She stifled a tired yawn and shifted in his lap, blissfully blocking out the rather abrasive voice of Logical Buffy, as well as the knowledge of the ticking clock. Soon, the hours of the night were going to be spent, and she’d need to rush home before her mother found her bedroom empty.
For the moment, though, she was happy to ignore everything. She was resting comfortably in his lap, dressed only in her ankle-length skirt and her bra, as her top had been rather literally ripped off just an hour or so ago.
“Mmmm,” she murmured, slap-happy with exhaustion and too many orgasms to count. She would definitely never look at sleeper-recliners the same way again. “You’re comfy.”
Buffy loved the way his chest rumbled beneath her when he chuckled. “Gotta say, luv,” Spike murmured, rubbing her back gently. “I’ve been called many things. Comfy isn’t one of them.”
She grinned and lifted her head from his shoulder, her eyes dancing. “So that’s a first, then?” she asked eagerly.
He matched her smile, and warmth filled her wholly. “It is, at that.”
Buffy just giggled drunkenly and fell against his shoulder again, tightening her arms around him. “Yay.”
“Yay?”
“I finally found a first to give you.”
His lips brushed her brow. God, she loved it when he did that. When he kissed her cheek, her forehead, her hands, her chin—anything. Small gestures like that meant the world to her. “I assure you, luv,” he murmured. “You’ve given me many firsts.”
Buffy shook her head with a goofy grin. “You’re just trying to butter me up.”
“Mmmm…yeah, but in my defense…” He leered at her nastily, his left hand sliding under the hem of her skirt. A gasp tore from her throat and she parted her legs for him before she could stop herself. Spike just grinned and cupped her pussy, his thumb finding her clit and massaging her gently. “I love it when you’re buttery.”
“Ohhh…”
“I love the sounds you make. I love the way your eyes flutter shut. The way you pant an’ moan for me.”
Her exhaustion-induced goofiness combined with the incredible sensation of Spike stroking her clit made her especially lightheaded. “Ohhh…” she whimpered, her eyes falling closed as though by his suggestion alone. “That feels…”
“Incredible?” he ventured, suckling at her throat.
“Uh huh. Only I don’t…ohhhh…pant and moan.”
Spike smiled against her throat. “I think you do.”
She began moving her hips against his hand, her head flying back when his fingers slipped past her pussy lips and into her body. “You can think…that…but you’re wrong.”
“I don’t think I am.” Spike kissed her collarbone, pulling his head back so that his eyes could take her in. “Fuck, you’re so gorgeous.”
“Uhhhh…”
“I wish you’d let me taste you here,” he murmured, rubbing her clit and eliciting a sharp gasp. “Your scent drives me outta my bloody head. I wanna bury my face between your legs. I wanna see you up close.”
The thought was nearly too much. In a blink, Buffy was back in the factory, chained to Spike’s bed. His mouth was sucking at her clit, his fingers thrusting into her pussy, small growls ringing through his throat as he swallowed her whole. Aside from the fear, it had been one of the most erotic moments of her life.
But if he went down on her, he’d see the bite mark, and the thought had her thoroughly unnerved. Not for the reasons she’d initially given herself to keep the bite a secret; no longer did she think something terrible would happen if she revealed exactly what had happened that night. At first, it had been about downplaying Spike’s guilt. Despite the tangle of confused feelings that night had given her, it hadn’t taken long to determine that the long-term emotional scars were far heavier on Spike’s side than hers. Letting him know that he’d pierced her flesh with his fangs would only make it worse for him.
After she’d discovered that touching the bite mark was literally orgasmic, it had ceased being something wrong and had become something private. Something that she did nightly to quench her thirst for Spike’s touch. She’d kept it from Giles and Angel to make sure they didn’t try to blame her growing feelings for Spike on his fangs. And now that she and Spike had a new, albeit strange, understanding, she wanted to let him know. She wanted to show him what he’d done, and confide both how wonderful it’d felt, and how much she enjoyed having the mark touched.
But then she’d have to own up to having hid the mark in the first place, and she didn’t know how he’d react to that. And true, she couldn’t keep him from seeing it forever, especially if whatever they had continued once the spell was broken. If it didn’t—if her fears proved accurate and Spike left her—then there was no harm done.
If not, then she’d cross the oh-by-the-way-you-bit-me bridge when she came to it.
Although, the thought of Spike knowing about the mark—as well as knowing what it did to her—sent anticipatory shivers down her spine. She imagined him perched attentively between her legs, his lips and tongue laving the bite as his fingers played with her clit and thrust inside her pussy. The thought alone unmade her completely.
