shivered and looked up just as the back of his knuckles grazed her bare skin. He was staring at her pussy like a man possessed, his eyes searing with lust. “Buffy…” he whispered. “You…”
She flushed brightly when she saw what he was looking at. “Short skirts. High kicks,” she explained hurriedly. “I…you know, it just seemed—”
“So beautiful.”
Buffy paused and arched a brow. “It’s beautiful? Well…that’s…that’s, umm, nice, but I’ve never—”
Spike’s gaze flickered upward, his heated eyes swallowing her whole. “Believe me, love,” he whispered. “It’s beautiful. Sexy as hell, too.”
“And for some reason, cheaper than just a bikini wax.” Her skin was literally going to catch on fire if she became any hotter. “You really like it…?”
He grinned and rubbed his cheek against her hairless pussy. “So soft. So bloody sweet. Do you taste as sweet as you smell?”
“Spike…”
“Let’s find out.”
Then, without ceremony, he plunged his tongue deep inside her, and the world around her dissolved into a sea of color. Sparks detonated across her skin, as an inhuman moan ripped through her throat. Her body was aflame, her blood bubbling with elation so pure it had to be illegal. And before she knew what she was doing, her thighs had closed around his face, her hips bucking up to persuade his tongue deeper inside her pussy. “Oh my God!” she gasped. “Oh my God!”
“Mmm…” Spike purred, grinning a purely evil grin, his devilish tongue withdrawing from her aching, wet opening before diving in again. “Take it I was right? No one else has had you here?”
“Spike…oh God, please!”
If anything, his grin grew wider, his left hand slipping over her hip. “You like this, baby?” he murmured, pulling back just slightly and licking his lips. “Fuck, you taste good.”
Her face flamed. “I…do?”
Spike grunted but didn’t reply, rather delved his tongue inside her again, his thumb settling over her clit. “I’m right, aren’ I?” he growled, rubbing her gently, his eyes raking up the length of her writhing body until their gazes locked. “No one’s ever done this to you before.”
Again, she had to wonder if he really expected a coherent response. Either way, the answer that rolled off her lips wasn’t in any language she knew. She supposed she should consider herself fortunate that Spike was fluent in tangled, unintelligible moans of pleasure. Fortunate and very, very jealous. He’d staked his claim on her, but after this was over he’d wake up with another woman at his side.
This wasn’t all hers. Spike had taken possession of her body and, despite logic, he was wheedling his way into her heart as well. And the knowledge was enough to kill her, because she knew, despite what they shared, that he would never be hers. He was only with her to pass the time. And God, she hated herself so much for caring. For thinking about what would happen in the hours they weren’t together. For knowing, once she left here, the part of her that had been divided before she arrived tonight would no longer be in question. Even with the brutality he’d subjected her to the night before, the softness he’d shown her afterward—coupled with the way his mouth was making love to her now—had absolved him of any wrongdoing in her heart. And she couldn’t give a damn what that made her. How sick it was. Howwrong it was. She didn’t care. Not right now. The part of her that wanted so badly to hate him had died, and the only thing left to do was wait until her heart was good and broken.
Spike was a vampire first in his eyes. He hated this thing between them. He hated it so much. And even though his mouth was touching her now with adulation, she knew how much this tenderness had to revile him. Tenderness for her. Tenderness he normally reserved for another.
This wasn’t permanent, but it had left a permanent mark. All she could do right now was enjoy it and hope it wouldn’t hurt too much when he remembered who he was, and how easy it would be to kill her now.
Buffy sucked in a breath and moaned his name aloud, her hips arching off the bed as his tongue dipped inside her pussy again. The things he did to her…no one would ever touch her like this. No one. He’d crawled inside her skin and made himself at home. Her life would never be the same.
“Bleeding hell,” Spike breathed into her, his tongue lapping at her slit, swallowing her with his eyes when she cried out again. “You taste divine.”
That was the second time he’d referred to her taste. The idea that she even had a distinctive taste had her skin melting off her bones with a strange combination of humiliation and intrigue. However, for the way he was suckling her juices up like a man starved, she decided that he could have as much of her so-called divine taste as he liked. “I…oh…oh my…Spike…”
“No one else tastes this pussy,” he growled, his thumb rubbing her clit in small circles before sighing in concession and releasing her to make room for his mouth. And the second her swollen pearl was sucked between his lips, a wanton, womanly cry touched the air in a voice she barely recognized as her own. “No one, Buffy.”
“Unnnhg!”
