Awards for Fantasie Segrete

Author: Holly (holly.hangingavarice@gmail.com)
Rating: NC-17 (For language and sexual content)
Timeline: Post-Chosen. Hints at spoilers from AtS Season 5
Summary: The Slayer’s friends treat a very reluctant Buffy to a Valentine’s Day surprise in hopes of uplifting her down-trodden spirits. But the last thing that Buffy wants to do—especially while her heart still aches for her lost vampire—is submit to a stranger’s touch, even knowing that Spike would want her to move on. She just she fears she never can.
Prompt: From 20_hot_prompts, #16 blindfold

Disclaimer: The characters herein are the property of Joss Whedon and Mutant enemy. They are being used for entertainment purposes out of love and admiration, and not for the sake of profit. No copyright infringement is intended.

This wasn’t her sort of thing by any stretch of the imagination. The last thing Buffy was accustomed to doing was performing an act of submission for anyone, much less a stranger. Anyone who knew her knew that. And yet, here she was. She was on her back in a foreign room, her arms stretched over her head. Her wrists were bound in scarves and a blindfold covered her eyes. When Willow had mentioned full service, she hadn’t expected anything like this. She hadn’t imagined handing anyone the ticket that her best friend had practically stapled into her hand and being greeted with a small, knowing smile. As though they had been waiting for her.

This sort of seedy establishment was something she’d never imagined truly existed. It reeked of Penthouse fantasy letters and other lurid stories…not that she had any familiarity with that sort of thing, of course. She just had an overactive imagination and a very good guy friend who was very much over any residual romantic feelings harbored for her. The nature of her friendship with Xander allowed now for conversations she once wouldn’t have dreamt of having with him.

Their mutual loss at closing the Hellmouth had similarly forged a bond that no one else could understand. He’d lost Anya; she’d lost Spike. The lonelier nights were oftentimes spent reminiscing the good times and the bad with their respective loves over shots of whatever was available. And while she’d never admit it, there were times when she became so damnably jealous over how many good memories that Xander had with Anya that she became tempted to smash him over the head with something large and blunt.

The fact that she had no one to blame but herself for the painful lack of good times with Spike didn’t help matters much. Her life, it seemed, would be composed of regrets. And while she knew that the healthy thing to do was forgive herself and move on, her burning hand wouldn’t let her forget the feel of his palm pressed to hers as their fingers entwined. How, for that moment, they’d become one in every sense. She’d felt him inside her—flames licking her melting heart as his eyes pulled her into an abyss of love and wonder. Leaving him in that cavern was the hardest thing she’d ever done.

The months in between hadn’t been forgiving in the slightest. When she wasn’t remembering the few good times, she was sobbing over the many bad. She replayed every conversation they ever had, rewriting her lines and tormenting herself over the many ways everything could have gone so differently. One word. One gesture. One crumb. She was drowning slowly in sorrow, and while every day promised to heal her aching wounds, she didn’t know if she would ever be whole enough to fully recover.

Which was why, she supposed, that Willow and Kennedy thought to gift her with a one-day pass to this haven of sin. She hadn’t heard of Fantasie Segrete until the topic came up at dinner two nights prior; since then, the name of the establishment was on everyone’s lips. Be it friends or strangers; hell, even Dawn had mentioned it once, talk about all things mortifying.

Her first answer, naturally, had been no. No as in hell no. No way. Huh uh. Next question, please. She wasn’t going to spend the most miserable day on the planet in a brothel.

But it wasn’t a brothel…or so Willow said. There was no sex involved unless it was at the client’s request. Fantasie Segrete catered specifically to making certain fantasies come to life, as was promised in the company name. Buffy had tried to weasel out by explaining that she didn’t harbor secret fantasies—her life was now secret-and-fantasy-free. In fact, the only way to fulfill her fantasies was to bring Spike back. He was her only fantasy, and while Fantasie Segrete promised fantasy-fulfilled or her money back, she didn’t think that they could live up to that one.

Dismayed, Willow had tried one last tactic. If nothing else, Fantasie Segrete provided a way to take her mind off things. A way to offer a reprieve from the life she led now. Her role as headmaster of some bizarre Hogwarts for Slayers was going to kill her if she didn’t take some time off for herself. And she didn’t have to do anything beyond get a massage if that was what she wanted—what she did with her day-pass was entirely up to her.

Buffy had sat rigidly on the fence until Willow mentioned that it would be the first step. The first necessary step. The first step in getting over him.

In embracing what he’d given her with his sacrifice, she was honoring his memory. And he’d wanted her to live. He’d wanted her to live her life, and that meant, at one point, loving again. And in order to love, she needed to trust someone with her body. Be it for a massage or a night of guiltless pleasure with a total stranger.

So here she was. A singleton on Valentine’s Day, stretched on a strange bed with scarves tied around either wrist and a blindfold over her eyes. This hadn’t been in the brochure. She’d done little more than hand over her day-pass before she was escorted to an anonymous room and tied to the bed by the greeting hostess. At first, she’d panicked and wondered if the reservation under Rosenberg had screwed with the listing of sexual preference, but the girl had bid her adieu and left her alone.

