Summary: A slayer barters with a demon to rescue her lover, and finds herself unwittingly projected nearly three hundred years into the future with no memory of the life she left behind.
While his experience with women was rather limited, Spike was certain that tears weren’t the normal reaction to a man’s kiss. Dru was no basis of comparison; she laughed when she should cry and cried when she was at her happiest. He’d come to understand it—he knew her special blend of insanity. Where others might lose their own minds in trying to comprehend her, there was a certain amount of intellectual stimulation to be gained in unraveling her riddles. In responding to her like she was an adult rather than a child.
If Dru cried when he kissed her, there would be a reason. She wasn’t a mystery to him and she hadn’t been for a long time.
Buffy, however, was a bloody enigma. And the second her lips opened to him, the second her hot, silken tongue drifted over his and explored the cool cavern of his mouth, her body trembled and she began to cry.
There were no sobs. No hysterics. No beating against his chest in demand of justice. There were only tears. She rumbled small whimpers against his lips but didn’t allow them to seize her completely, and she wept. She wept so silently, so perfectly; she wept as though she wanted to protect him from her sadness. From the thing which could inspire sorrow from something as simple as a kiss.
Then again, there was nothing simple about this kiss. Buffy had every inch of him burning to a bloody crisp. If fire had a taste, she certainly embodied the flavor. There had been nothing like her before. The life sparking through her skin, the way her mouth whispered words against his without making a sound, and the tears scalding down her gorgeous cheeks. She consumed him without trying—drawing him further into her mystery and the abyss surrounding the world she’d constructed around herself.
The place where he knew her. Where she knew him. Where they knew each other.
It wasn’t that he didn’t believe her. It wasn’t that he bought into her crackpot idea, either. There was definitely something there. Something beneath the surface of their complicated relationship. Something which designed her into his night angel and wheedled her into his every thought. Until there was nothing beyond the image of her when he awoke and her arms surrounding him as he fell asleep. Until he felt her lips across his face in the hazy planes of twilight before awareness seized his consciousness and chased dreams away. He’d rolled Angel’s words over again and again, contemplating the chance of truth behind the Slayer’s outrageous claim and vetoing its possibility for the sake of logic alone. But there was no explaining the way he felt now.
Drusilla had kicked him out of her bed. For the first time in all their years, she’d kicked him out. Because he wasn’t with her. He’d come home smelling of the Slayer, and because of the hint of infidelity, he was no longer welcome between her legs—no matter that half the world’s demon population had taken residence there during their years together.
“You’re not mine, my prince. You never were. I’ve but borrowed you.”
There wasn’t a lick of sense to be made from her words.
And the bitch of it was: he didn’t care. Sure, it smarted like hell but his mind was too preoccupied with the taste of the goddess whimpering into his mouth to give an honest damn. He was sure that once the numbing melted into something tangible, his feigned outrage at what Buffy had cost him would turn into something concrete.
For the moment, though, he was just lost. Lost in the heavenly taste of her. Lost in the way her lips moved against his, the way her tongue stroked his tongue and explored his mouth. The way she cried nearly-silent tears at the feel of his kiss. The way her arms linked around his throat. The way she gave into him without a fight. Without protest. Without anything beyond a willing, desperate surrender.
“Mmm,” he murmured, sucking hard on her bottom lip, walking her backward until her back was pressed against a tree. “Fuck, but you taste sweet.”
Buffy gasped and trembled in his arms, her hips thrusting against his denim-clad cock with wanton abandon he was near certain she didn’t mean. This girl was untouched—the world could see it. He’d known it the instant he set his eyes on her gorgeous body. She was every man’s temptation, but she’d never known a sexual touch.
Not before him, anyway. Not before Halloween.
“You’re playin’ with fire,” he warned.
Buffy met his eyes without bothering to blink her tears away and kissed his lips before she could stop himself. “I’ve played before,” she replied, her voice low and certain. “Our first time was against a tree.”
