Chapter 5: Fluency
The music hit them as soon as the cab door opened. Dawn jumped out to the curb still giggling from the cab driver’s last humorous anecdote.
“The coast is clear,” she announced seeing a stream of people walking into the dance club. “Boys and girls, holding hands and everything. Looks like our kind of place.”
Buffy paid the cab driver and exited the vehicle. “What do you think, love?” Spike asked.
“You know how you always wanted to dance with me, Spike? Well tonight is your lucky night.”
A contrite Spike nodded his head. “Anything you want Buffy. After that other place I’m just glad I’m not a big smudge of former vampire on the bottom of your shoe.”
Buffy’s eyes twinkled with evil delight. “Hmm, smudgy Spike…Well, the night’s still young and you might get lucky!” She flared her eyebrows and threw an arm around his waist.
“Come on you two,” Dawn shouted from the doorway.
The darkness of the club was punctuated by spinning, swirling and staccato stabs of light. A sizeable dance floor moved with the weight of swaying bodies.
“Okay, this is cool,” Dawn pronounced, turning back to yell in Buffy’s ear. “We’re staying here!” Dawn reached for Buffy’s hand and pulled her onto the dance floor. In turn Buffy grabbed Spike’s hand and the three of them found a small niche between the sweat soaked pulsating bodies of other patrons.
Soon Dawn was dancing with a look of utter abandon on her face, lost in the beat of the music. Buffy turned to Spike and held out her hands. For all the big talk he’d made over the years she really had no idea if he could actually dance. Feeling mischievous and still a little rattled she opted for the one thing that always fueled her self-confidence: dirty dancing.
A quick glance over her shoulder found Dawn dancing up a storm heedless of her solo status. Dawn was fine. She knew her way around a dance floor. Buffy turned her attentions back to Spike. A look of purpose seized her face as she took a deep breath and raised her hands, placing them behind Spike’s neck. Spike responded by settling his hands on her hips.
The music took control as Buffy began undulating within Spike’s embrace. Slowly and deliberately, Buffy moved her hips. She narrowed her body in on Spike’s but didn’t touch him save for her hands at his neck and his hands on her hips. It was a gentle teasing that aroused both of them. Suddenly, the songs changed and the music took an aggressive turn. Buffy pushed away from Spike and began moving in a more muscular manner. She backed through the crowd away from him.
Initially puzzled at what exactly was occurring, Spike looked to Buffy. He found her moving through the crowd and looking back toward him. There was a message in her glances and an invitation. Spike’s mind turned back to his first night in Sunnydale, when he went to the Bronze to observe the slayer and saw her dancing carefree among her high school friends. That was the first time he observed the way music flowed through her skin.
That night he listened to her siren call for the first time and his body responded, cock first then fangs; an itch for the ages. Dancing and slaying, both activities highlighted Buffy’s physicality to its greatest advantage. Only making love surpassed those two for laying bare her soul to the universe.
His body moved of its own accord, sensing and following her lead as always. Spike obeyed as the magnetism of Buffy’s body spoke to him through the forest of flesh. Hundreds of dancers, each with a pounding heart rate and heated, unrestrained flesh called to him as well, but he listened only to one voice. Her voice.
Come and get it.
Pacing the perimeter of the dance floor, he reenacted that night from so long ago. He caught glimpses of Buffy as he had then: a flash of shoulder, the swing of her hair and her face contorting in waves of delight. A few steps opposite one partner, and then another and another, but only the music itself held her. Buffy moved fluidly knowing that his eyes were upon her.
Closing his eyes Spike allowed the scents of the room to soak into his depths. One particular scent pierced through the others. He flared his nostrils and opened his eyes once more, zeroing in on her position immediately. She twisted and turned, her eyes on him while the music burned through her. Buffy swayed in place, her hands dragged over her thighs, hips, breasts and then reached high over her head in counterpoint to her hips and feet.
Spike struck a pose on the edge of the melee: feet apart, leather coat open and thumbs hooked into his belt buckle. His head tilted, chin down but eyes up, dangerous and inviting. Here kitty, kitty…those words, branded on his soul, called to Buffy in a mouthless growl.