Alone in a strange room. Tied to a strange bed. And, oh yeah, blindfolded.

She was so going to murder Willow after this was over.

Just as she was going to ignore the persistent voice that told her that she could get up and walk out whenever she chose. It wasn’t as though the bindings around her wrists were tight. And hello, slayer strength much? She’d be out of her faster than an outted politician at a nudie bar if she truly wanted to leave.

In truth, she was curious. And lonely. And while she didn’t wasn’t about to stoop to male whores, it would be nice to take a break from her life for a while.

Plus the blindfold would definitely help in the pretending-it’s-Spike thing. Not that pretending it was Spike was the objective; rather, she figured the point of this whole excursion, lame excuses aside, was to slowly push Spike out of her heart. To render her open and ready for someone new.

Someone normal.

Buffy scoffed. If anything, Spike had shown her that normal wasn’t in her wiring. It never had been. Didn’t matter how many little slayers she’d unleashed on the world, or how atypical she wasn’t anymore, normal would never suit her.

Not after him.

And perhaps that was better. The memories she had of Spike could last a lifetime; better to grow old with those than try to fill a void that couldn’t be filled. She would accept no substitutes. Her heart belonged to another.

Her body tensed when she heard the door open, her spider-senses tingling. She’d been told, upon arriving, that all patrons were led to rooms guarded by wards to keep humans disguised. So that vampires, clients and staff alike, didn’t know who was a potential meal and who wasn’t. The idea seemed preposterous; no magic out there could be that powerful. Powerful enough to block demon senses? No way, José.

The magic was supposed to work both ways. And she found—to her dismay—that it did. While her spider-senses were indeed tingling, she couldn’t get a read on whoever had entered the room. For all intents and purposes, her inner-radar was picking up a cold zero. As though no one was there at all.

But someone was there. She heard breathing. She heard footsteps. Small, indiscernible noises ricocheted off every corner of the small room. But she couldn’t see a thing. Not a damned thing.

The silence was going to drive her mad. If she couldn’t see him, she needed to hear him. Anonymity was nice on paper, but call her old fashioned; if they were expected to work up to a massage, she needed to at least know what he sounded like. Especially since it’d be her first massage since Spike had kneaded her sore muscles. Mr. Anonymous couldn’t appreciate the significance of that, but she needed a voice to pair with whatever hands touched her.

“Hi,” she said awkwardly, straining against her restraints. “I’m Buffy.”

There was no response. A rustle of clothing and a grunt; nothing more.

Perhaps there was a no-talking rule. Like the Pretty Woman no-kissing rule, only with talking instead. Maybe that’s why she’d been blindfolded. Anything that took away from the fantasy was off-limits. The fantasy being someone the client could visualize through whatever they worked toward.

Still, the silence was going to break her, so she tried again with a half-hearted joke. “Don’t you hate places like this?” Nothing but another grunt and more clothing being rustled. She didn’t know how comfortable she was with that, but her inner alarm had yet to go off, and she trusted that the wards blocking her spider-senses couldn’t touch her raw intuition.

“I’ve never been to…well, here, before,” she continued. “I don’t…God, I’m sure you get this all the time, but I don’t really know what I’m doing here.”

There was an appreciative snicker at that.

“I mean it,” Buffy went on, her head subconsciously following the small noises her mystery-man made. “My friends…well, a friend…she got me this lousy day-pass, and…well, long-story-short, I’m here. I’m…with the here. The hereness of being here. On Valentine’s Day, of all things…pathetic.”

Mystery Man grunted again, his footsteps trailing behind her. The bed, from what she remembered, had a low headboard, and the posts were obviously only useful inasmuch as tying clients to them. The bed itself stood inelegantly in the middle of the room, as though the movers had been called to lunch in mid-shift. She now understood its practicality. Mystery Man could access her from any vantage point.

Buffy shifted awkwardly. She didn’t know how she felt about that.

“Y-you’ll stop if I want you to, right?”

For pete’s sake, she’d been a slayer for the better part of a decade. Forfeiting control was not her forte, especially to someone she couldn’t see. Therefore, the hesitation in her voice just about did her in. Buffy Summers did not cower. Buffy Summers did not plead. Buffy Summers did not submit.

Buffy Summers was bound and blindfolded and was about to be touched by a man she didn’t know.

Buffy Summers had clearly lost her mind.

“I’ll stop,” the man said softly, nearly startling her out of her skin. She hadn’t actually thought that he would reply to any of her nervous ramblings, and the intrusion of his voice was both a welcome distraction and a kick in the gut.

There was something familiar about the tone. Something that had her eyes welling and her heart constricting painfully. His voice was gentle and refined—Spike, had Spike been sent to a boarding school or taken lessons under Professor Higgins. Perhaps she was matrixing—clutching at something familiar in something unknown. Typically, matrixing was referred to as the human mind’s natural tendency to find familiar patterns in complex shapes and colors. It wasn’t beyond the line of reason that the same could be applied to voices.

“Do you like working here?” she asked, her voice strained. She wanted to keep him talking. She wanted to revel in the haunting, if not comforting familiarity of his voice.

There was no response.