A rush of irritation seized his insides, but he honestly didn’t know if he was upset with her insistence on sticking to her delusion or the maddening knowledge that he couldn’t see what she saw. Whatever glorious memory was playing in her mind was for her eyes only. And with as nutty as the claim was, Spike couldn’t shake the haunted notion that at least part of it was the truth. There were too many things in the air—too much to own entirely up to coincidence. The way Buffy had whispered his name. The way she fought him as though she knew him, blocking his every attack without so much as blinking. The decisive lack of fear in her eyes. He didn’t believe her story but he didn’t not believe it, either. He didn’t know what to believe anymore.
Of one thing he was certain: Buffy knew him. The knowledge was right terrifying, but it didn’t make it any less true.
Buffy knew him.
That much was unmistakable. He didn’t know how or why, but Buffy knew him. The rest—the details—were up for grabs.
“Yeah?” he heard himself murmuring.
Buffy nodded through her tears, a small, indulgent smile crossing her lips. “You came to kill me.”
Spike snorted. Even in their warped fairytale, he was a ruthless bastard. Perhaps there was more truth to her version than he wanted to allow. “Yeah,” he agreed, his left hand abandoning her cheek to trail down her front until the heat of her breast was cradled against his palm. “That sounds like somethin’ I’d do.”
A gorgeous smile graced her perfect lips, and he felt something within him collapse with wondrous awe. No matter what the girl thought, the fact remained that she was here. She was with him.
“You were…ohhh…Wi…Spike…”
He heard the way her voice caught and decided to ignore it. The warmth of her breast in his hand was too rich to forfeit for the sake of semantics. His thumb grazed over her nipple, his right hand sliding downward, fingers intent on undoing the clasp of her jeans before sensibility caught up with either of them. He’d felt her pulse around him just nights before. Her sopping, blissful warmth humming richly around his fingers as liquid desire leaked from her body. As she gave him paradise no man before him had ever touched. He wanted to feel that again. He wanted her naked pussy against his hand, her wetness spilling onto his skin, her craving there for him and him alone to claim.
“Tell me about our firs’ time,” he whispered, knowing intrinsically he was being cruel. He didn’t ask out of malice; he was genuinely curious. How, in this fantasy world of hers, two unlikely beings such as themselves had tumbled into each other’s arms. Perhaps he was searching for some connection—for a trigger that would unleash a memory the world had kept him from touching. He didn’t know. Everything was so bloody confused. So jumbled.
He wanted a reason to believe her, no matter how crazy it was. He wanted to prove himself wrong. He wanted her to show him reason.
He wanted to believe.
Buffy blinked, her head flying back so hard she nearly knocked herself out on the tree behind her. “You want…”
His other hand abandoned her breast to drag her jeans down her legs completely, and he was on his knees before he could keep up with himself, anxiously working the cuff of her pants over one of her shoes. It didn’t occur to him until her leg was free to just remove the damn thing, and by that time, he didn’t care. He just wanted her open to him. “I came to kill you,” he started for her. “Why’d I come to kill you?”
Spike glanced up, his eyes immediately centered on the simple white cotton of her panties, and the damp line of slayer-honey pooling in the crotch. She was wet for him. Christ, she was wet. He didn’t think he’d ever seen a girl as wet as she was. Not for him, anyway. His bed had been occupied by a woman who took her pleasures and enjoyed them, sure, but never responded to him as an object of desire beyond what he could do to her body.
Buffy was wet for him because it was him. Not because he was touching her. Not because she knew what was to come. No, she desired him and him alone.
A thrill raced down his spine.
There was nothing in the world like this.
“I’m the Slayer,” she responded, her voice trembling, her hips thrusting forward, waving her rich scent into the air and teasing his tastebuds like the embodiment of forbidden fruit that she was. “You came to kill me.”
“Seems reasonable enough,” he agreed, raising his hand to the tantalizing fabric which guarded her pussy. “You Slayer. Me vampire.” He pressed his index finger against the wet center, trembling when she threw her head back and moaned. In all his years, he’d never seen anything so sexy. Dru had dolled herself up in black lace and decorated her pale legs with fishnet stockings a time or two, but Buffy, in her plain panties and her worn t-shirt defeated every conventional stereotype of desire. She was purity. She was radiant. She was wet and warm and wiggling beneath the gentle touch with which he graced her wet flesh.