She approached him hips first with her arms entwined behind her back. That precious pink tongue that had both tortured and tantalized him darted from her tempting mouth. She licked her lips with seductive abandon. Spike hardened to granite as the deep pounding bass beat through his body, pooling in his already painful erection.
She was a demon, was his lady; a demon borrowed from heaven for this dance.
Buffy stopped in front of him and looked at him neutrally. “I like your coat,” she said and batted her eyes flirtatiously. “I haven’t seen you in here before.” Spike’s eyes twinkled. The games had begun anew.
He leaned in so she could hear his response above the music. “I’ve been around, love, here and there.”
“Ooo! I love your accent!” Buffy’s face opened with effusive delight.
“Got a bit of an accent there yourself, Yank.”
“Yeah, I’m over here on a scholarship…to Oxford.” Buffy didn’t even bat an eyelash at that sassy remark.
Spike shifted his stance and drew his eyes slowly up and down her body. “Brains and beauty? That’s a lethal combination if ever I heard one. Fancy a drink…”
“Buffy. My name is Buffy. And you are?”
“Spike.”
“Mmm. Spike. I like it. Very mysterious. I bet you have girls crawling out of the woodwork for you.”
“Well, some birds just go for the bad boy thing.” Now it was Buffy’s turn to appraise him from head to foot.
“And are you…bad…Spike?”
“Just enough to make things interesting. Fancy that drink?”
“Yeah, I’m all hot and sticky from dancing.” Buffy bit her lower lip, knowing full well she was in danger of being hoisted over Spike’s shoulder and hauled off somewhere inappropriate but convenient. A lightning bolt flashed in Spike’s pelvis. His upper lip curled slightly as he stood aside and gestured toward the bar.
“I just may be able to help you with that, love.”
*
Buffy took a long slow swallow of her soda while Spike downed a shot glass of whiskey and then thumped the bar for another.
“Can’t hold your liquor, pet?” He flared his eyebrows in a knowing way and grazed his tongue along his incisors. Buffy leaned in closely and spoke.
“Oh, I can hold him well enough, but it’s better when his hair’s a little longer.” Spike steadied himself on the bar, cupped her head in his palm and held it still while he hissed in her ear.
“You’re killing me here, Slayer. Let’s find a dark corner. I need to touch you.”
Buffy backed away cautiously and nailed him with her most practiced ‘you’re never going to get it’ smile. “Why, Spike, what a thing to say,” she stammered convincingly. “I hardly know you. I’m not the sort of girl who just goes into a dark corner with the first guy who comes along…” Spike’s requisite smirk and devilish response was interrupted by the hooting greeting of a very happy teenager.
“Hey guys!” Dawn squealed with delight as she draped her arms over her companions at the bar in a sloppy hug. Dawn grabbed Buffy’s drink and took a huge swig, knowing full well it would just be medicinally carbonated but not fermented.
“Hey Dawn, I want you to meet Spike, it’s Spike, right?” A quizzical expression solidified on Dawn’s face. She twisted her mouth and looked at Buffy and Spike in turn. Frankly, she didn’t want to know.
“I was going to ask if you two were having a good time but now I know, weird foreplay has commenced; I need to skedaddle. Okay, just stay clear of the spotlights and the unsuspecting groove puppies, like MYSELF!!” Dawn took another huge mouthful of Buffy’s soda, finishing it. “Oh Buffy, I met this cool guy. He’s out for the evening trolling for breeder stock, and you know, tentacles are kind of attractive in the right light. He’s going to inseminate me in the corner…toodles!” Dawn was off like a shot back into the mass of moving flesh.
“Yeah, have fun–hey, wait…inseminate? Did she just say inseminate?” Buffy whirled around and caught a glimpse of Dawn back on the dance floor with nary a tentacle in sight. Spike looked out over the crowd, appraising it a most vampiric manner.