“I want it,” Spike continued heatedly, his thumb stroking her clit quickly now. His eyes soaked her up, and shone with every whimper that crossed her lips. “I wanna suck on your pretty little pearl till your eyes cross. I wanna slip my tongue inside that juicy quim of yours and taste you as you spend. Fuck, Buffy, I want it so bad.”
He pinched her clit, and she came hard on his fingers, his name wringing from her lips as her body spasmed around him. She buried her face in his throat and licked at his skin, shivering when he inhaled sharply. She felt his cock nudging her through his jeans. He’d been so good about zipping himself up earlier to avoid further temptation, though they’d both done their best not to fall asleep so that the clause to the plan was still in effect.
It took a few minutes for the haze surrounding her head to dissipate.
“You’re so beautiful when you come,” Spike murmured, fingering a bra strap as he dropped a kiss to her shoulder.
Warmth rushed to her cheeks. “I…ummm…I don’t know what to say when you tell me things like that. You…it…”
“Butters you up?” He suggested with a grin. “Imagine what’ll happen when I have a chance to eat your pussy without bein’ pissed out of my mind.”
“Spike—”
“I know I hurt you the firs’ time, Buffy, but…” He released a long sigh. “What you did for me earlier…that was bloody…I jus’ want you to experience it. An’ since you’re shagging only me for the rest of your life or else joining a convent—which would be a bloody waste, so don’t do it—I’m the only one who can give it to you.”
Buffy inhaled sharply. “Spike…I…” Am too terrified of what you’ll say when you see what else you did that night. “I just…I need time.”
He was quiet for a long minute, then flashed a small grin. “Yeah. Of course,” he agreed, nodding tersely. “’Sides, we’re still under the plan.”
She swallowed hard. “Yes. The plan.”
“With an amendment.”
“Yes.” Buffy licked her lips. “Which…okay. The amendment. If we…fall off the wagon, so to speak, we let ourselves enjoy it until the next day?”
“Yes.”
Isn’t that just incentive to break the plan as much as possible?
She didn’t say that, but it must have been all over her face, because Spike’s chest rumbled with a long chuckle. “I was wondering when you’d come back to that,” he mused. “An’ yeah, while knowing I can have a night shagging you brainless anytime I like by falling off the wagon is too bloody tempting for words, I’m only proposing that we make what we’ve done every time we’ve detoured from the plan, a part of the plan.”
“Okay…”
“Meaning, luv, that if we go a couple days without seeing each other, or my demon decides to…get rough…” The light in his eyes dimmed, and she squeezed his shoulder reassuringly to let him know, yet again, that she was all right. “If something happens like it has happened, we jus’ go with it. Like we did that night at the Bronze—”
“There was just fondling after that.”
“Well, if we’d had an amendment to the plan, there would’ve been a whole lot more.”
Buffy flushed. “Well…”
“An’ isn’t inappropriate fondling also against the rules?”
“You’re forgetting appropriate fondling.”
Spike grinned. “Balls. How could I forget?”
“I don’t know, but you did.”
“’m just saying, if we end up in a situation like tonight or that night at the Bronze, the rules are already broken, so we might as well toss ‘em completely. That way, we get it completely out of our systems an’ can climb back on…” He frowned. “You know this wagon metaphor is bloody confusing since we’re talking about sex.”
Her blush deepened. “It’s a good idea,” she admitted. “Your…amended plan, that is. It’s a good idea.”
“It’s a plan based on indulgences, luv,” Spike said. “There’s no benefit from it.”
“There’s nothing lost, either.”
He quirked a brow and tilted his head, studying her intently. “You sure?” he asked. “I don’t…I’m not gonna lie to you, baby, I’m looking out for what I want on top of what I know you want. What’s good for you, based on what you’ve told me. If you don’t wanna go along with this, I won’t hold it against you. Fuck, I’m surprised you haven’t given me a much-deserved slap.”
“I wouldn’t slap you.”
“I’d deserve it.”
“Deserving or not, I wouldn’t slap you.” She grinned. “I’d punch you. Slaps are for wimps, not slayers.”
Spike waggled his brows. “So why din’t you punch me?”
“Well, because I don’t particularly think it was deserving of a punch. And…” Buffy sighed and trailed off, and it only took Spike a minute to close his eyes and mutter a curse. “It’d actually be better for me to try and…slap right now.”
“God, pet, I’m such a berk.” He paused then, his eyes going wide. “Oh, fuck, tell me I didn’t hurt you.”
“Spike…”
“I’m serious. Tell me I din’t hurt you. God, I was so rough with you outside. An’ then in here…” He drew in a sharp breath and shuddered. “I can’t…please tell me I—”
“Spike, if you’d hurt me, I would have said something. Pain and Buffy? Not so mixy…especially when Buffy has no super strength to rely on.”