“Do you have a girlfriend who hates that you work here?”

“No.”

Buffy licked her lips. “Do you have a girlfriend who loves that you work here?”

“No.”

“See, was that so hard? Eventually, we’ll move past monosyllabic words.”

It was impossible to tell whether or not he was humored at her antics; the damn guy must be working his way toward a vow of silence for all the speaking he didn’t do. Buffy exhaled slowly in frustration, making a mental map of her options.

“Don’t you hate Valentine’s Day?” she asked a minute later when said mental map led to a series of dead ends, each more discouraging than the last. “It’s a stupid holiday created by stupid greeting card companies to make singles feel stupid for not being in stupid love.”

“Spoken like a true singleton,” came the mildly amused reply. God, even his teasing sounded like Spike.

Perhaps this place was on the money, then. Perhaps they really did deal with fantasies, and making those fantasies come to life. The blindfold, in that sense, was necessary. It kept the illusion rolling.

“I’m not single. I’m just alone.”

“There’s a difference?”

Buffy honestly didn’t know if she’d wanted a reply; she just wanted him to talk. Let that Spike-toned voice roll over her. He was more refined than Spike—his accent was more Hugh Grant and less Eliza Doolittle—but that was fine by her. In her mind, it was Spike that assessed her. It was that was behind her. It was Spike’s fingers weaving through her hair. Spike’s fingers tenderly massaging her scalp. Spike’s touch setting her body aflame.

She missed him so much it was hard to breathe. But for the moment—for this stolen moment—he was with her.

“There’s a big difference,” she retorted. “Single implies that I want someone in my life right now. I don’t.”

“But you don’t like being alone.”

The truth to that statement made her skin itch unpleasantly. “No,” she replied. “I don’t.”

“Classic conundrum, then,” he murmured, his fingers itching down her cheeks. And God, if his touch didn’t feel good. It’d been so long since she’d been touched—and with his voice sounding as it did, other aspects of her matrixing were falling into place. Her mind had given him Spike’s face. Spike’s body. Spike’s magical touch. “You don’t like being alone but you don’t want anyone in your life.”

Buffy bit back a whimper as he drew her hair over her shoulders. “I had someone in my life,” she sighed. “He’s gone.”

“Gone?”

“Died.”

“Oh.” His hands trailed over her collarbone, his fingers oh-so casually grazing the dip between her breasts. “Sorry.”

Buffy pursed her lips and shivered. While the word was abrupt, there was something in his voice that made her believe he meant it. Perhaps that much was wishful thinking—perhaps she was already so foregone in the fantasy that she was with Spike that she was imprinting his mannerisms in the phantom voice that touched her. She didn’t know. All she knew was that she didn’t want this to stop. Not for anything.

“How’d he die?”

She licked her lips, subconsciously wiggling her hips. Her faux-Spike didn’t miss the silent invitation, and while she knew that she should protest, the knowledge that she could stop this at any time was a powerful aphrodisiac. She wanted Spike back, and for the moment, she had him. He was with her. He was touching her. It’d been so long since she’d been touched—since she’d wanted to be touched—and she wasn’t doing his memory a disservice because he was the one in the room.

If Willow truly had meant for this to be means of getting over him, she’d be sorely disappointed. Once the fantasy was over, Buffy was going to regress into such a state of depression it’d be a miracle if she ever climbed out. Losing Spike once had all but ruined her. To lose him again…

“He died…occupational hazard.”

“Soldier?” the man asked, gently stroking the sides of her neck before his touch moved down again, settling on the first button of her blouse. “Line of duty? That sort of thing?”

“Uh huh.”

“Mmm,” he replied, undoing the second button, then the third. He plucked at the thin material that guarded her breasts cautiously, then again when she didn’t protest. “Sorry to hear that, love.”

The term of endearment wrought a gasp from her throat and stung her eyes with tears. It was Spike’s word. Spike’s voice speaking Spike’s word. And while logic told her that calling women love wasn’t something singular to her vampire, the pet-name only fueled her fantasy. She wanted to weep and laugh at the same time. Wetness pooled between her thighs and her clit throbbed. She arched her breasts upward in welcome, shivering hard when his increasingly boisterous fingers slipped just slightly under the cups of her bra.

“I didn’t want to come here,” Buffy said softly. “My friends made me.”

“You’ve mentioned that.”

“I-it’s true.”

“I believe you.” That didn’t stop those wandering hands from dipping deeper into forbidden territory, until his fingertips just barely grazed her hard nipples. “Did you love him?”

“Yes.” The word came out a half-moan, half-sigh. “God, yes.” Then she paused. “Wait…what?”

“Just wondering.”

“Why would you wonder about that?”

“I’m making conversation.”

“You’re asking pretty personal questions.”

“I’m touching you in a personal way,” he countered, and his verbal acknowledgment of what they were doing somehow made her burn with lust and shame at the same time. “I’m sorry if the question bothered you.”

Buffy found herself shaking her head before words had a chance to form. “No,” she replied. “No, it didn’t. It just…it caught me off guard.” She held her breath until her faux-Spike began massaging her breasts again, and she had to clench her thighs, less she betray herself. “Love was…a touchy subject.”