“Don’t worry love, only humans out there. I see her. She’s dancing with some pimply git.” Spike was momentarily taken aback by the aggressively pelvic nature of Dawn’s dance moves. “Want me to eat him?” The good humor intended by that remark was lost as Buffy flashed an annoyed ‘you better not have said what I think you just said’ face. Perhaps fluffy bunny Spike needed a few lumps to get with the damn program. The music changed again and a slower sultry rhythm filled the club.
Instead of battery, Buffy chose to tilt her head and place her hands on her hips. A petulant expression claimed her face. “What does a girl have to do to get asked to dance around here?”
“Oh, where are my manners?” Spike leaned closely into Buffy’s temple. His lips brushed her skin. “Would you care to dance?” Spike offered his hand and Buffy slid off her stool. They walked out into the crowd of dancers. Spike twirled Buffy to face him and took her into his arms.
The people surrounding them melted away. Spike curved his arms around Buffy’s waist, anchoring her to him. Buffy draped her arms around his shoulders and let the music take her.
She closed her eyes, oblivious to everything but his touch and the certainty of her heart.
After Sunnydale she got a chance to live a freer life, a more normal life. Something she’d yearned for since she’d first been chosen: living a life away from the glare of a hellmouth. There were still slayers to supervise and the occasional staking of a vampire, but a semblance of ordinariness had been achieved, and it wasn’t nearly as boring as she once feared when Riley was her connection to a normal life.
Living each day made her focus on just that. Living. She made small goals that could realistically be achieved. The day she opened a retirement savings plan at her bank was momentous indeed. That was the day she vowed to be the long haul girl. For herself.
There would certainly be obstacles ahead but she already knew how to handle the worst of the worst. Soon Dawn would be launching her own adventure. She was thinking about universities in England and America. The nest would then be empty and Buffy vowed that Andrew would not be taking Dawn’s place as the surrogate child/sibling.
Buffy curled her fingers deeply into Spike’s leather. A new fantasy percolated in her mind: waking up each morning in Rome with Spike in her bed…in their bed. Her mind reconfigured with thoughts of them — a Spike and Buffy ‘them’ instead of a Dawn and Buffy ‘them’.
They’d probably drive each other bonkers. That was their well established groove. Spike was arrogant and insufferable and always had to have the last word in any fight. Despite her best efforts the smirk had not surrendered. She’d need to work on that because his smirk always clobbered her.
If memory served he wasn’t the neatest person either. Not that she’d demand window cleaning or dusting or scrubbing the bathroom tiles from him. Windows were definitely out. Andrew could do them when he visited.
Spike’s crypt was little better than a frat boy’s pigsty and he smoked and there was nothing worse than– She inhaled deeply into Spike’s chest. There wasn’t even the faintest whiff of smoke. It suddenly struck her that he didn’t smell or taste like cigarettes. At all.
“Hey, you don’t stink of cigarettes.” That didn’t strike Spike as part of their seduction script.
“That going to be a problem?” He looked at her seriously.
“I just realized it, you smell…” Buffy took a deep inhale. “God, you smell wonderful.” Her fingers trailed over his cheeks and ears and into his thick hair.
Spike spoke into her ear. “It was that ghosty bit, love, kicked a few habits out the door. And you know, a hero needs a few P.C. credits for publicity purposes.”
“I like it,” Buffy smiled and plastered her sweaty slick body to his once more. “I like it a lot.”
The music changed again but Buffy stayed in Spike’s close embrace, heedless of the animated frenzy surrounding them. She turned her cheek to his chest and held him. This was what she wanted. Spike. Dancing with Spike. Playing with Spike. Arguing with Spike. Making up with Spike. Especially making up with Spike.
Anything with Spike.
*
“That was bloody fantastic!!” Dawn squealed with delight as the trio wound their way through a small park a few blocks from their hotel. “You guys are the best. That was the best club and I had the best time!” Dawn danced a few feet ahead of Buffy and Spike who lurched as one. Walking and kissing were not mutually exclusive things, hardly a graceful combination, but not mutually exclusive.
“Well, well, what do we have here?” Dawn stopped short as two haggard looking men stepped out from behind a tree. No, not men, vampires…or perhaps rejects from some failed Andrew Lloyd Webber musical: Les Miserables meets Cats by way of Oliver. It was a look, one that wasn’t long for this world, but a look all the same.
