Awards for Dreamscape

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Author: Holly (holly.hangingavarice@gmail.com)
Rating: NC-17 (For language and sexual content)
Timeline: Season 2
Summary: While her nights are occupied fighting evil, her dreams are haunted by a devastatingly sexy, not to mention thoroughly evil vampire. The sort of vampire that embodies the definition of forbidden fruit; the sort of vampire Buffy can only have in fantasy. But how thin is the line between dreams and reality? More importantly: how thin does she want it to be?
Prompt: From 20_hot_prompts, #7 dreams. Additionally, written for vampgirly, based on her guidelines posted at holiday_btvs .

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

The dreams began that night.

Her body was worn, her muscles screamed for a hot bubble bath. Her mind was stuck on replay. Every time she closed her eyes, she saw the fight again. She heard every word, felt every punch, relived every humiliating second and was no better off for it.

He killed slayers, Giles said. The guy that called himself Spike killed slayers. He’d made a career out of it, and evidently, it was the reason he was here now. Because she was the Slayer, and he killed slayers. It was what he did.

He was strong. She’d never faced a vampire, other than Angel and a few of the Master’s older goons, that she hadn’t been able to kill on first try. Spike was old, yeah, but not as old as some. Not as old as Angel, and not nearly as old as Luke or Darla or any of the fang-faced buffoons that had caused her grief the previous year.

He was strong. Way strong. Stronger than any vamp she’d faced. Hell, Buffy wasn’t convinced she couldn’t have rendered Angel very much of the dusty had such been her ambition. The few times they’d fought each other rather than side-to-side, she always gained the upper-hand.

Though that could be explained rather easily. Angel had this silly notion that Buffy needed to be guarded—that she was the perpetual damsel, and hurting her would upset the balance of the universe. Never mind that she’d, oh yeah, died less than six months ago. No, Buffy was definitely a delicate little flower.

With as hunky as he was, Angel could be annoying as hell when he set his mind to it.

Something he assuredly had passed onto Mr. Sexy Brit Vamp. While picking up the debris of Parent Teacher Night, Angel had confessed that Spike was one of his vamp-kiddies, or whatever term he’d used to describe it. So her kinda-boyfriend was completely responsible for the current pain in her ass. The current incredibly sexy and oh so ruthlessly dangerous pain in her ass.

She couldn’t escape him. She showered and he was there. She brushed her teeth and he was there. She changed into her flannel jammies and he was there. He snipped at her, mocked the pain he’d caused whenever she flinched, whispering little taunts, promising the next time they saw each other he’d use her blood for mouthwash.

Buffy shivered hard and shook her head, flopping onto her mattress, wincing and biting her lower lip to keep her moan from touching the air. Things would look better tomorrow. Once her shoulders stopped aching and the pain in her side didn’t throb every time she turned.

A long sigh trembled through her lips. Things would look better tomorrow.

They had to.

He was the first thing she saw when she entered the room.

“Hello cutie,” he drawled, his azure eyes sparkling as he sized her up. “Fancy seein’ you here.”

Buffy blinked and froze. She was standing in what appeared to be a motel room. There was a bed in the middle of the room. An unremarkable bed, but a bed nonetheless. A bed that looked like it had recently been turned down by room service, minus the decorative chocolate mints. Buffy was standing in the far corner, trapped between the wall and a writing desk. There was a nightstand—topped with a lamp—between the bed and the closet. And in the small narrow stretch of hall that led to the exit was Spike.

Spike.

What on earth was that asshole doing here?

Never mind that…what was she doing here?

“Where the hell are we?” Buffy demanded.

“Motel 6, near as I can figure it.”

“And…you’re here, why?”

The vamp shrugged, sliding a hand into his duster pocket and retrieving a pack of cigarettes. “’S my dream,” he retorted. “I tend to turn up in my dreams. Besides…I figured you’d be here.”

“You did?” she replied, blinking in surprise. Then she shook her head hard. “And—excuse me, your dream?”

Spike’s brow furrowed as he lit up. “Well,” he drawled. “Yeah.”

“You wish!”

“I…wish? I wish my nights were spent in a filthy hellhole with the bint I’ll be killin’ come hell or high-water?” There was a long pause, his long, slender fingers stroking his chin in mock-thought. “You’re right, love. This is a real ball-buster.”

Buffy tried hard to ignore the rush of adrenalin that seized her veins, shivering hard and shaking her head. No matter what—no matter that she was standing in the middle of an illusion, speaking to a vampire whose dust would very soon be in her past—she refused to let any incarnation of Spike get the better of her. If he bested her in her dreams, what hope did she have for reality?

Giles was always saying the mind fought ninety-five percent of the battle. And up until now, she’d thought he was full of old-man crap. Maybe this was her mind’s way of letting her know her watcher wasn’t as hopelessly hopeless as he appeared most of the time.

Maybe the way to beat Spike was to get to know him.

Buffy balked and winced. Okay, she’d seriously gone loopy. Even if that did make sense, this wasn’t real. It was some crazy post-fight dream, starring the brand new bane of her existence. Not really much to figure out there. No matter how real it looked or felt. The motel room was about as real as the tooth fairy, and only half as believable.

“You’re just a sore loser, aren’t ya?” Buffy countered when she realized she hadn’t spoken in a few, awkwardly real moments. God, even her slayer dreams couldn’t replicate the way a vamp’s eyes burned while sizing up prey—and unless Angel was making a cameo, her dreams were never specific. Especially when it came to people—or devastatingly-sexy-but-oh-so-evil bloodsuckers—who were new to her life. Spike’s eyes were bright and lively, and God help her, but they swallowed her whole. For a minute, she could have sworn she was drowning in the ocean.

He had gorgeous eyes. Those gorgeous eyes had distracted her the first night—the night when he’d clapped and stepped out of the shadows. Instead of quipping and being her normal punny self, she’d done little more than stare blankly and fire inane questions. Thankfully he’d sported his bumpies tonight; there was no chance of getting lost in those eyes if he looked like every other vamp she dusted on any given night.

“Haven’t lost anything,” Spike countered, licking his lips. “I dunno how you’re used to doing it, Slayer, but I’m not the wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am kinda bloke. When I start somethin’, I intend to enjoy every sodding minute of it.” He paused and ran those sinful eyes over her body in a way that had her twitching and feeling very much aware of her southern parts. “You’re gonna be a right treat, you are. Can’t wait to get a taste of you.”

“Get used to disappointment.”

He grinned. “Big talk for a chit whose mum had to ride in to the rescue. There’s a word for people like you, love. Whas’sit again?”

She rolled her eyes, trying hard to suppress a shiver. “Oh please,” she retorted, crossing her arms, her body wound tight. “Don’t tell me strong, modern women intimidate you.”

“On the contrary, there’s nothin’ better.” Spike grinned, sucking hard on his cigarette. “The harder they fight, the better they taste.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“Hello.” He waved, his eyes narrowing. “Vampire.”

“Yeah. And you wanna take a wild stab at how many of your kind I’ve turned into itty bitty dust particles in the past three years?” Buffy retorted, rocking enthusiastically on her heels. “I’m sorry—you just don’t inspire me to push the Big Fear button. So you messed up Parent Teacher Night. The big? Not seeing it. And hey! You even did me a favor. My mother’s all with the impressed on how thoroughly your ass was handed to you by yours truly.”

That much, at least, had the over-confidence in his sexy eyes melting into indignation. Buffy honestly wasn’t sure which she preferred.

“Oi!”

She shrugged and swallowed rigidly, doing her best to hide how hard she was trembling. Even knowing it was a dream, but she couldn’t keep herself from shaking like the proverbial damsel. It was stupid; Spike couldn’t reach her here—not when he was a figment of her very tired but endlessly overactive imagination. “Well, if you can’t handle the truth.”

“The truth?” he barked, stifling an incredulous laugh. “Your definition of truth must be a bloody kick. The truth is your mum is the only reason your corpse isn’t rotting in my freezer. If anythin’, you were outdone by a middle-aged an’ painfully average human. A human that could’ve gotten killed. She walked stupid into a situation an’ got lucky. Think that’ll happen again? Think she’s gonna be lucky every time? Think she’s always gonna be there to have the Slayer’s back?” He waited and smiled when he was rewarded with cold, angry silence. “’S what I thought. Sorry, pet. That’s gotta smart.”

Buffy swallowed again, shoving her anger aside. And boy, was that a mistake. Anger was the only thing that kept her from the accuracy behind his words. She really didn’t want to think of how right he was. Spike had truly had her at his fingertips, and she’d be one pulse short of a living slayer had her mother not stepped in and gotten all axe-happy.

There was really nothing to say in rebuttal, so she decided to throw his words back in face and hoping they stuck. “And here I thought you wanted to savor the hunt—hence the non-deadness that is me.”

Spike shrugged again, his lips massaging his cigarette like a lover. She did her best to ignore it. He was sexy enough without focusing on specific body parts.

“That’s right,” he agreed. “But if you think that means I would’ve turned away a freebie, you’re off your bird. ‘Sides, once this dance is over, I got me the next chit to off. An’ if I don’t get there in time, there’s always the one after that. The possibilities never end for me, see. That’s the good thing about slayers. One kicks it an’ the next one gets all Chosen an’ the game starts again. The only thing that changes is you—what you bring to the dance.”

His eyes did the rakey-thing again, and those so were not shudders racing down her spine. Nope. Next question, please.

“I can’t wait till round two,” he concluded.

“It’s not like vamps to look forward to their dusty ending, is it?”

Spike chuckled and shook his head, and damn if he wasn’t the most infuriating jackass she’d ever seen. Was there anything that unraveled him?