“Angel even thinks of getting this close to you, an’ the wanker’s dust. You hear?” His tongue indulged in long, sensuous laps of her tortured clit, two fingers slipping between her pussy lips and gently pushed inside her. And God, the compounded sensation was going to unmake her completely. “This honey’s mine.”
She wanted to stipulate if Angel couldn’t come near her that Spike’s vamp-hoe was similarly off-limits. But those words wouldn’t come; she nodded instead, stifling a sob and thrusting her pussy against his mouth, pushing his fingers deeper inside her.
“You’re so bloody tight,” Spike whispered between flicks of his tongue. “Can’t wait to feel you around me. Swallowin’ me. Burnin’ me so good.”
“Oh God.”
She was desperate to keep her eyes on him—addicted, as she was, to the sight of his gorgeous face buried between her legs. And now that she was all but convinced this was real—or as real as the dream allowed—the thought that he was truly licking at her forbidden flesh and drinking her feminine juices was nearly too much to handle. Even in the height of popularity, Buffy had never seen herself as the sort of girl guys would want to do this to; she’d listened in envy to friends back at Hemery as they discussed the raunchy interludes they’d enjoyed with their respective boyfriends, never thinking it would happen for her. Not even when she met Angel. Now Spike was sucking her so hard she was sure she would combust. There’d be nothing left of her after this.
“You’re gonna let me in here, aren’ you, Slayer?” Spike murmured, releasing her clit with a parting lick, his fingers slipping out of her aching hole as his tongue dipped inside her again. “You’re gonna wrap this delicious flesh around my cock. Both in here an’ out there. I’m gonna need to taste every inch of you.”
The idea alone made her sob. She’d let him have her; she knew she would. But it’d leave her ruined for anyone else, and all too soon he’d run back to the one he really wanted and she’d be left nursing a broken heart.
This had happened too fast. She’d lost herself too damn fast.
“You gonna let me fuck you, Buffy?” he rasped, the steady thrust of his tongue in and out of her pussy and the way his fingers played her clit dangerously close to climax tearing down the walls around her. “You gonna let me show you how good it can be? You gonna let me make you mine? Completely mine?”
God, she already was. Hadn’t he proven that already?
“Wanna fuck you so badly. Need to feel this delicious pussy on my cock. Squeezin’ me till I bloody pop.” He pinched her clit and sucked hard at her opening, his eyes brightening with every cry that erupted from her lips. “So gorgeous, you are. So bloody gorgeous.”
“Spike…I…” She trembled so hard she nearly cried, her cells compounding closer and closer to the ambiguous edge of something she’d never felt before. Shapes blurred around her before her eyes were blinded by white, her nerves quivering and ecstasy. “I…oh…”
“Come for me, baby,” he bid her hoarsely, rubbing her clit so fast she figured it’d break. “Come on my tongue. Drench me good.”
Then, without warning, the bones in his face shifted and he’d plunged his demon tongue so far inside her, she saw proverbial stars. And that was it; Buffy threw her head back and made a chorus of his name, her hips thrusting madly off the mattress. Her body sizzled and exploded, doused so deep in never-ending waves of rapture that she was panting in easy seconds for memory of how to breathe. It lasted forever but it was over too soon. She felt Spike suckling at her pussy, felt his fingers moving still over her slippery, sensitive clit, and nearly yelped in a twist of pleasured pain. Sweat lined her brow and her chest ached with the heavy weight of her gasps. And by the time the world returned to her, she was dizzy with sensation.
Spike remained where he was, resting his cheek against her belly and gently running his fingers between her pussy lips—touching her but not. Cooling the flames he’d set inside her body, but keeping her dangerously close to the boiling point at the same time.
She was lost. God, she was so lost to him.
It was a cruel world that awaited her beyond the dream. Right now, it took everything she had to keep from dissolving into a mess of tears. If nothing else, she needed to keep herself preserved from the mocking bite of his ruthless tongue. Should Spike ever discover just how much she truly belonged to him, he’d use the information to cut her down until there was nothing left. Until the notch he wanted on his belt was firmly in place. Until she was nothing but a name in a Watcher’s Diary—a historical warning for future slayer generations.
Buffy shivered hard and begged the cosmos for strength. She could cry over this all morning. Just not now.
Please not now.
“I don’ know what this is, Slayer,” Spike whispered, spearing the silence and brushing a small, tender kiss across her stomach. “It’s either killin’ me or bringing me to life…an’ fuck if I know which.”
She wove her fingers through his hair and sighed, but said nothing.
If she spoke, she’d betray herself.
Even more than she already had.