Mine…
She was his.
The roar of the demon could not be denied.
“You…you were angry…”
“With you? Somehow I don’ fancy that much of a stretch, either.” Spike grinned and licked his lips, hooking his fingers around the crotch of her panties to brush the annoying fabric aside and baring her juicy flesh to his hungry eyes. Her mound was almost as he remembered from their magic-induced tryst on Halloween: she was smooth, plump, slick and…shaven? This was new. This was something she’d changed since he’d last touched her. Had she done it for him?
Christ, he hoped she’d done it for him. Especially for the way he couldn’t hold back his whimper or the famished lick his tongue gave his lips.
“Did I do this to you?” he murmured, his thumb finding her clit and rubbing it softly. “Did I get on my knees an’ taste this juicy quim of yours?”
Buffy choked a sob and nodded. “Ohhh…”
Spike’s brows perked. He honestly hadn’t expected her to confirm anything. Virgins were never too imaginative—at least that was what the years had taught him to believe. Not that he’d spent too much time deflowering virgins. Dru was the only woman he’d ever bedded, and she’d been far from chaste the first time she’d welcomed him inside her body.
He supposed his opinion of virgins came from a residual Victorian frame of mind. And just when he’d thought he’d banished every vestige of his former self…
“I did?” he repeated, not bothering to mask his surprise.
“I…yes…you were…” Buffy’s teeth scraped her lower lip with such reckless seduction he nearly gasped. “I didn’t…you were…you were teaching me.”
“Teaching?”
“Y-you…I’d…I’d never…”
Spike’s eyes remained glued on her face before trailing downward, focusing with hungry intent on her soft forbidden flesh. “What did I teach you?” he whispered. The answer was already within his grasp; he just wanted to hear her give it voice. “Tell me what I taught you.”
Buffy gasped and bucked against his hand. “You…you hated…you came to kill…’cause you…hated…me.”
“I taught you that?”
“Then you bit me.”
Just the idea of slayer blood had his cock at full attention. A low growl rumbled in the back of his throat, his thumb’s attention to her clit becoming more conscientious. He loved the way the slippery little pearl felt under his fingertips. The way the slightest touch had her knees shaking and her body ready to combust. “I bit you?” he repeated, his voice suddenly hoarse. “God…”
The Slayer nodded desperately and arched again into his touch. “Will…”
“Spike,” he corrected. It was important for them both to make the distinction. William though his name might be, the way she said it implied a history which didn’t exist. Or if it did exist—if he did start believing her insane story—a history he didn’t remember. In that instance, the whisper of his Christian name became something beyond a different name by which to call him.
Calling him Will impressed upon him the burden of memories he didn’t possess. The history of a passion he didn’t recall. The alleged love he’d once held for the trembling girl in his arms. Calling him Will made him undervalued as the man he was now. He wanted Buffy to want him, not some aged memory of something which could very well be an elaborate hallucination. Some wonky side-effect of the magic-gone-wrong, affecting her now like a well-detailed acid trip.
If he was going to have Buffy, he needed to know she knew who was doing the having. He needed her to know it was him—Spike. England’s native son, sired in 1880 by Drusilla, and slave to his sire’s every whim until this blonde bombshell literally danced onto the scene before his very eager eyes.
It was why he’d stressed the name before. Why he was stressing it now.
He wasn’t Buffy’s precious Will. He was Spike.
“Ohhh…”
“My name, love, say it.”
Buffy cooed, thrusting her pussy against him with reckless abandon he didn’t think she was entirely aware of. “Spike.”
“That’s right. Spike. Say it again.”
“Spike…”
“Mmm. That’s lovely, that is.” He rewarded her obedience by taking a quick lap up her drenched slit with his tongue, rolling her divine flavor in his mouth. Memorizing her. Committing her to the sacred corner of his memory palace. She tasted so sweet. So warm. If purity had a taste, it was to be found in Buffy Summers. “So is that it, then?” he asked, smacking his lips.
A long mewl tore through her throat. “Will…”
“Spike.”