“You got spunk,” he murmured. And gah, she should not react to him like some love-struck schoolgirl. His voice should inspire revulsion—not exhilaration. She should be clenching her fists in rage, not her thighs in excitement. Spike just grinned, undoubtedly knowing exactly what he was doing, and took a step forward. “I like spunk.”

“Yeah. Now ask me if I give a damn.”

The grin broadened. “Case in bloody point.”

A small, pitiful growl tickled her throat and she threw her arms up in exasperation. This was definitely a downside to realistic dreams. She’d never been so annoyed while sleeping. “So that’s it, then?” she demanded, her brows perking. “You came here to kill me, which you’re determined to do by haunting my dreams and taking shots at my mother. Well, I—”

“Don’ flatter yourself, pet,” Spike intersected with a snicker. “Never said I came here for you.”

She frowned, her anger melting into confusion. “But I thought—”

“What?”

“Giles said you hunt slayers.”

Spike’s eyes narrowed. “Who the bleeding hell is Giles, an’ how does he—”

“My Watcher, brainiac.” Buffy rolled her eyes. “God, for someone who boasts as much as you do, you’d think you’d be able to pair an obviously British name to a very British occupation.”

He scowled around his cigarette, then tossed it to the ground and stamped it out beneath his boot. “You think I’m gonna let you smart-off ‘cause this is a dream, don’cha?” he said, his voice dangerously soft. “You think that I won’ remember how much of a royal bitch you are, or let you off jus’ because this isn’t real. Got news for you, Slayer…vamps don’ give much of a damn for logic or reason.”

“Really?” She blinked. “Could’ve fooled me.”

“I can keep you alive as long as I like, you know. Learned from the sodding best.” He paused and grinned. “That’d be your honey. The giant fanged teddy-bear that walked you home t’night.”

Buffy rolled her eyes. “Please. If you think you’re gonna scare me with horror stories of—”

“You obviously haven’t heard any, else you’d be scared enough already.”

“Dream on.”

He snickered. “Would if I could, love. You’re not exactly a bloke’s idea of a good time. Besides the killin’ an’ all.”

“Wow…see, if I gave a crap about what you thought, that’d actually hurt.”

Spike just grinned again, damn him. She hated that grin. It was all with the condescending and the super annoying ‘I-know-something-you-don’t-know.’ How third grade was he, anyway?

“I can see why Angelus likes you,” he purred, his eyes doing the vertical dance once more. And no, she definitely didn’t miss the way they lingered on her boobs. Even in her dreams, guys were thorough pervs. “He prefers his women with fight in them.”

Buffy shuddered, her mind automatically setting her down a path she didn’t want to travel. Ever since the Darla incident last year, she’d done her honest best to both ignore Angel and his less-than-reputable past. And okay, so waiting around the Bronze for him wasn’t exactly the best way to display her honest best; nor was grinding against Xander to the point where she learned way more about the male anatomy than she cared to at the moment. None of that meant her intentions weren’t in the right place.

“The road to Hell is paved with good intentions, kitten,” Spike quipped.

“Ugh. Cliché much?”

He shrugged, unbothered. “Clichés become clichés because most of them hold some truth.”

“Bite me.”

“Oh, I’m gonna. An’ if you’re a good li’l slayer, I might even make it fun for you. Jus’ a little, yeah?” A dreamy look overwhelmed his eyes, and he shivered hard with a good surge of anticipation. “Ahh. An’ Angelus can have a front row seat. Watch his woman scream another bloke’s name before—”

“Ugh!”

He blinked. “What?”

“You really think that—”

“You ever been bitten before?”

The second the words touched the air, the Master’s mark on her throat began to burn. Buffy stifled a whimper and slapped her hand across the scar, doing her level best to ignore the violent shudders that had her suddenly yearning for a waste-bin in which to vomit. “Yes,” she choked, just barely missing the surprise that flooded Spike’s eyes. “Yes…and there was…nothing orgasmic about it.”

Cold silence followed, but she didn’t care. Her mind had dragged her back to the Hellmouth. To the cavern she’d wandered into so stupidly. Suddenly, her arms were heavy with the weight of an invisible crossbow. Her legs were covered in a white gown. She fired one lousy shot and, for all her training, for all the vamps she’d killed and the monsters she’d defeated, she still lost. She lost without putting up a good fight. She fired her crossbow but she couldn’t beat his eyes. With every blink, she saw him, and she lost all over again.

“Who?” Spike asked softly, pulling her out of her reverie. Of her dream within a dream. And as much as she hated him, she couldn’t help the gratitude that flooded her veins the second her eyes met his again. “Who got a taste of you?”

“The Master.”

God, why was she telling him this?

Because it’s a dream. It’s not real.

Didn’t matter. It felt real enough.

“It’d be different with me,” Spike said. And then he was close. God, he was so close. Another step, and her breasts would be against his chest. And perhaps because she knew it was a dream, she didn’t fight or step back. She didn’t attempt to regain the space he’d stolen. The cold she’d felt in the cavern—in even remembering the cavern—was gone. Spike was standing right in front of her, and damn if he didn’t smell as good as any man she’d ever met.

Dreams are deceiving.

“It’d be different,” he repeated, running his index finger over her faded scar. “Master din’t much care if you got off, I reckon.”

Her throat was suddenly hoarse. “A-and you would?”

“Oh yeah. That’s half the fun, sweetheart.” A pause. When he spoke again, his mouth was right at her ear. “I’d take my time with you. Slayers One and Two were business with jus’ a dash of pleasure. You…you, Slayer…I think you’re gonna be the other way around.”

She swallowed. Hard. “Do you?”

“Din’t dream of the others,” he replied with an easy shrug. “Not at all. An’ yet you’re here. In this room. With me.”

“It’s not real,” she reminded him.

“All the more reason to enjoy you.” Then he stepped forward again, and her breasts were pressed against his chest, and something of his—something very hard of his—was against her stomach. A flood of heat washed between her legs; all at once, she felt very hot and very…wet. And sticky. Like watching a dirty part in a movie, only magnified times a thousand.

“I’ll make you beg for it, Slayer,” Spike purred. “I’ll strip you down an’ tie you up. Think you’ll still hate me when I’m fucking you with my tongue? When your luscious tits are between my fingers? When I rub your clit till it’s worn out its use?”

Oh. Dear. Lord. She was going to faint. God, she was going to totally do the girl thing and faint. In her own dream. In front of a hallucination of her current worst enemy. There wasn’t enough mortification in the world.

But God, could anyone blame her? Her face was hot and she was more than just a little lightheaded. Spike moved against her as he spoke, rubbing what had to be his erection into her belly and gently running his hands up and down her arms. He was telling her how he was going to use her body before he killed her, and he was doing it while caressing her skin with gentility that offset the inherent cruelty in his words. And she was responding to him.

I’m sick.

“I’ll bring you to the edge so many times, you’ll be beggin’ me to take the dive.”

She swallowed. Hard. “You wish.”

“’S a promise, love. Not a wish. You’re gonna love me before this is over. An’ the second that happens…”

For the way she gasped when he gently sank his blunt teeth into her neck, she could star in porno movies. It was a gasp to end all gasps—one that could only be followed in shame. Only there was no time for shame. Her hands flew instinctively to his forearms, her hips arching upward with foreign need. She was on fire—she was burning in ways she’d never burned before. And Spike was there. Spike’s mouth was on her throat—on the bite mark the Master had left behind. He growled into her skin, evidently tossing whatever he’d been ready to say out the proverbial window for the want of driving her even crazier than he had already.

This was sick and twisted and God, she needed more. She needed him to strip her pants off and feel between her legs. She needed him to do something to ease the fire he’d set loose in her body. She needed—

“Slayer.”

She needed him to say her name.

And perhaps because she knew it was just a dream—that everything around her would return to normal the second she opened her eyes—Buffy just stopped caring. She stopped caring altogether. It wasn’t real. Nothing was real. She couldn’t be blamed for something that wasn’t real. For doing something in her mind while she slept.

She couldn’t be blamed for anything in here.

So she fisted his hair and dragged him away from her throat, ignoring the shared whimper of protest that tumbled through his lips. “It’s Buffy,” she growled, then attacked his mouth with hers. And immediately, any teeny sliver of doubt that this wasn’t real was banished, because there was no way any man could ever taste this good. He was sin and decadence; he was lust and fire. He tasted of cigarettes and whisky, of blood and leather. He tasted of everything she’d always sworn she’d never want. He was danger. He was evil.

He was hers.

“Slayer…” he whimpered, sucking her lower lip into his mouth.

“Buffy,” she growled again. “It’s Buffy.”

Spike nodded furiously, swallowing her in another kiss. “Buffy,” he agreed. “Buffy.”

“That’s right.”

He nipped at her lips. “Buffy.”

“Uh huh.” His tongue stroked hers with fire she’d never felt before. Not with any of the laughable boys from her old life; not from Owen. Not from anyone. Not even Angel. Her dream-Spike blew every little girl expectation out of her head, and she knew without cause or reason that she’d never feel this again. Not in reality. Not with anyone but him. With Spike.

It was wrong, but it was a dream. It was only a dream. Dreams weren’t real.

Then something happened. Something that stole the dream from her fingertips. Something horrible enough to qualify as reality. Spike froze and jerked away from her with an angry growl, shoving her into a pit of endless cold. She froze, her heart hammering. Rejection split her veins. Every inch of her numbed.

Spike…

“You think it’s that easy?” he snarled, shoving her into the wall, his eyes blazing with yellow. “You think you’re gonna distract me with—”

“Spike—”

“I don’ do Angelus’s leftovers, blondie. Not anymore.” He backhanded her, and the smack rocked her head back with pain that felt anything but dreamt up. “You can’t make me…I broke her. She’s not his anymore. You can’t make me forget that. You can’t make me want you.”

She?