“Evening folks,” the shorter of the two spoke with a lazy Dublin brogue and smiled through nasty brown teeth. “My name’s Patrick, that’s my brother Seamus. We’ll be your vampires this evening…what?” Dawn started to giggle and couldn’t stop.
“Catch a clue, much? Would you care meet my sister? Vampire slayer mark one?” Spike pulled a cocky Dawn safely behind him.
“Hey! Seamus. It’s a slayer!” Seamus appeared to have suddenly got a case of the itchies.
“I’d just like you two to know,” Spike spoke slowly so these dimwitted dead men would understand him, “that I’ve had a very long and unhappy history with you lot.”
“What? With vamps?” Patrick puffed up his small chest with demonic pride.
“No. The Irish.” Spike shifted and narrowed his eyes at the pathetic excuse for vampires before him.
Patrick’s eyes widened with delight. “Jai-sus, Mary and Joseph, would you look at that. Seamus! This bugger’s one of us!”
“Now, if you wouldn’t mind a few pointers from your elder?” Spike knew these twits were no better than fledges. They nodded agreeably to his sage advice. “You’re opening line is passing fair–“
“That was my idea,” Patrick interjected, “more formal like.”
“Yeah, but you really need to work on the blasphemy because it sucks, mate. You’re evil, lads. Embrace the demonic vibe! And the Dickensian waif thing? That was a cliché when I was a boy and Dickens was bloody well still alive.”
“Oi! We’re not gonna stand here and take that from the likes of you,” Patrick summoned all of his recently acquired supernatural cockiness. Seamus started backing away.
“Is that so?” Spike’s response ended abruptly in a double blast of dust when Buffy cartwheeled by him and staked the offending duo in a clean one-two motion.
“Cool, Buff. I haven’t seen you do that in months.” Dawn sidestepped a speechless Spike and started walking again.
“What the hell was that?” Buffy looked at Spike crossly. “You’re evil? Embrace the demonic vibe?”
“To thine own self be true.” Spike’s smirk looked almost innocent.
“Hey, I know that one! Simon Cowell, right? Or is that a Paris Hilton quote?” Dawn missed the look of incredulous dismay on Spike’s face.
“Simon Cowell,” Buffy pronounced. “It sounds like something that windbag would say.”
“HELP!” The plaintive cry of a frustrated vampire filled the warm night. Spike resumed walking and trailed after the girls.
“Slayer. I did have that under control back there.” Spike chose arrogance over petulance. Arrogance always got under Buffy’s knickers.
“You know Spike,” Buffy slowed her cadence. “I’ve done a lot of thinking on my technique and I decided that I wasted far too much time in Sunnydale engaging the evil dead in witty repartee. And if I was honest, you were the only one who had any kind of conversational skills at all.”
“So I’d rate better than Peaches?” He couldn’t help it.
“Conversationally? God, yes!” Spike was surprised and pleased at that response. “You’re better at a lot of things, but I’m afraid Angel wins in the whipped puppy category.”
“I’ll cede that willingly.”
Buffy signaled for Dawn to wait at an intersection and pressed Spike back against a tree. “You know what Faith always used to say about slaying, Spike? It makes us hungry and horny.”
“Is that so?”
“Mmm hmm, and I can’t wait to get to the meat…” Buffy brought her hands around Spike’s waist under his duster and squeezed his bum cheeks.
“Can’t you two wait until we get back to the hotel? You’d think it would be out of your system by now.” An annoyed Dawn walked up to the entwined pair. “You know, this could really start to piss me off if it wasn’t so damn cute.” She turned with an exaggerated sigh and walked away. At last the hotel was in sight. Buffy and Spike followed her all the way back to their room.
*
“Do you hear sleeping yet?” Buffy whispered into Spike’s ear.
“She’s almost there, a few more minutes ought to do it.”
“Good, cause I’ll be doing you in a few minutes.” Buffy couldn’t hold back her giggle.