“Oh?” It was probably her imagination, but she could have sworn that word had ridden out on a trembling voice. “Was it?”

“He…loved me.”

“Not hard to imagine.”

“But I…I was horrible. I didn’t…I told him, before he died, for the first time.” Her pussy was on fire and her eyes were swimming with tears; it was, perhaps, the most bizarre sensation she’d ever experienced. Having grief constrict her chest while her body turned molten under skilled and hauntingly familiar hands. “He didn’t believe me.”

“He didn’t?”

She shook her head, miserable and pathetic, and choked back a sob. “No.”

“Maybe he didn’t want you to know that he believed you,” faux-Spike suggested reasonably. “Maybe he knew that he might not come back from…Iraq, I’m guessing…and didn’t want you in mourning the rest of your life.”

“Asshole.”

“Oi!”

Buffy bit down on her lower lip so hard she nearly drew blood. Another Spikeism. Another miracle of having every fantasy realized. The things buried so far down that she doubted anyone but Spike could ever fish them out. “I didn’t mean you,” she said slowly, tugging at her bonds. She cried out in disappointment when her faux-Spike’s hands abandoned her breasts, but couldn’t help the contented sigh that came when her wrists were freed. She immediately reached for him but just as quickly found her arms pinned to her sides. “Hey!”

“No touching,” he said shortly. “Just enjoy.”

“But—”

“No touching, love.” Easy for him to say. The second the reprimand left his lips, his hands were back on her skin, slipping beneath the cups of her bra again. “Why’s he an asshole, then?”

“Huh?”

“Well, if you didn’t mean me, I can only presume…”

Buffy trembled, a strangled gasp tearing off her lips. “I’ve…ever since…he died I’ve been…replaying every conversation. Trying to figure out what I could’ve…could’ve done differently.”

“Mmm,” faux-Spike mused, nimble fingers plucking at her nipples with cool expertise. “You never know how someone’s going to react, I suppose.”

“No.”

“He didn’t mean to hurt you, you know.” He abandoned her breasts again, making quick work of the rest of her blouse, rendering her near-topless at the hands of a virtual stranger. Near-topless, that was, for about three seconds until her bra followed suit. “Men never know what to say in situations like that. Point of fact, love, you’d probably be cursing his name even louder if he’d let you know that he believed you.”

“Would not.”

“Mhmm.” He ran his hands down her chest soothingly, the tips of his fingers barely brushing the tops of her breasts. “Whatever you say.”

“He knew me. He knew how I’d react.”

There was a soft chuckle as he palmed her breasts completely, his thumbs rolling either nipple back and forth, and damn if every stroke didn’t channel directly to her clit. Buffy’s teeth clenched, her hands balled into fists to evade the temptation to reach up and touch him. To see if he felt like Spike aside from merely sounding like him and using his words—aside from the way he seemed to know her body in the same sinful way that Spike always had.

“Don’t mean to burst your bubble, kitten,” faux-Spike drawled, the mattress behind her dipping as he climbed over the headboard. “Up,” he commanded, and she immediately complied, edging upward until her head rested against a cool, washboard chest that felt so familiar that the tears battling her eyes finally pushed through. The blindfold dampened, and while she knew that he had to notice, he didn’t make mention of it. Instead, he tugged her even closer—tugged her until her hips were trapped between his strong thighs. Until her back was pressed against his chest, her head cradled at his shoulder. “Men,” he continued softly, his right hand continuing its play with her breast as his left traveled the expanse of her flat stomach, “are lost when it comes to the women they love. For instance…”

She gasped when he undid her jeans, when he dragged the zipper down. Oh God, if he felt inside her, he’d know how wet she was. How easily he’d managed to turn her into a puddle of goo, all the while talking of the man she allegedly loved. The one that had died. The one that her friends wanted her to forget so badly that they’d sent her here.

Again, she reminded herself that she could end this at any time. That she probably should.

Spike.

But her mind was so entrenched in the fantasy that to end it now would be to end things with Spike all over again. Telling him—faux-Spike—things that she’d never gotten to tell Spike. Convincing him—faux-Spike—that she loved Spike made her feel like, somewhere, her Spike heard and believed her. She couldn’t stop—not while being caressed as her Spike would have caressed her. She’d denied Spike so much; she wouldn’t deny his memory this. She wouldn’t deny herself one last time with him.

“There’s a woman I love,” he murmured, his index finger sliding between her slick pussy lips, “and I hurt her.”

“Unnnh…”

“I hurt her in ways I never thought I could.” He paused and withdrew his touch from her center, ignoring her whimper of protest. And just like that, the air behind her was cold once more. His weight vanished from the mattress and reappeared at the other end, his hands making quick work of her shoes and socks. When he paused again, the silence between them thick enough to slice. It rattled her, in those heavy seconds, how potently she could feel his eyes on her. Her mind saw Spike; saw him intently focused on her parted lips before his gaze raked over her naked breasts. That much was seemingly enough to get faux-Spike moving again, and the next thing she knew, her jeans were gone and she was bare on the mattress. A foreign mattress in a foreign room, blindfolded at the mercy of a stranger, wearing nothing but white cotton panties.