Buffy blinked. “Spike, I don’t—”

“An’ if you think you can tempt me with that juicy li’l pussy of yours jus’ because it’s his, you’re in for a rude awakenin’.”

“I don’t—”

“I don’t want you. It’s a sodding miracle anyone does.”

And with that glowing blow to her self-esteem, Spike whirled around and stormed into the hall, leaving her only with the thunderous echoes of his footsteps.

Footsteps that couldn’t get away from her fast enough. Even in her dream.

Buffy had never been so grateful to wake up in all her life.

A/N: Be warned…this chapter does contain a non-con scenario. I’m sorry, but since we’re dealing with a soulless and very evil Spike, I just didn’t see a way around it based on my own set-up. And truthfully, I don’t think I’ve made him nearly evil enough, but that’s not my objective. To me, the following is not squicky non-con…and I say that because I was able to write it. Non-con squicks me beyond reason, but I was able to write this without much trouble. Everyone is different, though, and what is not squicky to me might be very squicky to someone else. Just consider yourself thoroughly warned.

Those of you who are very familiar with my writing…all I can say is, trust me. I will not steer you wrong. This is being written for a Valentine’s Day ficathon, after all. =)

This will be the last chapter for a while. I do have the third written, but I’ll want at least a jumpstart on Part Four before I update again. And seeing as I’m in surgery tomorrow, it’s going to be at least a couple days before I’m able to sit down and type anything out to any great extent.

Thanks to everyone for the warm reception thus far. Hope you decide to stick with me.

She didn’t know how to react when she closed her eyes the next night and found herself in the motel room again. A part of her had expected it; had spent the day trying to dissect her encounter with Spike as she did with all her slayer dreams. Unsurprisingly, her efforts were to little avail. There really was no way to assign meaning to randomly meeting one’s enemy in the subconscious. Spike hadn’t spoken in code, and he’d told her nothing she wouldn’t have figured out on her own.

The only thing she couldn’t explain was the kiss. And truthfully, Buffy wasn’t sure she wanted it explained. She’d already acknowledged Spike as a major hottie; there was no sense in denying it. As a heterosexual female, she was morally obligated to tip her proverbial hat to the hottest of the hot.

And Spike was definitely the hottest. Hands down.

However, gorgeous as he was, he wasn’t the first sexy vampire she’d come across. There had been quite a few hotties, and now they were dust. That was that. She never gave them a second thought once they were gone. Why should she? The job occasionally necessitated slaying eye-candy, and pretty as they were, it was always easy come, easy go.

Her appraisal of the occasional hot vamp never went beyond appreciation. Her appraisal had never translated into dreams of a sexual nature.

This all added up to being wigged. Very wigged. She’d never had a sex-dream about a vampire—not even Angel. And even though her dream hadn’t actually contained sex, it was still closer than anything she’d, erm, dreamt up. So yes, finding the enemy attractive enough to slobber over in her sleep? Yeah, she was of the wigged. And kind of irked that the dream had ended before she could see where the kissage could lead. And then, naturally, irked with herself for being irked in the first place. Spike was the enemy—an evil, nasty vamp who dipped his hands in slayer blood every chance he got.

As of last night, her interest Spike transcended his current status as her mortal enemy and her appreciation for his hotness. And the more she tried to convince herself it was only a dream, the angrier with herself she became.

The day left her little more than tired and confused, and the night wasn’t looking to be any better. And she really wasn’t sure how to react when she found herself in the same room that night. The same motel room, down to the lamp on the nightstand. Everything was the same.

Spike stood next to the bed, looking at her as though she was expected. As though he’d been waiting for her for hours. His eyes were the first thing she saw.

“Back here again?” he asked, his tone clipped, his body tight with tension.

Buffy licked her lips and shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “Looks like.”

That was all he said. Silence stretched between them.

A long sigh rolled off her shoulders and she collapsed wearily against the wall. She honestly didn’t know if not talking was better than talking; while she really didn’t want to think about what had happened last night more than she had already, ignoring it didn’t make the tension in the room any less palpable. Spike was there, and dream or not, he was real enough to her.

He was real, and the fire he’d ignited in her belly had yet to fade.

God, she didn’t know how she was supposed to deal with this. Spike had rocked her foundation. Spike had made her want him. How on earth was she supposed to dust someone she lusted after? Lusted so badly her lips were still tingling and her panties were soaked at the mere thought of what they’d almost shared.

In the memory of a dream.

But it didn’t feel like a dream, or a fantasy. Not to her. Not during the day, and not right now. She was standing in a foreign motel room with her mortal enemy, and it felt real. It felt so real that she was having an increasingly harder time convincing herself that her body was actually in her bed. That she was wrapped in blankets and Mr. Gordo was tucked securely under her arm. She knew that, but it didn’t make the motel room any less real. She was really in her room and she was really here, too. She was really with Spike.

Her life was so beyond screwed up.

The night went on encompassed in silence. Spike sat on the edge of the bed with his back to her. He didn’t speak again. Neither did she. They just sat, together but apart. Not talking. Not looking at each other. Not even fighting because, on some level, they knew it wouldn’t do any good. There was nothing to do in the interim but wait for the call of day to tug them back to a reality that made sense.

Buffy’s nights continued like that for weeks. She lived her life as she always did, knowing Spike waited for her in her sleep. Sometimes they spoke. Sometimes they sat, divided by the awkwardest of awkward silences. It was neither pleasant nor unpleasant. It was simply there. Her reoccurring but ever-changing dream.

Sleep had once been her haven—her place where monsters couldn’t chase her, save the occasional prophetic dream. Now her dreams had breached into dual realities. There was nowhere she could turn for rest.

Strangely, Buffy never felt the need to mention her dreams to Giles. There wasn’t anything to gain—no knowledge to uncover. Her dreams weren’t prophetic—they simply were.

Moreover, the dreams were hers. Completely hers. And she wasn’t in the mood to share.

So she lived as though nothing had changed, because ostensibly, nothing had changed. In the day, she would go to school and train in the library as Giles riffled through dusty old books and told her how very much the world was doomed unless she stopped the rising of so-and-so. As Xander did his level best to annoy Angel whenever he was around by bashing the vampire repeatedly over the head with a rolled up newspaper. As Willow hacked into city files and broke through firewalls. As the world went on around her.

The routine repeated itself every day until nightfall. Until Buffy sneaked a peek at the fading sun through the nearest window, stood up and told the Scoobies she had to patrol, and disappeared until the next morning.

Her day progressed beyond patrols. Her day extended into her dreams.

It was every night. Every single night. Every night leading up to Halloween.

Then everything changed.

It took forever to fall asleep.

Buffy hadn’t known how things would change the second she saw Spike again in reality. She’d expected to be unnerved, but beyond that, there was no way to predict how she would react. The dangerous thing, she knew, was to confuse the real Spike with the Spike she saw in her dreams. After all, they hadn’t run into each other since Parent/Teacher Night. Everything she knew about him—in reality—came from what little information Angel was willing to divulge and the pages of Giles’s dusty books.

She didn’t know Spike. Not at all.

But in her mind, she’d spent a lot of time with him. A lot of quiet time, granted, but time nonetheless. And it was damned hard not to mix up the two.

Seeing Spike tonight, after Giles had assured her that Halloween was a day for all unholy things to rest, had thrown her off her game. It didn’t help that he’d cornered her in an abandoned building while she was possessed by her girly costume. It didn’t help that she’d seen something in his eyes—something beyond you’re about to be supper.

She’d seen something.

But that’d been hours ago, and now she was in bed. She was in bed, shaken, and unable to sleep.

Because she knew Spike would be there.

Spike, who had leaned over her tonight with his fangs bared. Spike, who had rubbed his hard cock against her wet, burning body. Spike, who had looked almost betrayed when Ethan’s spell ended and the Slayer returned at full-force.

Spike in reality. Spike in her dreams.

It took forever to fall asleep.

The air split with a deafening roar, and even before the blurred objects in the room could form shape, she found herself slammed to the floor with a snarling vampire straddling her backside. A snarling vampire who had absolutely no qualms in grinding his ferociously hard cock against her ass. He had her right arm pressed to her back and her left pinned to the ground before she could even think about punching him away, and when he leaned down, he made sure that she felt every inch of his body hard against hers.

“You think you can jus’ do that?” he demanded, fangs grazing her earlobe. “You think you can walk away? You think—”

Anger heated her chest. Walk away? Hello! He’d been seconds away from sinking his teeth into her throat before Ethan’s spell fizzled; not to mention, he was the one who bolted. He’d left her after, oh yeah, trying to kill her.

“Not that it matters,” she ground out, “but you’re the one who—”

“I don’t mean that, you infuriating bint!”

“Well forgive me for not reading your obviously unbalanced mind!” She held her breath as he flipped her over, and then—oh God—he was right above her. His legs had her thighs trapped and his cock was rubbing her intimately through their clothes. His eyes were wide and blazing with an addictive symphony of anger drenched in lust.

“You can’t walk away from this,” he growled, his hands settling on her nightshirt and ripping it away before she could squeeze out a gasp. And then she was lying there, beneath him, her naked breasts exposed to the perusal of his hungry, conflicted eyes. “You can’t…” he continued, fingers tracing a soft trail up her abdomen. “You can’t jus’ pretend like this isn’t happenin’.”

“It’s not,” she fired back, though her voice wasn’t nearly as strong as she would have liked. “It’s not.”

Her sanity was dependent on that silver knowledge. This wasn’t real. None of it was. It wasn’t happening. There was no universe in which she would find herself pinned under an angry, evil vampire, her breasts very naked and her nipples hardening under said vampire’s gaze. This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be.

