**********************
"SPIKE!" Buffy shrieked. "You're not leaving! I so need to spar."
"Sorry, Slayer. No shirty, no sparry." He paused at the door,
looked back at
her with no small amount of regret, but even more resolve. "See you
tomorrow
night."
"You're being ridiculous," Buffy grumped.
Her observation was met with silence, and an arched eyebrow.
"Jerk."
"Brat."
"Killjoy!"
"Tease."
"TEASE!" Buffy was across the room in a flash. She grabbed the
collar of his
duster and flung him to the mat. When he stopped rolling, she
pounced on him.
She straddled his stomach, leaning forward to yell in his face. "I'm
NOT a
tease!" She moved even closer, giving him an unobstructed view
of her
cleavage.
"Fine, Slayer. You're the epitome of forthright, unsullied womanhood,"
he
sighed, covering his eyes with his forearm. He'd never been so
aroused he'd
wanted to weep before. His unlife was just chock full of lovely
surprises.
"Now get the hell off and let me be."
"What if I don't want to?" she asked in a low voice, settling down to
sit
across his hips.
"And it's all about what YOU want, innit, Slayer." He couldn't keep
the edge
out of his voice. He was trying so hard, but he could take only
so much. She
treated him like a man, and so he tried to act like one. A good man.
Like the
mortal he'd been. But William had never met a woman like Buffy
and Spike had
several hedonistic lifetimes of experience behind him. It made
her allure so
much greater, made ignoring her temptation that much harder.
But he would
continue to try. Because failure was not an option. He'd
failed her before
and he could not survive that again.
Buffy heard the torment in his voice, watched the expressions play across
Spike's face. Anger, desire, frustration, followed closely by
something that
resembled nostalgia, then desire again, determination, gut-wrenching
GRIEF,
then finally, resolve. She reached out to stroke his face.
He turned sharply
away.
"Spikeâ?¦" she breathed. He was struggling, she realized,
every bit as much as
she was. Probably more. Grappling with who he was, what
he wanted. Indeed,
she had made it all about what SHE wanted. And it was tearing
at him. She was
tearing at him. She thought back on the events of earlier in
the evening and
was ashamed. And determined.
"So," she said conversationally. "Having had the big epiphany
here, it occurs
to me that the REAL issue is how much I'm wearing, not how little."
She
wriggled her hips on him, jostling him where he was still half hard.
"Let's be
honest here, shall we? You want. Have wanted me for a long
time. I, in the
meantime, have gone through a series of stupid boys, screwed up men
and
life-altering events of epic scale, only to come full circle. To you.
Truth is,
there is no one in Sunnydale, maybe even in the whole world, who I
can stand,
and who can survive being with me. Except you. And I'm
done fighting it."
Spike looked up at Buffy as if she had devised a completely unique and
utterly
horrifying new form of torture and had chosen him as its test subject.
"Ah,
Slayer â?¦" he began.
"Shhh. Talk later," she said, placing a finger across his lips.
"Hate as I do
to think about Faith, she did have something going. That whole
'live in the
now, seize the moment' thing." She wriggled on him again.
"Well, Spike,
consider yourself seized." She slipped her knee between his thighs,
mumbling
under her breath. "Want." She rubbed her knee against his crotch. "Take."
She
clutched him hard enough to make him moan. "Have."
At her intimate touch, Spike's hands came off the mat to rest on her
hips,
unsure whether to pull her closer or push her away. He dare not
believe.
Instead, he stared up at her, his eyes dilated with shock and arousal.
When
she slipped her hand lower to gently fondle him, he couldn't hold back.
"Holy
fuck, Slayer."
"Don't think I'm THAT good," she scoffed, running her hand up and down
the fly
of his jeans. "You up for finding out, Spike?"
Sitting astride his thighs, a mischievous sultry grin on her face, she
was
magnificent. Glorious. Indomitable. He didn't deserve her.
But he could not
deny her, or what she said. He skimmed his hands up her ribcage,
briefly
palming her breasts before moving farther up. He could feel her
peaked nipples
through the thin cloth of her top. That damn, maddening piece
of clothing.
One hand cupped her chin; the other fisted itself in her hair.
A quick tug
and shift of weight and he was once again on top of her.
He settled himself between her parted thighs. The hand that had
been clasping
her chin moved to her breast, brushing the hardened tip beneath the
slick
fabric before tangling itself in the thin straps of her top.
He smiled as he
looked down at her. "I am UP for whatever you had in mind when
you decided to
walk in here wearing THIS."
Fangs and fingers, Spike tore the scrap of cloth from Buffy's body.
Buffy smiled.
**********
End