“I hurt her when I’d promised myself I never would,” faux-Spike continued. That time she was sure she hadn’t dreamt it—his voice shook. His hands were trembling when they roamed up her legs. As he seized the sides of her panties and rendered her without those as well. “I never meant to. God, and the look on her face…”

“Ohhh…”

“Spread your legs for me, kitten.” The speed at which she adhered to his request should have been embarrassing, but God, she didn’t care. She was open and wet, aching to be touched. And when she felt his cheek press against her inner thigh, her inner walls came tumbling down. “That’s a good girl.”

“I…”

“I tried to fix things,” he continued matter-of-factly, again rubbing up and down her slit with his index finger. “’Bout killed me, but I had to…fix things. And though…I did what I did for her…not because I wanted it…it ended up being a godsend. Made me see things as I never had.” He stilled for a second, inhaling sharply. “Christ, but you’re wet.”

“It’s been…” She could give him the count in days since the last time she’d been touched intimately. She could, but she didn’t want to think of Spike’s death. Not when her mind was working so hard to convince her that he wasn’t dead at all, rather perched attentively between her thighs. “It’s been a long…time…”

“How long?” He spread her pussy lips and teasingly flicked his tongue over her clit. “How long has it been, baby?”

“Oh God.”

“Tell me.”

“Before…uhhh…he died.” She bit her lip and thrust herself shamelessly against his face. “The last…the last night…we…”

“You let him in here?” he demanded, slipping two fingers inside her. “Oh fuck.”

“Ohhh…”

“You’re so tight.”

“Told you…been…awhile.” She waited with bated breath, then moaned loud when he began thrusting his fingers in and out of her, timed well with the laps of his tongue against her swollen clit. “The night…before…he…before he…”

“Shipped out?”

“Oh God.”

“You’ve missed having his tongue inside you, haven’t you?” he demanded, his breathing hard and ragged. He rubbed his cheek again her skin, withdrawing his fingers from her wet hole and suckling them into his mouth. “Your taste…”

“Ohh…”

“A wonder any man could walk away from this sweet pussy.” He trailed his wet fingers up her abdomen until her breasts were in his hands again. He tweaked her nipples, and she felt his grin at her answering mewl. Fire blazed her blood, pricking her skin with hot sparks of lust as he drew her clit between his teeth, moaning around her wet flesh as though he shared her pleasure. “You taste like honey.”

Buffy sobbed in ecstasy, arching her pussy wantonly against his hungry mouth. “More!” she begged. “Oh God, more.”

“Where do you want me?”

“Ohhh…”

“Want me loving your sweet li’l clit?” He sucked her hard into his mouth again to make his point. “Or do you need my tongue inside you?”

“Oh God. Spike…Oh God, please.”

Her hazy mind registered her mistake, but she didn’t care. God, she didn’t care.

And apparently, he didn’t mind. “Kitty wants cream,” he decided raggedly, his left hand abandoning her breast, fingers settling over her clit as his tongue plunged inside her. He licked at her insides, drawing as much of her juices into his mouth as possible. He didn’t mind when she thrashed and wailed, when her thighs trapped his face between them. He just lapped at her deeper, his thumb and forefinger rubbing her clit with gentility that offset the voracious appetite of his mouth.

“Oh my God! Oh…GOD!”

“Mmm…”

“Spike! God. Spike…Oh God oh God.” Tears pushed past the boundary of the blindfold, spilling down her cheeks, her body teetering dangerously close to the most volatile orgasm she’d ever known. With his tongue thrusting rhythmically in and out of her pussy, with his fingers massaging her clit, her body trembled hard and exploded with pleasure. Shards of bliss singed her flesh as Spike’s name tore from her lips. Colors burst behind a fog of black. At long last, she felt something resembling completion.

It made her insides crash and her head spin. It made the river of tears cascading down her cheeks roll into a flood. Her mystery man remained where he was, licking up her spendings with contented purrs that had her spiraling into confusion all over again. And she couldn’t help herself. She shook, she gasped hard, and she sobbed.

“Spike…”

He nuzzled her thigh again. And then he spoke—spoke truly—and her world collapsed. “Slayer,” he murmured reverently. “My Slayer…my Buffy.”

She froze. Oh God. Now she had to be hearing things. The refinement in his tone was gone, and her ears filled with Spike’s voice. Spike’s real voice. Spike’s voice without question—without doubt. And for those few, precious seconds before fantasy collided with reality, the hope that welled in her chest grew so painful that she knew she would never recover.

And still, knowing that the road she traveled led only to heartache didn’t stop her from taking the first step. She sat up slowly, doing her best to ignore how hard she trembled. “Spike?”

His mouth dipped, his tongue lapping sweetly at her clit. “Baby, was there ever any doubt?”

“I’m dreaming. I’m dreaming.” Her hands shot upward, jerking the blindfold down. Light stung her eyes and colors blurred into meaningless shapes. And even as details bled through, her aching heart remained lodged with disbelief. He was there. Spike was curled around her. The endless ocean of his eyes crashed with hers. His platinum blond hair was ruffled, not slicked back, but soft to the touch as it always had been. Cheekbones, Adonis-chest, forearms, sinful lips, tongue probing her pussy still even as his gaze remained firmly locked with hers.