“I told you that firs’ night,” Spike growled, “vampires don’ need rationality. We don’ need logic. We jus’ need a reason, big or small. Real or imagined.” His head dipped, his tongue curling around one of her nipples, and pleasure beyond anything she’d ever felt burst through her body. Oh my God, this had to be a dream. It had to be. All he’d done was lick her boob and she was already hot and…

“Oh my God,” she whimpered, thrusting her breast against his mouth. “Oh my God. Ohhh…”

“I was wrong, wasn’t I?” Spike murmured, his hips moving rhythmically against hers so that his cock hit her center with every thrust. And God, if she got any hotter, her flannel pajama bottoms would melt right off. “Bleeding hell…”

“Wrong?”

“He hasn’t touched you. Not like this.” His eyes met hers just as his tongue came back into play, licking her nipple again before his left hand reached between them. “Angelus hasn’t had his merry way with you.”

A bizarre mixture of exhilarated indignation raced through her veins. “That’s none of your—”

“I’m making it my business,” Spike barked, his eyes flashing. “An’ he hasn’t touched you.”

“He’s touched,” Buffy retorted with anger she didn’t truly feel, stifling a moan and thrusting herself wantonly against his cock every time he tried to pull away. Every inch of her was on fire, and only he could calm the flames. “He’s touched plenty of times. He’s touched so much—”

The floor rocked with the slam of his fist. “Enough!”

“Oh, not nearly.”

“He can’t have you, too!” he snarled, biting into her breast. “That greedy wanker can’t have you, too!”

Pain splintered through her body, but it was secondary to pleasure. She was sick. She was certifiable. He was biting her, and all she could do was whimper and rub herself against his clad erection like some sex-crazed porn star. “Oh God!”

Spike released her with a growl, shaking his head furiously. “I knew it. I sodding knew it. I knew coming here was a big, bloody mistake.” He accentuated his revelation with several more punches to the floor, and the whole of her broke into nervous trembles. “I knew she’d…the second she learned…”

Again with the mention of this ever-elusive she. Who was she? And why was Spike so freaking preoccupied with her?

And why did Buffy give a crap?

The answer to the third question was a little easier to come by, but it didn’t make her feel any better.

She swallowed hard. “Who?”

“Doesn’ matter,” Spike growled. “She’s not here.”

But she was. Spike had brought her with him; he always brought her with him. It was what kept him quiet most of the time—what silenced him every night, save for the first. Whoever she was, she was a constant source of pain wrapped in what Buffy could only assume was love.

Only Spike wasn’t with her; he was with Buffy. He was rubbing his cock against Buffy’s soaking pussy, teasing Buffy’s breasts with his mouth. But his mind wasn’t with Buffy. His mind was with the other one. The woman who had learned something powerful enough to drive Spike into a jealous frenzy.

Which, consequentially, was enough to drive Buffy into a jealous frenzy.

There was nothing in her life that made sense right now.

“No,” Buffy whispered, her voice trembling. She lifted her palm to his cheek, her insides rocking when he slowly raised his head to meet her eyes. And what she saw there—the grief and outrage conflicted with specks of awe and wonder—was enough to level mountains. “No, she’s not. She’s not here, Spike. It’s just me.”

“Slayer…”

For long seconds, they stood as a house divided. Night and day. The perpetual partition between light and dark. There was something in his eyes that she’d never seen before; something beyond understanding. Beyond anything she’d ever touched. He looked so lost in that moment. So heartbreakingly lost—as though every true thing he’d ever learned had been turned into a lie. As though every reality was suddenly made fantasy.

It amazed her, watching a war engage behind a man’s eyes. And she saw him—she saw everything. She saw how much he wanted to hate her, and how confused whatever this was had made him. She saw everything, and it as so tragic she found herself nearly moved to tears.

The moment disappeared, and left only angered lust in its wake. Spike growled again, biting at her lips and freeing his cock in a blink. “It’s you,” he barked, his eyes bleeding. “Yeah, yeah, it’s you. Some tarty slayer jus’ waiting to have her pussy crammed full with—”

“Spike!”

His brows perked, a humiliating leer stretching his lips. “With me, eh? Sorry, love. I don’t fuck slayers. I kill them. You can’t make me forget by pretending. By acting like you care.”

Her eyes widened. “No. No, Spike, please—”

“You want me, Slayer? You wanna know how it feels to get fucked rotten by a vampire?” He bit at her lips again. “Angelus’ll never show you. Not that poncy-arse excuse of a pup he’s become.”

“I didn’t mean it,” Buffy whimpered, hating herself for sounding so helpless. So pathetically damsel-y and female. She wasn’t a weak sniveling leaf of a thing; she was the Slayer. She was Buffy Summers, Vampire Slayer. And she wasn’t the sort of slayer who cowered under vampires.

Cowering under a vampire in a dream? How pathetic was she?

“What’s it you didn’t mean, Slayer?” Spike demanded, crawling up her body until his cock struck her chin. “Never mind. I don’ care. Open your mouth.”

Buffy’s body tightened with indignation. “Are you—mmmpff!”

“Might as well have some fun,” he purred, swirling his hips and slowly dragging his length between her lips before slamming down again. “Seeing as this is my dream and all.”

“Mmnnauuah!”

“Got a hot li’l mouth, you do.” A long moan ripped through the air, and he shoved his cock so deep into her mouth that his head brushed the back of her throat. “Bleeding hell, Slayer…”

Buffy’s eyes watered, her body trembling with a combination of loathing and shamed arousal. The part of her determined to keep her psyche of this pseudo-reality faded away completely, and everything became painstakingly real. The feel of Spike’s erection pushing into her mouth, the hot whimpers tearing off his lips, and the humiliating way her body responded.

Mostly that last thing.

“Wonder if you’re really this hot,” he rasped, his thrusts growing harder. “Burn me right up, you would. Suck me, baby. Suck me hard.”

She found herself obeying blindly, her tongue rising to caress the underside of his cock as it pumped in and out of her mouth, his balls smacking her chin with every drive. It was, admittedly, the strangest sensation she’d ever experienced—something she’d only read about in trashy romance novels. Something she always suspected she’d never wanted to do, no matter how much she loved the man in question. The whole thing seemed so degrading—a notion not helped by the fact that Spike had straddled her face and was shoving himself so far into her throat that she had to keep from choking.

This is humiliating, she thought, tears spilling down her cheeks. Spike had her pinned in her subconscious, and he was fucking her mouth.

I can’t breathe.

But she didn’t fight it. She couldn’t.

There was a small, sick part of her that was enjoying it too much. Enjoying something the law would define as rape—enjoying the moans that tore through his lips and knowing that she was the reason. That she was giving him pleasure. And the knowledge that she was enjoying it—that despite the tears running down her cheeks and the hot blaze of disgrace searing into her skin—had her hating this for reasons that had nothing to do with Spike and everything to do with her treacherous body.

Why hadn’t Angel ever made her feel like this? For all his gentle touches and his soft kisses, she’d never burned for him—not like she burned for Spike. The memory of Spike’s lips on hers—false or not, dream or not—had followed her for days. And now with his cock in her mouth, with his hips slamming against her, with the rumbles of ecstasy waving through his body, she clung desperately to her outrage. Because if she wasn’t outraged, what did that make her?

Sick. God, I’m so sick.

There was nothing preventing her from throwing him off her body. Her arms weren’t pinned. She could have him slammed against the wall in a blink. She could kick him within an inch of his undead ass. She could make him pay for stripping her dignity and then some.

She could. And she would.

“So good,” Spike whimpered, rubbing himself against her tongue. “Oh yeah, kitten. Jus’ like that. Lick me good.”

Buffy mewled in complaint, her disobedient body relaxing and growing pliant under him. The feel of him thrusting inside her mouth had somehow crossed the boundary from invasive to something she didn’t want to fathom. And before she knew what was happening, a treacherous hand had reached between the monster’s legs, her fingers grazing his ball sac with an odd combination of curiosity and nervousness. The male anatomy was such a foreign thing to her; beyond the crude drawings left on her classroom desks and the unimaginative pictures the school-board okayed for her textbooks, she was left to the often-amusing euphemisms in the aforementioned porn-for-women novels. And while part of her held out on the possibility her exhausted imagination was running away from her, the larger part—the part that was beginning to doubt this was a dream at all—knew the sensations, at least, were very real.

Spike’s cock was in her mouth, his velvety head stabbing the back of her throat with every vicious thrust of his hips. Even if the room around her remained imagined, that much was real.

“Oh fuck,” he gasped, bucking hard against her exploratory touch, his hips rotating to create friction against his balls. “That’s so good.”

Buffy blinked rapidly. “Reary?” she asked around him, and nearly jumped out of her skin when he answered her with a warm chuckle.

“Yes, love. Really.” Then, without warning, he lifted off her, his erection slipping out of her mouth. And to her surprised embarrassment, the first thing that ran through her mind was a scream of protest.

Again divided between realities. There was no way she’d ever lament the loss of Spike’s boy-parts down her throat. Nuh uh. Talk about the ickiest of the ick. Especially when he’d forced her to take him in.

“Bleeding hell, I’m such a git. Such a sodding arse,” he mumbled, rolling away from her, his hand wrapping around her upper arm. “’m sorry.”

More blinking. Did he really just apologize?

“You really haven’t, have you? Fuck, I din’t…you really have never taken it in your mouth before.” It wasn’t a question, though his eyes brightened as though realizing something important—something he hadn’t truly believed before. And then, to her amazement, his face fell with something that looked a lot like shame. A vampire…shamed.

For what he’d done to her.

It didn’t last, of course. Spike remembered himself before she could speak. Before she could focus too long on the concept of remorse from an evil thing. And in a blink, any hint of compunction was gone, and he was looking at her again. Not with guilt or pride, but with calm understanding.