He willed his eyes closed and exhaled slowly. “You should have reminded me.”
“There wasn’t a need, silly.”
“Bugger that! I could’ve—”
“But you didn’t. Besides, it’s not like I’m gonna break if you knock me over. I might be at normal human strength, but considering how hard I work out, my normal human strength isn’t something to scoff at.” She shivered. “Giles doesn’t seem too worried about it.”
Spike stiffened. “He isn’t?”
“He thinks it’s just a cold or something. And he told me that Faith would take my patrols until it was over.”
“Faith can stuff it.”
Buffy rolled her eyes dryly. “I’m sure she wouldn’t mind.”
“I swear, Slayer, if I see her again, I’m gonna bloody rip her apart.”
“I really don’t mind, either.”
“So you’re giving me permission to do in my third slayer?”
She blinked and reeled back, affronted. “There will be no doing of any kind!”
Spike made a face and shivered. “God, Buffy, don’t make me sick.”
“It’s only fair. I’ve been sick over this thing with you. Quite literally.”
“That’s because you snogged Angel. That was all your bloody fault. You’re the only woman I’ve touched since I came back to town, an’—”
Her eyes darkened. “And it’ll stay that way.”
Spike grinned. “Of the two of us, who’s snogged someone else?”
“Hey! You were mean to me that night. I was—”
He batted a dismissive hand. “Excuses.”
“I think my absolutely spectacular hurling on Angel more than made up for the part where I accidentally kissed him.”
He arched a brow. “Accidentally?”
“Well, obviously I wasn’t thinking with a right mind.”
“You’d have to be in a wrong state to snog Angel in the firs’ place.”
Buffy sniggered appreciatively. “Where were you all last year?”
“Thinking that, but obviously not in a right mind to do anything about it.”
“So basically, there’s been a lot of wrong-mindedness going around.”
Spike shrugged. “Yeah, that seems fair.” He was quiet for a second. “About the other slayer, though…I’m bloody serious. If she touches me again—if she sodding approaches me again, I don’ know what I’m gonna do, but it won’t be pretty.”
“You really didn’t like her, did you?”
He shook his head. “I really din’t like her.”
“I can’t tell you how happy that makes me.” Buffy shuddered. “Faith…she’s tried to take so much from me. And…when I saw she was with you…before I heard what you were saying…well, let’s just say, I had the very strong urge to do some limb-ripping myself.”
Spike was quivering beneath her fingers, and though she hated to see him so discomfited, she loved knowing that it was an aversion to Faith that brought it on. “She disgusts me,” he said. “She’s a…she jus’…I swear it, Slayer, if she tries to—”
Her mouth dropped to his shoulder. “If she tries,” she murmured, kissing his skin. He shivered violently, and when she looked up again, his eyes were bright with awe. “Get in line. But until my slayer strength is back, Giles wants—”
“Your Watcher should be less concerned with your patrols an’ more concerned with the fact that your strength is gone.” Spike shook his head in disbelief. “You told him?”
“Well, I tried using telepathy, but we haven’t hit that chapter yet in the Slayer Handbook.”
Her sarcasm was lost on him. “You told him an’ he din’t care?”
“He cared, he just didn’t seem to think it was a thing.”
“An’ if I hadn’t been there last night to stop that wanker from offing you?” Spike demanded, his eyes blazing. “What if you’d been hurt or…what would the professor have said then?” He broke off, seething. “Did you show him? Did you make it clear—”
“I threw a stake at Angel.”
Spike paused. “You what?”
“Angel and Giles have become best buddies, it seems. Angel’s always there when I go to see Giles.” She held up a hand before he could object. “I don’t know why. I don’t think Giles even knows why. He just is. But today, I threw a stake at him to demonstrate how my aim is totally off.”
The astonishment on Spike’s face melted into mirth, and in a blink, he was laughing hysterically. “You…at Angel?”
Buffy squirmed, feeling oddly proud of herself. “Yup.”
“I can only imagine the look on the git’s face.”
“He whined.”
“Imagine that.”
“And Giles told me to take forty-eight hours to get better.” She sighed. “So…if, after tomorrow, I’m still feeling like a weakling, then I’ll panic. But I’m determined to have a good birthday this year. I want very much to not have little kids suck me into their nightmares or my boyfriend lose his soul.” She froze and shot him a panicked look. “You’re not gonna go on a killing spree the likes of which can only be stopped by a sword through the heart and a one-way ticket to Hell, are you?”