“Oh God. Oh my God.” Just as she gained sight, another wave of tears began raining down her cheeks and her vision blurred all over again. “Is this real? Please let this be real. I can’t…if you’re not real—”

“I’m real, kitten. I’m very real.”

“No…it’s this room. This place. The…fantasy. This is how it works. You’re not…” She shook her head in disbelief. God, if this was a sick joke—if this was something other than the real thing—she would never recover. “Fantasy—”

“Fantasie Segrete has no power. It’s a myth, baby. It lures tourists an’ the lonely, an’ either they see what they want or walk away even emptier than before. It can’t create things like this.” He licked at her sopping folds, nuzzling her deferentially. “I’m right here.”

She needed more. “Tell me something—”

“A hundred an’ forty seven days…an’ I saved you every night.”

Buffy broke at that, her body splitting with ecstasy beyond anything she’d ever felt. In seconds, she touched paradise all over again. Her cells burned and her heart sang. It was real. Spike was really with her. God, he was really with her. Words abandoned her—words were too small for what she felt.

Which was fine, because Spike was still between her thighs, trembling as though he felt every wave crashing through her body. His hungry gaze gobbled her up reverently, and he licked her cream off his finger. “Christ…”

“Oh God.” She reached for him, her heart crying out the second that he began prowling up her body, his denim-clad cock sliding across her wet, swollen flesh, his hands cupping her cheeks. “Spike…”

But she didn’t get a chance to speak. His mouth was on hers the next second, devouring her with hunger that she had never thought to touch again. He swallowed her whole, tongue parting her lips as he ground himself against her pussy, sensitive from an orgasm that still had her skin buzzing. He tasted real—he tasted like Spike, spiced with her own flavor and peppered with shared tears. Soundless words formed against her lips, but she refused to release him. Spike was here.

Spike was with her.

“Buffy…” He pulled back just slightly, kissing her tears away. “My Buffy…”

Her heart thundered against his cold, silent chest. “How?” she demanded, wrangling another desperate kiss from his lips. “How?”

“Don’t know,” he replied breathlessly, reaching between them to free his cock from his jeans. Why he hadn’t taken his pants off before he started touching her was beyond her understanding, but she didn’t stop to ask him meaningless questions. Together, they wrestled the offending denim down his legs, all the while explanations sputtered from his lips. “Don’t know how it happened.”

“You came back?” She reached for his cock only to have her wrist slammed to the mattress. “What—”

“Touch me an’ I’ll come.”

The words made her insides sizzle. “Spike—”

“Wanna come inside you. I need your quim.” He kissed her hard, wrapping his own hand around his erection and rubbing himself along her sodden folds. “Oh fuck.”

“Spike…”

His lips took chart down her throat, nibbling a wet path across her skin until he had his mouth around one of her breasts. Then he slipped the head of his cock inside her pussy, paused to lick at her nipple, and slid home so slowly she was certain that her skin would melt off. Every nerve in her body was on fire, and she welcomed the burn. Her life had been so cold without that burn. Without her wet flesh molding around him. Without Spike’s eyes burning his soul so far into her that she no longer knew where he ended and she began. It was too much and it wasn’t enough all at the same time, and by the time he was balls-deep insides her, she was already rocketing dangerously close to the edge of another orgasm.

“My God,” he whimpered, his hands at last finding hers. “Is this real?”

“That’s my line.”

“I din’t want to believe. God, Buffy, I didn’t…” Spike glanced up at that, her heart singing when she was in his eyes again. “I did, though. God help me, I did. I jus’ couldn’t be that selfish. I never thought…”

“You didn’t believe me,” she whimpered. “I love you so much, and you didn’t believe me.”

The awed light in his eyes was something she would never again take for granted. Even when he smiled his cocky smile and brushed his sinful lips across hers, his length sliding out of her until only his silky head remained wrapped around her wet flesh. “Silly girl. Do you ever listen?” he asked, nipping at her. “I believe you. I din’t want to. God, do you know how hard you made it? Telling me that when I was…when I was leavin’ the world for you to…”

“Spike!”

He growled and slammed into her hard. “I believed you.”

“You left me.”

“World was ending.”

“My world ended anyway.”

“We’re even, then.” With a murmur of complaint, he released her hands as his body began rocking against hers. “But I’m here now, love. I’m here.”

“Ohhhh…” Her liberated hands flew to his forearms, nails digging deep enough into his skin to mark him. “How long?” she demanded. “How long?”

“Forever.”

“Forever?”

Spike brushed a kiss against her forehead, then rested his brow against her. The cool slip of his cock from her body was both too fast and too slow; she needed him hard, but she needed to memorize every detail. She didn’t want one precious second to fade at the relentless hand of time. Her mind raced alongside her heart; still lodged somewhere between happiness and fear. He was with her now. He was really with her. His hands were on her body, he was pounding into her pussy, his eyes refused to leave hers—she absorbed it all while barely allowing herself to believe any of it was real.