“That’s right, innit?” he prompted. “Slayer…”

Buffy’s skin reddened and she nodded slowly. She hadn’t taken it anywhere, much less in her mouth. She’d thought her lack of experience was common knowledge, if only because a virginal high school student was more than a rarity. Even in small towns, she figured she practically had it tattooed on her forehead.

A long, tortured moan tore through the air. Spike’s eyes fluttered shut. “I’m a git,” he murmured. “I’m such a bloody git. Your firs’ time…it shouldn’t’ve been like that. Not with me. Not with…shouldn’t have been…but Christ, why the bleeding hell do I even care? ‘S not like this is real, right? ‘S not like…I don’…”

She found the torn confusion in his voice oddly comforting.

His brow furrowed and his fangs receded, his eyes melting from yellow to blue as they deepened with realization. “You’re…you an’ Angelus have never…”

Buffy fidgeted self-consciously. “Not like it’s any of your business.”

“You jus’ had my prick in your delectable li’l mouth, Slayer. I’d say it’s become my business.”

“I didn’t ask for that!”

A slow, devilish grin tickled his mouth. “Maybe not,” he agreed, his eyes raking the length of her. “But you loved it.”

It was her dream, so she should be able to control how fast her heart was beating or how red her skin became. “Ugh! You wish you…perv guy.”

Spike’s eyes twinkled. “Don’ have to wish,” he replied, licking those sinful lips of his. “I can smell you.”

Oh God. Buffy’s blood ran cold, her thighs pressing together instinctively. He could really smell that? She smelled? Being all hot and bothered made her smell hot and bothered? There wasn’t a big enough rock to crawl under if that was the truth.

Because earlier tonight, pinned under Spike with his demon eyes boring into her, his fangs glimmering in quick flashes of moonlight, she’d never been so turned on in her life. Had Angel and her friends not been present, she might have done something embarrassing—like explore Spike’s lips to see whether or not her dreams had been accurate.

“You’ve really never been touched?” Spike repeated expectantly, running a hand down her naked arm. And just like that, she remembered she was sitting beside him with her boobs all perky and on display. However, before she could throw her arms protectively over her chest, one of her breasts was in Spike’s palm, and her resistance melted at the slightest brush of his fingers against her nipple.

“You’re purity,” he whispered, almost dazed. “Bleeding hell, Slayer, you’re…”

The note of near reverence in his voice was such a step away from anything she’d heard from him, and it had her shaking harder than she wanted to admit. It would be so easy to cave in. The way he was touching her…the look in his eyes…the tremble in his voice. She had no idea what had happened or why. Why he was suddenly looking at her like she’d been touched by Heaven when, just a few minutes ago, he’d held no reservation about forcing himself into her mouth. And God, his behavior was doing a number on her mind. She was confused about him and confused about her confusion. There should be no inner debate. There shouldn’t be anything but revulsion, but she couldn’t hate him. Even after this.

He was a monster but there was more to it; and it’d be so easy. So easy to forget he’d hurt her. Forget he was a vampire—a vampire with a rap sheet filled with slayer-killage, not to mention obsession. He also had another woman in his life—one he loved.

Something sharp jabbed her heart.

“I’m not pure,” she whispered.

“Bollocks. I’m a vampire, love. I know somethin’ about impurity.” Spike smiled a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “You’re nothin’ but pure.”

Something had changed. She didn’t know what, but something had changed. Gone was the heartless bastard of before; she was sitting with a completely different man. One who looked at her with something beyond hate-driven lust. One who looked at her with…something.

“And you…like pure?” Buffy asked, wincing. “I mean…vamp and all, right? It doesn’t seem like pure’s—”

“I…” Spike blinked and shook his head, meeting her gaze again with tentativeness that surprised her. As though he was trying to reconcile thought with feeling. She could almost see a battle unfolding—one she couldn’t touch, merely witness. One beyond the planes of logical understanding.

Their eyes remained locked for long time. So long that Buffy forgot she was half-naked, and that Spike’s hand remained at her breast. However, the silence splitting them made her painfully self-aware, and before she could stop herself, her gaze had dropped to his lap. To the hard cock lying across his stomach.

“Ohh—umm…”

Spike grinned, his other hand dropping, curled fingers stroking his length proudly. “You liked it before, din’t you?” he murmured. “You can fight me all you want, sweetheart, but the truth’s a li’l harder to hide from, innit?”

And quickly—very quickly—her conscientiousness returned. “I didn’t—”

“Did so. ‘S all right to like it, kitten. There’s no one here but you an’ me…for some bloody reason.” Spike sighed. “An’ we can’t even trust that much, can we?”

“You don’t think it’s a dream?”

“I don’t know what I think anymore. Feels real…that’s for bloody sure.” He paused, then released her breast so abruptly she couldn’t help the long moan of complaint that hissed through her lips. “He hasn’t touched you,” he murmured, grabbing her wrist and bringing her hand to his cock. “He hasn’t…that makes you mine, kitten.”

Buffy exhaled slowly, her wide eyes enamored with what she was seeing. God, with what she was doing. With little to no provocation, she found herself curling her fist around his length, getting a feel for him in her hand. He was so thick. So…well, big, for lack of a better word. And though she had nothing by which to offer a basis for comparison, she had the idea that Spike’s size was the sort of thing that could give most guys an inferiority complex to end all inferiority complexes. Or perhaps he just seemed large to her—she didn’t know. All she knew was his erection was in her hand and it filled it to all proportions.

He’d just said she was his. She belonged to him. A smart slayer would argue with him. A smart slayer would put up a fight. A smart slayer would let him know, in no uncertain terms, that she could never belong to an evil thing.

She somehow doubted, though, that any of her dead sisters had been in her position. Dreaming herself a new reality with a vampire out to kill her. A vampire whose hand was covering hers, coaxing her to pump his length slowly. A vampire whose eyes kept flickering from her naked breasts to the sight of her hand pulling at his cock.

No. No other slayer had experienced this. This was something that belonged to Buffy, and Buffy alone.

Spike moaned, thrusting upwards in time with the strokes of her hand. “Oh God,” he whimpered. “That’s perfect, that is.”

“What is?” she whispered. “What—”

“Just keep like that,” he murmured, flashing her a reassuring grin. A grin she didn’t catch; she was too mesmerized by the movements of her hand. How could something so small give anyone such pleasure? All she did was touch him, and she’d somehow rendered him into a babbling vampire. A babbling vampire whose babbles made her hotter by the minute. The whimpers and gasps spilling through his lips had her insides burning almost to the brink of pain. Her pussy was drenched and her nerves were buzzing, and if he didn’t touch her soon, she was sure she’d melt into a puddle of slayer-goo.

“Fuck…you’re so warm,” Spike gasped, his eyes rolling up. “So…God, so perfect.”

Perfect?

“Need to come. Need…” Again, he curled his fingers around her wrist, halting her movements. “Touch me where you did before,” he ordered, his voice hoarse.

“Where—”

He guided her hand to his testicles again. “Squeeze me gently…oh God, yes.” A flash of pure euphoria washed across his face, and he threw his head back with a long, tortured moan. “Now your mouth. Put your mouth on me.”

Buffy blinked. “I—”

“Jus’ like before, love. God, please.” His eyes widened in desperation. “I’ll tell you when to pull away, yeah? I won’t come in your mouth. I jus’…you’re so hot. I need—”

There was every chance she would regret this tomorrow. Dream or not, doing what he asked pushed everything past borderline to real. Made it official that this was something she wanted, too. And she did—she wanted it here. In this place composed of nowhere. There wasn’t a world outside these walls. There wasn’t anything but a motel room, and something kept bringing her here.

Something kept bringing her here. She was hopeless to do anything but answer its call.

Spike pulled her hair out of her face as her mouth dipped toward his cock, his gentle touch doing little more than confusing the hell out of her. But she didn’t stop to think—she was too hungry for what he offered. Instead, her tongue tentatively curled around the tip of him, slurping him between her lips.

“Oh God,” he whimpered, arching upward and urging his cock deeper inside her mouth. “You’re so hot.”

“Mmmm…”

“I’m not gonna last,” he gasped. “Need to come. Needed to come so bloody bad. Squeeze me, kitten. Don’t be afraid to hurt me. Not gonna break.”

She nodded, the hand at his balls remembering itself. Her mouth was tentative in her explorations, aided by the gentle thrust of his hips. She had no idea if she was doing this right, or if there was even a right way to do it. But she found herself dancing with him in no time—following him whenever he started to slide away from her, determined to keep him where she wanted him. Her tongue rubbed his underside almost roughly, then took time to skim the length of him as he pumped himself between her lips.

She liked this—this feeling of control. She liked having Spike writhing under her ministrations. She liked knowing that she could reduce a being of such power and authority into a whimpering mess with only her tongue and lips. Hell, she was even growing to like the taste of his skin. All thoughts of perversion or wrong were tossed aside. This wasn’t degrading at all.

Not when she got to do it the way she wanted to do it.

Of course, that much could be called into question with one simple word.

“Stop!”

Buffy froze, her wide eyes trailing upward. Her mouth, however, remained stubbornly locked around him. She’d stop when she damn well felt like stopping, thank you very much.

“Stop!” Spike gasped again. “You gotta stop. Gonna come. You don’ want—”

Oh. And he made her stop for that? Why? Did he think she couldn’t take it?

She’d show him.

Eyes narrowed in defiance, Buffy huffed and sucked him in as far as she could. What she couldn’t take into her mouth, she rubbed encouragingly with her free hand. She drew him in until his head was once again pressed to the back of her throat. And, without ceremony, she began swallowing hard around him. He’d liked that enough before; something told her this would send him over the edge.

Spike’s eyes went so wide it nearly looked painful. “Buffy!”