“Shh, come on.” Spike clamped his hand over Buffy’s mouth and heard the deep resonant breaths of a sleeping Dawn. Buffy bit playfully at his palm.
“Only you’ll need to tone it down Tarzan.”
“Me? You’re the one who’s prone to shouting. All that Spike inspired enthusiasm’s hard to bottle up, I know.” He dropped his duster on the chair. Buffy felt the weight of his gaze flow over her tingling skin, like a wave of gooseflesh on fire.
“Please…you’re the one who can’t contain his enthusiasm.”
“Maybe you’d like to take this outside, Slayer.” Buffy shivered as the sound of that challenge reverberated through Spike’s larynx. He laced his fingers through hers and backed her slowly toward the sliding door to their tiny balcony. She reached behind her, unlatched the lock and slid the door open.
Buffy stepped out into the darkness. Surrounding them the tree tops smothered the dim lights from street level. The air rustled softly through the canopy around them. It was beautiful and quiet, the perfect secret space for them.
“Spike–” Buffy turned her head and Spike was right there, a solid barrier.
“Assume the position,” his low whisper vibrated straight to her womb. Buffy caught a gasp in her mouth. Two strong hands brushed down her arms and led her hands to the metal edge of the balcony railing.
“Are you going to behave?” His tongue curved along the inner crescent of her ear. Her only response was a nod. “You’ll be quiet, now, won’t you?” Spike gathered her pleated suede skirt in his hands and smoothed it up over her waist. Again Buffy nodded.
“It would be a shame for Dawn to lose a good night’s sleep just ’cause her big sis can’t keep her voice down…wouldn’t it?” As punctuation to that statement, Spike slid his fingers deeply between Buffy’s legs. Buffy nodded her head back against Spike’s.
“Yeah that’s right, just let my fingers do the talking, eh love?” He slipped two fingers under her thong and began an easy exploration of her moistened tissues. Buffy spread her legs a little wider to encourage him.
Dropping to one knee Spike bit playfully on her left bum cheek with blunt teeth. Soon he slipped her thong down her legs and off her feet. He tucked the item in his rear pocket for safekeeping.
His fingers slid up and down her legs and he couldn’t resist a few slurping kisses to her exposed cleft. The high-heeled shoes accentuated her height and he was eager to make good use of that. But first he wanted to test her ability to stay quiet.
“Prove to me I won’t need to gag you, Slayer.” Spike pushed her torso forward to assist his angle of assault. Moisture oozed from her depths at the thought of being gagged. There was no time to prepare. Spike’s mouth was upon her, licking and tasting and slurping and sucking.
Buffy gasped and jolted physically, but bit her lip in response. The only sound that rose from their balcony was the liquid sounds of his mouth hungrily devouring her flesh. She didn’t even hear the zipper when it sounded, so absorbed she was in the cacophony within her mind at that point.
“That’s good. You know how to keep your mouth closed.” Spike whispered in her ear again as his cock pushed deeply into her body. “Mmm, yeah, that’s it…”
“Spike–” Buffy turned her face toward his.
“Shh love, quiet as a mouse now, yeah?” He thrust into her body slowly and deliberately with a deep and luxurious rhythm.
Buffy’s hands left the railing and reached for him. One hand snared his head, holding it close to hers and the other groped for her clitoris, colliding with his hand in her skirt.
“Now, now,” Spike hushed, “thought we were behaving ourselves. That’s my job, pet, so hands off.” Buffy grabbed Spike’s hand and led it to the area in crisis.
“I need it,” she hissed practically airlessly.
“And you’re gonna get it.”
He kept his motion smooth and slow. Her rapture grew until it blossomed into a near silent explosion within her mind and throat. There was a whoosh of breath and then the physical tremors passed between them until they ebbed out of existence. It was as passionate and profound an orgasm as she’d ever had. Without the sound effects everything was doubly magnified internally.
“Mmm, feel good sweetheart?” Spike held her closely in a tight embrace, their bodies still intimately joined. He inhaled her scent along with the rhythm of her heart as it returned to a more moderate rate. Soon Buffy wiggled in his embrace. Breaking his hold she pivoted to face him.