“Forever. Not goin’ anywhere,” he whispered. “Haven’t you…gotten it through your head yet? I love you. Fuck, I love you so much.”

“I’ve been so alone,” she whimpered in turn, seizing a hungry, needful kiss from his lips, moaning when he moaned into her. This was something they’d never had. Not once. Throughout the previous year, there had only been one night where they were able to reach each other. He’d held her in his arms and kissed her forehead, and she’d never felt so loved before in all her life. Then the night before the apocalypse, before she’d lost him, they’d started to heal the scars that were still, in many ways, achingly fresh. He’d peppered kisses along her body with such quivering reverence that she was still trembling. He’d whispered a thousand apologies—apologies for wrongs he hadn’t committed against her, and those that he had. He hadn’t let her voice her own sorrow. He hadn’t let her tell him how sorry she was for bruising him so maliciously with both her words and her fists. He was sure, even then, even on the cusp of his martyrdom, that while she hadn’t behaved like a saint, he deserved nothing less than punishment fit for Iscariot.

But even through that, they hadn’t been able to look each other in the eye as they made love. Now they were. Spike was panting needless breaths against her mouth as his cock moved inside her, as her pussy clenched and tried so hard to capture him every time he tried to slip away. Her hips battled his, matching his every thrust with desperation that she barely recognized.

“It was so hard,” he murmured. “So bleeding hard to stay away from you.”

“You tried?” she gasped, fresh tears stinging her eyes. “Why?”

Spike blinked hard, pain stretching the gorgeous lines of his face. “Thought I had to,” he gasped, pounding into her with renewed vigor. “Thought it was what’s right.”

“You didn’t…”

“Don’t even say it, Buffy.” He growled, though, as though she had. “The…the sodding second I…I came back, you were my first thought. My every thought. I…I didn’t…I thought I was…doing right…by you. Staying away. Letting you…letting you live.”

“Without you?” she demanded, nipping at his bottom lip hard enough to draw blood. Her muscles contracted around him with every thrust. Her skin buzzed and her blood hummed. She danced on the edge of rapture, but she needed to feel him spill inside her before she allowed herself to fall. “Why would I want…”

“Buffy…”

“I love you. I love you.”

He kissed her lips, the sweetness of his touch offsetting the ferocity behind his thrusts. “I love you too, kitten,” he murmured, slipping a hand between them. “More than you’ll…ever…know.”

“I love you.” She felt him shift against her brow and impulsively kissed those gorgeous ridges, trembling hard when she found herself bathed in the awed glow of his demon eyes. “Unnnh…”

“Buffy…” His fingers rubbed her clit furiously, his balls smacking against her as his cock worked her pussy. “My Slayer…you feel so good. Made for me, you were.”

“Never…leave…me again.”

“Baby, you’d have…to reconfigure…the sodding…universe…to get me to leave your side.”

That wasn’t good enough. He’d left her twice and she wasn’t going to let him do it again. Not to get a soul. Not to save the world. Not unless she was with him—not unless it was something they were doing together. He’d always sworn that he belonged to her, and by God, she was going to make good on that promise. Thus, without warning, she lunged for his throat and sank her teeth into his delicious skin, biting down until his blood soaked her tongue.

He wasn’t going anywhere. Not again.

“Mine!”

Because he belonged to her.

The roar that pierced the air could have split continents apart. His body beat against her so hard that she saw stars, he answering growl of, “Oh fucking Christ, I’m so yours,” deafening her ears. He thrust into her madly as he spilled himself inside her, his fangs lunging for her throat without missing a beat. And the second that he bit into her, her body buzzing and shuddered hard around him, spiraling so deep in pleasure that it’d be a wonder if she ever climbed out again.

“You’re mine!” he snarled. “You’re mine, Buffy. You hear?”

“Oh yes,” she agreed, her nerves ringing. “I’m yours.”

Awe blanketed his eyes again, and then he was kissing her. He kissed her like a man starved. He told her without words—he told her with everything he had. He told her with his hands as well as he told her with his body. He’d spent forty years wandering through the desert, and she was the only thing that could quench his thirst or sate his appetite. And there was never reason to doubt. There would never be reason again.

Forever passed before his hips stopping rocking against hers. Before he could his move mouth away without claiming her in another long, greedy kiss. Before his hands settled beside her head so that his thumbs could caress her cheeks. He didn’t bother asking her if she knew what she’d done, because she did. They remained curled in each others arms, glistening with sweat and tears. Together.

“I thought you’d want…I don’t know what I thought,” Spike whispered finally. “I believed you, sweetheart. I believed you when you told me…”

Her brain was still fried with pleasure, but not too fried to stand to attention. She only wanted to have this conversation once, therefore she was determined to cover everything. “But you…how long have you been back?”

Spike didn’t meet her eyes. “A while. Not as anythin’ more than a ghost, but for a li’l while.” He paused and trembled, pressing his brow to hers. “Bloody stroke of luck that your boy called when he did. Angel’d all but convinced me to not come after you.”

Buffy’s eyes went wide. “Angel knew?” she demanded. “Angel knew?”

“Yeah…he knew.”