So that’s what it took to get him to remember her name. She merely grinned around him and kept on swallowing. She swallowed as he bucked wildly off the floor. As he shook and moaned. As he spilled himself into her throat, making a prayer of her name with every needless breath that left his lips.

This had sealed her fate. Her life wouldn’t be the same after this. Reality didn’t matter anymore. Not with Spike looking at her as he was now. Like that.

“Buffy,” he gasped. “My God.”

Everything had changed. It’d happened so fast, but everything had changed.

And there was no going back.


TBC

Author's notes (cont'd): I tried to fulfill two of the challenge requirements in this part, but likely not the way I was supposed to. Basically, I didn’t trust myself to pull off the following in a believable fashion. So bonus points if you can find the very discreet interpretations of the following in text:

1.) Buffy standing up to the Scoobies (Really, what I did here is so incredibly literal, it’s almost the equivalent of a really bad pun)
2.) Angel bashing

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-vamp even 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 and wrong. 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. How wrong 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.

A/N: Thanks SO MUCH to everyone for the incredible response to the last chapter. You guys really blew me away. I only hope this one measures up.

I’m getting a little ahead in my chapter-count for this fic, so if it’s OK with everyone, I think I might try to crank out another chapter of Tempesta di Amore before I update this one again. I should probably give Strawberry Fields some attention as well.

Thanks so much to megan_peta, yutamiyu, angelic_amy, dusty273, and spikeslovebite for betaing this…and another shout-out to megan_peta for her suggestions for the end of this chapter. *blushies* I don’t know what I’d do without you guys.

OH! And BIG THANKS to the lovely person who nominated Fantasie Segrete at LLGA for Best Short Story, PWP, and Spike Characterization. Thank you so much! It was a WONDERFUL surprise in the middle of a hellacious day. *snuggles*

Nothing in her life was normal. Nothing. Not her school, not her job, not her friends—hell, try as she might, even her mom was very much of the not normal. Nothing in her life fit the bill of an average teenage girl. So it wasn’t all that surprising when an old would-be-friend turned out to be a sleazy, double-crossing, I-wanna-live-forever type of baddie. He wanted to be immortal so badly he’d actually tracked her down and made a deal with the devil behind her back. A deal that would render her very much of the dead and ensure his body continued walking, never mind the incarnation.

Buffy had yet to decide whether or not she was lucky Ford had decided to go to Spike. The jury was still very much out. Even now, sitting on the edge of her bed, the night’s events playing over and over, she couldn’t decide if she was grateful that Spike’s was the face she’d stared into tonight.

Later, it’d be very clear that Spike had eyes for no one but her. As it was, the electrical current which raced through her body the second their gazes clashed still had her bones shaking and her skin buzzing with exhilaration. From the second he’d barreled inside, everyone else around them had melted away, and it was only him and her. Only Spike and Buffy.

And when she closed her eyes tonight, he’d be there. Spike would be there. Waiting for her.

Spike had gotten close enough to kill her tonight, but he hadn’t. He hadn’t killed her when he could have. He’d looked at her very much like a predator, and not like the passionate lover who caressed her at night. Not at all like the man whose ethereal touch followed her with every step. And yet, there wasn’t a part of her that didn’t quiver at the thought of what awaited once sleep settled over her.

Everything was a blur. All Buffy knew for certain was one second, Ford had been behind her, trying to knock her out by means of a crowbar to the head. The next an explosion rocked the bunker and suddenly she was surrounded by a cluster of fang-happy vampires.

The interruption didn’t slow Ford at all. He barely blinked. The feast on the idiot-wannabes was about to begin, and she couldn’t stop it because her hands were tied by a human madman with nothing to lose. It was the sort of anxiety that could propel the feeblest minds into an arena of unexplainable will and strength—and though Ford’s freakish upper-hand was more due to the element of surprise, it still had her shaken that she wasn’t able to take him out.

Perhaps because he was human and she wasn’t used to dealing with human evils. Thus when he had a crowbar arched high above his head, his eyes flashing with mad desperation that could make murderers among saints, her mind had blanked. Royally blanked.

Buffy knew, logically, that she would have rolled away or kicked Ford in the gut or done something remotely like defend herself—at the last second. She did. Recovery was a huge part of the fight, and certain allowances had to be made when fighting someone who used to be her friend. Someone she used to crush on. However, even knowing she would have rolled safely to her feet regardless didn’t make the possessive snarl which speared the air any less tingle-worthy. The next thing she knew Ford was gone, tackled to the ground by a furious vampire.

“You don’ touch her!” Spike roared, dragging the boy to his feet and tossing him hard into the nearest partition. “How dare you touch her!”

She would’ve been touched were she not so rattled. But she didn’t have enough time to mull it over—Spike forgot about Ford the second the would-be villain passed out, and instead turned his yellow eyes to her.

“Slayer,” he rasped, his eyes bright with something she’d come to identify as angered-lust.

There wasn’t time for thought. No time to consider how much she loved what that mouth did to her after the world fell asleep—there were people to save. Stupid, stupid people, but people nonetheless. Buffy barely blinked—she lunged at him, fists swinging, legs kicking. Everything went on instinct, pain-recognition blinking out entirely. She knew he was hitting her—that his fangs were close to her throat and it wouldn’t be a mistake if he nicked her skin.

The logical part of her brain screamed he wouldn’t hesitate in killing her. The emotion-driven female wasn’t so sure. In fact, the emotion-driven female was getting her jollies in thrusting her hips against Spike’s at every opportunity, enjoying the way his eyes widened and his lips curled into a sneer before he thrust back.

And just like that, reality melted away. Suddenly she wasn’t in a bunker at all; she was against the wall in their shared hotel. The place they met every night. She was looking into the eyes of Dream Spike, only with the added thrill that it was real. It was a dream come to life. She was living her own fantasy—caught in the murky waters between illusion and reality.

Then his hands slid under her thighs, and they were moving together against the nearest wall. Buffy straining and arching against Spike’s hard body, whimpering helplessly as he ground his hard cock against her aching center. She didn’t know when the predatory snarls rumbling through his throat turned into small growls of pleasure, or when the anger drained from his eyes, leaving her alone under the weight of pure hunger. All she knew—at that moment—was this was real. This was something outside of dreams. This was Spike in the Real World. Spike in the Real World was rubbing his cock against her pussy. Spike in the Real World had her trapped between himself and a wall, and he was doing things to her without touching her—things that would have her screaming in something which definitely wasn’t terror or pain very quickly.

Assuming, of course, the Scoobies didn’t show up. Which they did. The Scoobies, plus one watcher and a vampire with a soul. And then the world came tumbling back, and Buffy was smacked with a hard dose of reality. She remembered then where she was—and what she was doing. More importantly, what she was not doing. The wannabes were being made into vamp-chow and she was letting the ringleader dry-hump her against a wall. She was letting Spike play her close to an embarrassingly large orgasm as people around her bled.

Spike returned to himself almost at the exact same minute. The shades of would-be tenderness flecking his eyes vanished just as quickly, replaced with a furious roar as he tossed her coldly to the ground.

That was hours before, and her body was still throbbing. All of the groupies—Ford included—walked away with their lives. Angel grilled her about what had happened with Spike, but she didn’t have any answers. She barely knew what had happened with herself.

Her mind was so confused. The rest of her was just terrified.

Terrified and very much turned on.

If these dreams didn’t stop blurring reality for her, she was going to get herself killed. Herself or someone else.

Perhaps it was time to talk to Giles. Perhaps.

Only she hadn’t the strength. Not tonight. She didn’t want to think anymore tonight.

She just wanted to rest.

Conviction vanished the second their eyes clashed. Heat blazed across her skin, coaxing the fire he’d started just a few short hours before back to a raging inferno. All want of rationality—of logic—faded in a blur of ravenous lust. She just knew she needed him. Badly. And now.

A whimper accented in her voice peeled through the air, flavored with huskiness she’d thought only worldly, experienced women could replicate. It was both foreign and familiar. Both a comfort and a thrill. It wasn’t her but it couldn’t be anyone else. It was Buffy personified—trapped between reality and fantasy.

Right now, she was in the dream, and she needed him.

“Spike…”

Her vampire’s answering growl only made her hotter. His chest was pressed against her breasts the next instant, his strong hands clamping around her upper arms. A hoarse, “Need you,” whispering across her skin just before he smashed his lips to hers. And God, how could she be expected to want for good when sinning was so delicious? He consumed her without trying, his tongue exploring her lips in a way that promised to compromise all her secrets, his mouth moving against hers as though he was reciting poetry. He was making an opus of her body, and she was helpless to follow his lead.

“So bloody hot, you are,” he growled, releasing her just long enough to render her nightshirt into two ruined pieces of fabric. Whereas she would have been unbearably self-conscious under his eyes just nights before, Buffy found herself thrusting her breasts into his waiting hands, biting back a long moan when his fingertips pinched at her nipples. Then his mouth was at her ear, the cool vibrations of his voice shaking her to her core. “Wanted to fuck you so bad tonight.”

Buffy’s knees nearly buckled. “Oh God.”

“Made me forget myself. Made me forget why I was there.” His head dipped again, pressing a series of burning kisses down her throat and over her skin until his mouth wrapped around one of her breasts, teasing her with nothing resembling mercy. His left hand fell between her legs, fingers dancing along her hip with feather-light strokes that betrayed his intent. “Part your legs for me, baby.”

Buffy tossed her head back and obeyed mindlessly. “Please,” she gasped. “Need…”

“Oooh, no knickers?” he teased, his eyes lighting up. “Naughty girl.”

She nodded urgently and croaked another, “Need,” in a voice that hardly sounded like hers.

“I know what you need,” Spike snarled, nipping at her mouth, spreading her pussy lips wide. “You’re jus’ beggin’ for it.”