“Want you to feel good…better than good.” She draped her arms around his head and kissed him deeply. At the completion of the kiss Buffy lowered her hand to open Spike’s belt buckle. “Less clothes, more skin.”
“Buffy, shh…Dawn will–ack!”
“That’s my Big Bad,” Buffy breathed seductively, “my big…big…bad.”
*
Buffy woke a few hours later, just before sunrise. She hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but good sex always tired her out. She opened her eyes and saw Spike’s Adam’s apple. A quick assessment of their position revealed her atop Spike on the floor.
She thought of her last moments of consciousness. Spike was giggling and she threatened to buy him a muzzle. Not the best tactic to calm down such a situation, especially with a horny vampire as a partner. He kind of exploded. There was some enthusiastic rolling about on the floor and a great deal of excessive thrusting followed by an uncontrollable snarling climax. Buffy was positive she was the snarler in question that time.
“Morning, love.” Spike kissed her tousled head and hardened again inside her.
Buffy rolled them and settled herself comfortably under him. “Oh hi, I remember you. Big Bad…right?” She tilted her pelvis and squeezed his shaft. Her body roused slowly as the roll call of tired muscles made themselves known.
“That’s right. Big and bad and frequently quite good.”
“I’ll say,” Buffy sighed contentedly. She stretched out her arms and gathered up her wildly tossed hair, tucking it away under her head.
Just at that moment the tilt of her head in the diffused light of the room accentuated the contours of her neck in a highly arousing manner. A slow rumble sounded from Spike’s chest.
“What?” Buffy whispered, catching a look of utter enchantment on Spike’s face.
He said nothing. He should have stopped his reaction but the pulse point of her neck danced a seductive beat beneath his gaze. He never went there, not with Buffy. He never once even tried. He’d even forced himself to stop thinking about it.
She held him snug in the curve of her thighs. “What?” She brought her hands to his face. “Tell me.”
“It’s nothing, Buffy.” Her eyes moved kindly over his face. A slow smile curled her mouth. She squeezed him internally in slow pulses as her heartbeat throbbed powerfully within her. It was a rhythm that held them both.
“Is it this?” Buffy struck in a flash nipping into his neck and drawing her blunt teeth up over his chin. Spike’s eyes blazed golden. “I think it is…” Her hands brought his face closer to hers.
Swirling in her essence Spike fought against the shift. He was a captive of her heartbeat as it pulsed insistently around his cock.
“It’s okay, Spike. It’s okay to be who you are and what you are with me.”
“Buffy–” His voice caught in his throat. There was love in her eyes and a spark of something that felt like acceptance. For this, the darkest truth of his existence. His need for blood. A need to devour.
“I’m in love with you, Spike. In love. Truly, madly, deeply… I want you to know it and believe it. It’s the real thing Spike, right here.” She angled his face to her neck. “Taste it,” she hushed, “taste the truth.”
He nuzzled deeply into her neck; she felt his lips on her skin but not the pierce of a fang. The increasing suction of his mouth matched a surge between her thighs. There was silence, then the curious sensation of wind flowing through her body and then the sun burst inside her, filling the room and her mind with its ethereal light.
Buffy closed her eyes to the wonder. She absorbed the agonies of his desire, the strength of his soul, the certainty of his reverence, and the courage of his heart…her heart…their heart. Floating and drowning. Reconfiguring together. Helping the hurts of two dark pasts. Finding a reason, a signpost, a new constellation. The stars shone in their eyes now, steadfast and true.
Buffy was not a religious person by any means. It was an odd juxtaposition for a person so versed in the realities of evil. It was harder for her to see the other side, the valley beyond the shadow of death, were peace shall be a dominion. Belief. That was the sticking point. But it was easy with Spike. He was salvation, darkness tempered by light; redemption made flesh. He helped her see that distant valley.
She believed in him. She believed because of him. There was an aspect of his eyes where the fires of lapis burned. It made her believe there was a heaven for heroes were all blood and sorrows were cleansed. Somewhere were she and Spike would both be kissed by the sweet lips of forgiveness.