“He knew how much pain I was in and he…oh my God. I’m going to kill him. I swear—”

“Sweetheart, much as I would love to see you turn that righteous arse into dust, I’d just as soon never touch foot in Los Angeles again.” Spike pressed a soft kiss to her lips. “You’re mine now, an’ I don’t want him looking at what’s mine.”

The word made her shiver with pleasure, and while it did little to calm the flames of outrage, Spike was with her. In the end, Spike was with her. And if he was willing to let bygones be bygones…well, then obviously he was delirious with post-coital yum and they’d have plenty of time later to discuss how very much Angel was going to get his ass kicked.

“I’m sorry for the set-up,” Spike murmured, rolling them onto their sides, his hand at her ass to make sure that they remained intimately connected. “It was all Harris’s doing.”

Her eyes widened. “Xander?”

Spike grinned, apparently unbothered by the irony. “He’s the one that found me, sweetling,” he replied softly. “I figure losing the one he loved gave him some perspective. He phoned up your ex with a mind to see if there was a way they could mojo me back from the beyond, an’ Harmony flapped her trap before Peaches could do rot about it.”

“Harm?”

“Angel’s secretary.”

Buffy blinked. Hard. “Wow.”

“In so many ways.” Spike kissed her softly, a long sigh coursing through his body. “I was on the firs’ bloody plane outta LA. Xander had Willow work some voodoo on me so that you wouldn’t be able to feel…that I was in Harris’s apartment. An’ Christ, you wouldn’t believe how hard it was…listenin’ to you get pissed an’—”

“Wait. You were holed up with Xander and not only did he not tell me…you didn’t barge out and…I dunno, cart me off to bed? AND you two didn’t kill each other?”

“Hasn’t been all that long, kitten. Jus’ a day or so.” He kissed her again. “Doesn’ mean it wasn't bloody hard, knowin’ you were right there an’ I wasn’t…but he wanted it to be your Valentine’s Day surprise, an’ I went along with it. They did everything they could to get you here. I ‘bout lost it when I walked through that door.”

And then, just like that, she flushed with guilt. How must it have looked to him, seeing her bound and blindfolded on a bed, waiting for someone else? Buffy’s chest constricted and she glanced down in shame, only to have her head jerked upward the next second.

“Don’t. I know you—”

“I didn’t—”

“Buffy, you knew it was me the second I walked through that door. I felt you know it. Maybe not up here…” His fingers caressed her temple gently before following a trail down her chest, settling over her heart. “But here. You knew it. Baby, I heard you give your mates every feasible excuse not to go through with this. Had I been just anyone, you wouldn’t’ve let me touch you with a thirty-nine an’ a half foot pole.”

Relief flooded her insides, but that wasn’t about to make her waste a good pout. “So you decided to use a phony accent and play along?”

He shrugged, grinning. “Set-up like that comes once in a bloody lifetime. An’ who said the accent was phony?”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “Spike—”

“Oi. I came from a good family.” His eyes were positively sparkling. “Didn’t mean much after I was sired an’ wasn’t a good man anymore, so I tossed the accent for somethin’ a li’l more…rugged.” Spike offered a playfully smirk. “Which do you prefer?”

She grinned. “Can’t say. I like you both good and…rugged. Plus…that thing you do with your tongue is just evil.”

He waved said tongue at her, his eyebrows waggling. And before she could do anything about it, he’d flipped them over, his hard cock pushing deep inside her again. “An’ you’re mine,” he whimpered. “You claimed me.”

“I claimed you,” she agreed, tossing her head back. “Not going anywhere.”

Spike nodded, biting at his mark proudly and grinding his hips against hers. “Not goin’ anywhere.”

“Oh God.”

“I’m gonna fuck you till the sun goes down.”

That sounded wonderful to her. After all, she had a day-pass for the room, and she didn’t want it to go to waste. “Ohhh…”

“Then we’ll go home.”

“And make love till dawn?”

“Oh Buffy…”

She would never tire of the way he looked at her. Never. He burned her so effortlessly, and she would fall asleep in his arms every night, counting her blessings. Never forgetting what she’d nearly lost. What she’d spent precious months of her life without. She would wake up with his taste on her lips. She wouldn’t let him go a day without telling him how much she loved him.

Starting now. As he moved within her, running his hands across her skin, looking at her as though she was the one that had fallen from the Heavens and not the other way around, she’d let him know. With tears and laughter, she’d let him know. “I love you. I’ll tell you until you get sick of hearing it, but I love you. I’m so sorry it took me so long…so…so sorry…”

Spike smiled warmly into her eyes and her heart clenched. “Don’t cry, sweetling,” he murmured, caressing her lips with his. “It’s all right.”

“It is?”

“We got here, din’t we? I love you…an’ you’re mine.” He shivered at the word, licking the bite mark on her throat again. “You’re mine…an’ you’re not going anywhere.”

And neither was he. Not anywhere. She had him back now, and he wasn’t going anywhere. At last—finally—she had the opportunity for a genuine second chance, and she wasn’t going to blow it. Spike was with her—he was really with her.

And as long as they lived, she would never take him for granted.

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