“Oh God!”

He drew back, his sparkling eyes drinking in her burning face. “If you wanna receive, love,” he purred, tapping her clit with his index finger, an outlandish smirk stretching his lips at her answering mewl. “You need to give.”

Her hands immediately flew to the clasp of his jeans, whipping his belt free and tugging at his zipper with fervor that would have embarrassed her had she given a damn. She didn’t—the only thing she cared about was the fact that Spike’s thick cock was in her hand, and now she could try to make him pant and moan and want her as much as she wanted him.

She could make him love this enough—these stolen hours between night and day. She could make him love this. She could show him. She could show him that she was so much better than the vamp-hoe who shared his bed when they weren’t together.

She could. She could.

“Bloody hell,” Spike panted, his brow falling to her shoulder. “Buffy…”

Buffy paused then with a frown, her hand ceasing its movements. Something wasn’t right. This wasn’t right. She needed something else.

The vampire’s head shot up. “You bloody tease.”

“Your shirt,” she explained quickly. “Off.”

He froze and arched a brow. “Off?”

“And your jeans.”

“You want me…”

Her skin flamed, but she didn’t care. She knew what she wanted; Spike was giving her more and more confidence to ask for what she wanted. “Yes.”

A thoroughly illegal grin stretched his lips. “Ooh, what’s this?” Spike drawled, running a hand down his chest until the tips of his fingers were lightly stroking the base of his cock. “The Slayer wants to ogle my sexy bod?”

For the river that flooded between her thighs, she was amazed she was able to keep standing. Or remember how to talk. And even though the last thing he needed was an ego boost, Buffy found herself nodding nonetheless. “Yes. If I’m naked, you have to be naked. This is a naked dream. I deem it a naked dream.”

“Well, by all means.” He winked and reached for the hem of his tee, pausing to run his tongue over his teeth in the way he knew by now drove her out of her mind. “Wouldn’t wanna break the rules.”

“Absolutely,” Buffy agreed breathlessly. And then her voice abandoned her. Spike was standing before her naked. Entirely naked. They’d never been entirely naked together before, and the intimacy of the moment nearly brought her to her knees. It was a big move for her—a very big move. She didn’t know if he’d understand or care about how big a move this was, so she kept it to herself. Solely shaken in the significance of being naked with a man for the first time. The last stage before her quickly accumulating rites-of-passage crossed the boundary that separated girlhood from womanhood. A boundary she was increasingly certain she wanted to cross with Spike, no matter how wrong it was. “These rules are…very…ummm…”

“Important?”

“Yes. That word.”

Spike’s smirk broadened and he extended his arms, baring himself proudly to her appreciative gaze. “Well, here I am,” he purred. “Like what you see?”

Like didn’t begin to cover it. Buffy was breathless, terrified, and beyond turned-on. Spike was, in a word, a masterpiece. The sort of man who didn’t exist but on romance-novel covers and Playgirl centerfolds. The sort of man who was always on the arm of a power-model in a string-bikini; not with her. Not with average-except-for-the-slaying-thing Buffy Summers. From the slab of marble from which his chest had been carved to the thick-roped muscles in his arms to the flat, kissably-toned stomach right before the proud protrusion of his cock…yeah, he was pretty much perfect.

But she couldn’t tell him that, and she couldn’t keep silent. She went for something in the middle, but all that came out was, “Buahh…”

Spike chuckled and stretched, clearly soaking up every second. She knew she should stop now before his head grew so large he floated out of the room, but God, she couldn’t help herself. Her almost pivotal moment was being shared with a Greek-god. Who in their right mind could blame her?

“Wanna try again?” he asked teasingly.

“I—ummm…wouldn’t kick you out of bed for eating crackers, that’s for damn sure.”

Spike’s eyes flickered and he took a step forward, suddenly very close again, the head of his cock brushing her stomach. “I can assure you, Slayer,” he murmured, sighing when her hand wrapped around his length again, “when I’m in bed with you, crackers’ll be the last thing I eat.”

“Spike!”

“An’ you’ll be screamin’ that a lot, too,” he drawled, brushing a surprisingly soft kiss across her lips. “Such a hot li’l hand. Stroke me faster, pet. Feel so bloody good…”

“Like this?” she replied breathlessly, her small hand pumping his hard length in time with the gasps rolling through his chest. Despite the inherent enthusiasm in his words, the larger part of her was buried under virginal insecurities. “I…I don’t…”

“That’s perfect, that is. You’re so hot. So bloody hot.” He brushed his lips across her chin in something that felt like tenderness, his shining eyes turning upward. “Never knew anyone could be as warm as you.”

Buffy’s skin flushed. “Spike…”

“Feel so good. Jus’ like that. Stroke me jus’ like that.”

She did as he asked. God, she’d do whatever he asked. She didn’t ever want to stop touching him; not with his eyes glazed and his lips kissing sonnets across her skin. Not with these precious minutes with him isolated in pleasure and warmth—in something she could pretend was tenderness until the harsh light of morning served as the proverbial bucket of ice water. Until she had to step back into her life and face the cold circumstances of reality.

“Wanna fuck you so badly,” Spike murmured, nipping at her ear, his fingers slipping between her pussy lips once more, capturing her clit and massaging her with a combination of passion and tenderness she hadn’t known existed. “You have any idea what you did to me tonight? How it felt to have your legs around me? Knowin’ it was you? Knowin’ it…it was real?”

Buffy gasped, her hand tightening around his cock. Truthfully, she didn’t want to think about what happened in the bunker—lest she be sent upon a downward spiral of self-examination—but the memory of him pressed intimately against her was enough to banish her convictions entirely.

Unfortunately, Spike either didn’t pick up on her reluctance to reflect on what had happened tonight or didn’t care. He pulled back slowly, his twinkling eyes consuming her whole. “You wanted it too, din’t you, kitten?” he demanded. “You can’t lie to me. Your scent…you were bloody drenched. So hot an’ ready for me. You wanted my cock inside your tight li’l quim, din’t you? An’ when you got home…you couldn’t wait to fall asleep. You couldn’t wait to be here so we could do this.”

She both loved and hated the truth in his words. There was nowhere to hide in here; Spike saw through every averted glance. “Spike…”

“Tell me you want me,” he whispered.

He really wasn’t going to let it rest until he had her dignity in a jar, was he? Buffy whimpered, her head falling to his chest where her mouth quickly occupied itself in bathing his scrumptious skin with hungry kisses. “Spike…” she breathed again, her teeth skating over one of his nipples. “God…”

“Tell me you love this,” he murmured. “Tell me you love what I do to you. Tell me you live for dreaming…”

Buffy offered a jerky nod, her mouth impulsively lunging for his. God, she loved the taste of his kiss. The way he moaned and melted into her—the way his tongue danced with hers as their lips moved together. He kissed her like he was starved, and she was the only one who could quench his thirst.

“Yes,” she cried into his mouth, ignoring the protest of her conscience. “Oh, yes…”

He growled and bit her lower lip, his hands closing around her upper-arms again as he dragged her toward the bed. Then she was on her back, splayed before him with her legs spread and her wet pussy aching with need. Her heart thundered and her blood raced. From the way he regarded her, his hand pumping the length of his cock as his glazed eyes raked down her body, she knew what he was thinking. God, she wanted what he was thinking. She wanted to know what it felt like to have a man inside her; to have Spike inside her. She wanted to push herself beyond that final threshold. She wanted it—but God, the part of her that was terrified and still very much a child couldn’t reconcile womanly wishes and desires. Not now. Not easily.

Especially with things so confused.

“Fuck, but you’re gorgeous,” Spike rumbled. “Such a pretty pussy. All pink an’ wet…”

“Spike—”

“So bloody wet for me.”

“Spike…I…I don’t think…I can’t…with the actual…ummm.” Buffy blushed hard, averting her eyes quickly from the disappointed flash that crossed his face. “I just…”

“You want me,” he countered.

“I do. But we tried to kill each other tonight. We tried—”

Spike frowned, jutting his chin for the ominous motel-room door. The door that led nowhere. The door that, for all intents and purposes, served as an emergency escape hatch. “Out there, yeah,” he agreed slowly. “But—”

And just like that, the illusion shattered. Buffy crashed inside, cold devastation spearing her veins. It was that easy for him, she supposed. Easy for him to compartmentalize his life in segments; what was in here and what was out there. But she couldn’t do that. She couldn’t have sex with Spike in here only to have him try and kill her the next time they met eye-to-eye. She couldn’t; it would break her completely.

“Love, in case you din’t notice, neither one of us got very far.”

“Yeah, but for how long?” she demanded, suddenly flushed with self-consciousness that had her reaching for the pillow at the head of the bed. Spike didn’t prevent her from covering herself, and she was glad. This wasn’t the sort of conversation she could have naked. “I can’t…Spike, I can’t be…with you in here and live with you trying to ruin me out there. I can’t.”

“Slayer—”

“You wake up next to someone else. I don’t. I don’t…God, since we started…this, I haven’t even looked at Angel—”

Spike’s nostrils flared. “An’ you better not.”

“But—that’s exactly it! You expect me to be faithful to…whatever the hell this is when you were not too long ago screaming about how much better what’s-her-face is.” Buffy sat up on her elbows on an impulse; namely because it was hard to argue with someone while lying naked on one’s back, pillow-covered or not. Granted, sitting up brought her to eye-level with his cock, which did little for her resolve, but she managed to ignore it. “How…I don’t know what we’re doing here. I don’t. But I can’t sleep with you in here and then look you in the eye tomorrow when you’re trying to kill me. I’m not built like that.”