Spike just blinked and looked at her. “Slayer…am I to understand that you’re calling me your boyfriend?”
“Just please…if you’re gonna go psycho serial killer on me, don’t do it tomorrow.”
“I’m not gonna do anything to hurt you, love.” He shrugged. “Got no soul to lose.”
“It’s sad the way that reassures me.”
Spike chuckled. “So tomorrow’s your birthday…anything special you want?”
“I’d like my strength back.”
“I’ll move the heavens to make it so.”
When he said things like that, what else was there to do but melt?
Spike brushed his lips across her brow. “Anything sparkly?”
“You’re gonna do some last-minute shopping while I’m at school tomorrow?”
He shrugged. “A bloke’s gotta occupy his time somehow. An’ I gotta think of another first to give you the next time we fall off the wagon.”
“Because of our amendment.”
“That’s right.”
Buffy giggled. “If I didn’t think it’d turn Willow an interesting shade of red, I might talk her into typing up a contract so that the rules are official.”
“I thought the rules were official.”
“A contract never hurt anyone.” She sighed and pressed her brow to his shoulder. “I should really get up and go home.”
“Only if, by that, you mean dress in something of mine an’ come with me downstairs.”
“Spike, it’s getting to that special time of night where I’m so sleepy that I’m becoming awake.”
“I know, pet.”
“I can’t fall asleep here. Mom’ll wig out.”
Spike shrugged, tightening his arms around her when she tried to wiggle off his lap. “You’re the Slayer. You have slayer-like things to do. Jus’ tell her that you were dealing with a dangerous vampire all night.”
“She knows I’m weakened. You really think that’ll make her feel better?”
“Well, seeing as you’ll be right in front of her with no scrapes or bruises when you explain where you were—”
“Spike—”
His grip was unrelenting. The more she tried to climb to her feet, the tighter his embrace became. “I’m holding you hostage,” Spike declared. “You’re my hostage.”
“Spike, really—”
“You’re free to try an’ beat me off if you like.” He paused, then grinned nastily. “Actually, I could really get into that.”
“Yeah, I’ll bet.”
“Buffy—”
“I have to go to school tomorrow, and I can’t wear this. I can’t wear the same thing two days in a row.”
“So you can wear something of mine.”
She perked a brow. “To school?”
“It’d be a great birthday present.”
“It’s my birthday.”
“Ahh, that’s right.” Spike smiled into her eyes. “Jus’…stay with me this once? I won’ break the rules, I bloody swear. I won’t touch. I won’t fondle. I jus’ wanna hold you tonight. You can make up whatever nasty story about me that you want to your mum. Let me sleep beside you.” He plucked the strap of her bra and dipped his head to nibble at her shoulder. “’Sides, I broke your shirt.”
“You tore it.”
“Yes. An’ you can only have one of my shirts if you’re wearing it with my jeans to school tomorrow. Else you’ll jus’ have to walk home in your knickers.”
“Yeah, but you broke those too. And like you’d allow that anyway.”
“Never say never, pet.” He waved a little. “Evil, remember?”
“Oh, there’s no need to remind me.”
“Stay with me tonight. It’s so late it’s early. Stay with me, an’ sleep through your first class.” He kissed the pulse point of her throat. “I’ll write you a note an’ everything.”
She giggled. “A note?”
“That’s right.”
“You’re adorable.”
“An’ comfy.”
“Totally comfy.” She leaned in and stole a kiss from his totally sinful lips, and felt the last strings of her resistance melting away. “Okay.”
“Okay?”
“Okay, I’ll stay. Okay, I’ll worry my mother to death. Okay, I’ll wear your clothes to school tomorrow. Okay, I’ll sleep beside you. Okay to all the above.” She kissed him again. “You know why?”
“’Cause I’m adorable an’ comfy?”
“That helps.”
“An’ totally irresistible?”
“There’s that. But really?” Buffy grinned. “It’s a great birthday present.”
“I’ll say.”
“And you have a bed?”
Spike nodded, leaping to his feet before she could blink. She would have tumbled to the ground had his arms not been around her. As it was, she just squealed and clung to him, and enjoyed the rumble of his amused chuckle. “It’s downstairs,” he said.
Buffy blinked in surprise. “You have a downstairs?” she asked in the same tone.
“I’m a man of many surprises.”
That he was. He totally was. The entire night had been a surprise—an emotional rollercoaster, if she’d ever known one. And while spending the night with him might be yet another in a series of recent colossal mistakes, there was no contesting that it felt right. It felt deserved.
Tomorrow was her birthday, and, if only once, she wanted to wake up in the arms of the man she loved.
To be continued