“We can’t even be sure this is real,” Spike countered weakly, though something new had washed over his face. As though her words brought to light issues he hadn’t foreseen, which boggled her because it was all she could think of anymore. And it hurt to think how hard she’d agonized; that it didn’t even bother him to make such demands on her while living as he pleased. “We can’t—”

“If it weren’t real…do you think we’d both react to each other like we did tonight?” Buffy asked softly. “I mean, you’re hot, sure, but I’m not in the habit of jumping my enemies while people around me are getting hurt.”

Spike arched a brow. “’S that what this is about?”

“Everything is what this is about! I can’t…how can you ask me to remain faithful to a dream on the outside if what we’re doing isn’t real? And yes…” She held up a hand, anticipating his argument. “I know. Logic. Vampires. Not mixy. Believe me, that memo was very much gotten.” Buffy paused. “And even so…it’s not fair. It’s not fair, Spike. You’re with…her and I’m…I’m just here. While you’re with her. Waiting to fall asleep. Hoping you don’t kill me so I can still see you in my dreams. Do you have any idea what this is doing to me?”

“Buffy…I…”

God, he looked so torn. So thoroughly torn. Torn between comforting her and screaming in anger. Torn between taking her in his arms and laughing her out of the room. Torn between so many things—none of which he could voice. Ultimately, Spike sighed and rolled his shoulders back. “I din’t…fuck, I…I don’ know what this is.”

“Neither do I.”

“An’ honestly, pet, I don’ think there’s a way I could kill you now. I want to want to, but I don’. You’ve mucked up my head so bloody bad. All I see anymore is you.” He swallowed hard, pain lighting his eyes. “An’ I hate it, but I love it, too. I love knowin’…you’re here when I sleep. I don’ know what this is.”

Buffy’s vision blurred with tears that came from nowhere, relief purging her body. “Really?” she whimpered. “Really, Spike?”

He smiled half-heartedly. “Yeah. Really.”

“Then…God, I don’t know,” she murmured. “I just don’t know anymore. We need to find out once and for all if this is real. I mean…at this point, I’m pretty damn sure it has to be…but we need to…is there a way to signal each other?”

Spike arched a brow. “You don’ think dry-humpin’ each other serves as—”

“Well—”

“I mean, ‘f you wanna try that again, by all bloody means, don’ lemme stop you.”

She made a face at him. “No…it shouldn’t be something…something like that. It should be something…like a code word? Or a phrase? Or something. Something you and I wouldn’t say otherwise. Not to each other, anyway. And not while fighting, which survey says we’ll be doing.”

He grinned softly. “You’re bloody glorious when you’re fighting.”

“Don’t try to change the subject.”

“’m not. Jus’ stating a fact.” Then, impulsively, he wove his fingers through her hair and dipped his head to capture her lips, and the tenderness behind his kiss sealed her heart’s fate. If this was real then she truly belonged to him. Heart, body, soul; the works. He owned her completely. There was no going back from this.

“How about…”

“Hard day’s night,” Spike suggested. He hadn’t released his hold on her, and she wasn’t about to ask.

“The Beatles’ song?”

He shrugged. “Seems as good as anythin’, right? Unless you figure yourself the type to spontaneously burst into a musical number in the middle of a fight, which, while right entertainin’, doesn’ seem likely.”

He was right; she’d suggested a code and he’d provided one. One that wasn’t likely to come up in any other context. And if it did, they could discuss another code in another dream. For now, though, it was perfect. It was perfect.

“All right,” she whispered, nodding. “That works.”

“All right. Next time…” Spike tugged her forward again for another kiss, his free hand turning back to his cock. “This time, I want—”

“I can’t—”

“Won’t enter you. I jus’…” He glanced down almost apologetically, released his erection. He paused, glanced questioningly into her eyes, then drew the pillow away with slow intent that had the fire in her blood roaring again. In seconds, his hand was cupping her pussy, his fingers massaging her still-soaking folds, sliding over her tender flesh until the pad of his thumb was rubbing lazy circles against her clit. “I want…lemme try this, yeah? We’ll stop if you don’ like it. I jus’…I jus’ need to feel you.”

“Feel…?”

“I’ll make you feel good, kitten,” he purred, dropping to his knees quickly, his face level with her pussy. One long lap of her slit, and she was irrevocably lost. “I’ll make you feel so good.”

“Spike…”

“Lemme have this one thing,” Spike said softly, tonguing her clit. “Lemme…”

There was no way she could deny him anything. It was a sad realization, but it didn’t make it any less true. Any less valid. Anything he wanted she would give him. If he’d kissed her and told her he wanted to make love to her, she would have caved. Reservations aside, she would have caved. And it killed her to know she could be so weak where anything was concerned, much less an evil vampire she didn’t have any prior claims on. He didn’t belong to her, not like she did him.

She feared she was halfway in love with him; in love with a dream. A dream that wasn’t a dream. A dream that couldn’t love her back. And yet, all the knowledge in the world couldn’t reverse inherent understanding. Couldn’t make the feeling in her gut any thinner. Couldn’t make her heart any lighter. There was nothing she’d deny him. Nothing.

That didn’t stop her, though, from squealing a panicked, “Spike!” when he kneeled over her on the bed, his cock nestled between her vaginal lips, his balls resting against her anus. “I—”

“Trust me, baby,” he moaned. “Jus’…lemme feel this.”

She held her breath but didn’t reply; waiting, every nerve in her body on fire. She waited with heartbreaking wonder as he sighed in pleasure, hooked his arms under hers and leaned forward until his brow was against her shoulder. Then he began moving his hips against her, sliding the length of his cock against her pussy, and the world around her dissolved.

“Oh my God,” Buffy gasped, scratching at his shoulders. “Oh my God.”

“So hot. So bloody hot.”

There wasn’t an inch of her that didn’t burn. That didn’t sizzle with the feel of him moving intimately against her. His balls slapped her ass with every wondrous thrust of his hips, his cock massaging her wet flesh in a way his hands never could. Spike’s arms were around her and his brow was at her shoulder. If her heart pounded any faster it was sure to break through her chest.

She was holding him and for that moment, she could almost believe he was hers.

“God, Buffy…”

“Unhh…”

“You really don’ know how much power you have over me, do you?”

He didn’t let her mull the thought over; his weight was gone the next instant, his erection again nestled against his left palm. “Need to come,” he gasped, sinking two fingers inside her with his other hand, thrusting in time with the strokes he gave his cock. “Can I…?”

“Spike?”

“Your belly.”

She nodded before she realized she didn’t know what he meant, and then it was too late. With a trembling moan, he spilled himself on her skin, and the sight, coupled with the look on his face, was enough to trigger her own orgasm. She tossed her head back and thrust her hips madly against his fingers, wave after wave of ecstasy claiming her whole. It was over before it began but seemed to last lifetimes, and the effect was so dizzying she feared she might lose consciousness.

Lose consciousness in a dream.

“You’re so gorgeous,” he murmured. His hand reached for her almost absently, his fingers spreading his spendings across her skin. “So bloody gorgeous when you come.”

“God…”

Spike exhaled slowly. “I wanna do this to you out there,” he continued, rubbing the sticky fluid up her abdomen until he was cupping her breast. “I want to touch you like this…out of this room. Out where it’s…an’ it’s drivin’ me outta my bloody mind. Thinkin’ of you like I do. Wanting the things I do. I’m going barmy an’ it’s all your fault. An’ I can’t stop…I can’t do anything. You’re consuming everything an’ I want…”

She sucked in a breath, her eyes fluttering shut. He didn’t finish his thought, and she didn’t press the issue. The more he said, the more he professed, the more she had to lose. The more stake she put into a future they would never have. The love he’d never feel for her.

“Buffy…” The note in his voice was near-reverential, his sticky fingers pinching her nipple once before trailing down her flat stomach. “’m marking you, baby. I’m markin’ you all over.”

He was. God, he was. She’d made him come, and he was marking her body with his spendings. The part of her that should have been disgusted was completely overpowered by the thumping of her heart and the resurging flood between her thighs. She’d been relegated to nothing more than a possession, and she didn’t care. She didn’t care what loving this made her.

“Do you think of me half as much as I think of you, kitten?” he asked hoarsely, as he gently rubbed his cum over her clit. “Do you spend your days wishin’ you were here? Waiting for the sun to go down? Tell the truth, now.”

“Oh God!”

“That’s not an answer, love.”

Buffy found herself screaming, “Yes!” before her scrambling mind remembered the question. “Oh God, yes!”

“Do you get hot in class? Thinkin’ of…this?”

His right hand slid up her stomach as his other worked her pussy, eager fingers pinching her nipple. And it was too much. God, it was too much. She was already slick and aching from what they’d just shared, and now he was going to make her come again. Just from touching her, he was going to send her spiraling over the edge. All the while, he utilized his power over her to unlock all her dirty little secrets.

“Spike…oh God, please!”

“Do you?”

She nodded helplessly. “Gnnaaugh!”

His breathing hitched. “You’re close again,” he rasped, his thumb caressing her slippery pearl as his eyes swallowed her whole. “Jus’ from this? Jus’ from my touching you?”

“Spike…”

“You are, aren’t you?”

“Oh my God!” she whimpered, thrusting her hips against his hand, tears of pleasure scalding down her cheeks. Fire raced through her veins, hot spots of white blinking the room out entirely. Then it was only Spike. Spike’s fingers pushing inside her drenched pussy, coating her insides with his essence. Spike’s thumb torturing her clit as Spike’s hungry eyes consumed her entirely. He moaned when she moaned and gasped when she gasped, and when she trembled into another blinding orgasm around his fingers, her cry of release was nearly drowned out by his pleasured sigh.

It lasted forever but was still over much too soon. The world slowly blinked back, and she discovered herself snuggled in Spike’s arms when the world came back, her head cradled at his shoulder. His finger