“Spike,” she agreed, but her tone indicated a sort of absence from understanding. She was only half with him—only half listening. And while he loved knowing he could drive her mad with but a few simple touches, there were things that were too important to gloss over.
“Buffy…my name.”
She blinked and glanced down, meeting his eyes. “Spike,” she said. “I’m sorry…I’ll…you’re—”
“’m not him, love. I’m not your sodding white knight.” His lips clamped hard around her clit and favored her with a good hard suck, two eager fingers slipping across her labia and massaging her juicy flesh with a mind solely aimed at driving her as crazy as she’d driven him. And fuck if he’d ever tasted anything like this. He’d never get enough of her. Of this. Of her rich honey. He wanted to drink this every day. He wanted to sample her and know her wetness was for him and him alone to taste.
He’d never known anyone who wanted him so; it was intoxicating.
“’m not him,” he said again, tongue flicking over her precious little button as his fingers slipped at last between her vaginal lips and teased the tightness of her opening. “I’m not.”
“I wished for you,” she insisted on a sob.
“You got somethin’ else. There’s no way I’d ever forget this.” He nipped at her, easing his fingers deeper within her pussy. She clamped down hard around him, sucking him in, dragging any chunk of him that she could into a place no man had ever before explored. It was momentous. It was beyond anything he’d ever experienced. It was his—all his. No one could take this away from him.
It was impossible to look at the way she accepted his fingers without his cock straining at the feel. She was so tight—Christ she was tight. Tight and the hottest girl he’d ever known. Ever touched. Beyond other humans whose heat was at times inebriating and addictive, Buffy was a new drug all in herself. And he wanted her. He wanted everything she had to give him. He wanted to feel her body pulse around his fingers just as he wanted to watch his dick slide in and out of her wet sanctuary. He wanted it all.
But above all else, he wanted her to know his name.
“No way I’d forget this,” he murmured again, his fingers assuming a natural rhythm as they pumped in and out of her sweet little hole. “No way I’d forget fighting with you. Fucking you. Watchin’ you bounce on my cock. No way.”
She trembled hard beneath him, a hoarse, desperate gasp clawing for freedom. “I loved you.”
The words made his heart sing and his demon purr with delight, but he had to shove them off. Shove them away. They weren’t true. They couldn’t be. Buffy didn’t love him; she loved Will. The figment. The allusion. The thing which didn’t exist.
“You can love me like this,” he countered. “Learn to love me like this.”
“I do.”
Spike froze, his eyes shooting upward. There was no way she meant to say that. No way she even knew what she was confessing. No way she could mean it, even if she did have her wits about her. The girl was dumb with love for the bloke she wanted him to be—she couldn’t mean she loved him. The one with her now. The man whose fingers were pumping slowly in and out of her tender pussy, watching her nether lips expand and contract with every methodical plunge he took. The man whose tongue kept flicking her clit. The man whose mouth was a shrine to her taste.
There was no way she loved him.
She loved the reminder—the thing she was taught to love. She couldn’t love Spike because Spike wasn’t what she wanted.
“Don’ say that,” he growled, his voice angrier than he’d intended. “Don’ say things you don’ mean.”
Buffy blinked stupidly. “But I—”
“You can’t even get the name right, you daft bint.” Spike huffed indignantly and gently tugged her clit between his teeth again. He toyed with her without hurting her, rolled her in his mouth and trembled when she whimpered and quivered against him. Then, just as quickly, he abandoned her ripe little gem and handed it to the care of his fingers.
His tongue was in the mood to dive.
“I do love you, Spike.”
The voice barely sounded like hers. Not the Slayer he remembered. Not the girl he’d fought in the darkened halls of her school. Not the girl he’d watched dance with her friends that first night at the Bronze. There was desperation in her tone which didn’t sound like Buffy at all. She sounded completely foreign at that moment, her voice heightened with an accent he knew she didn’t possess.
“No you don’t.”
His tongue channeled his outrage at the injustice of her declaration, plunging inside her hot, tight cunny with the intention of marking her so she’d never again mistake him for someone else. He should have known, of course, that the greatest masterminds were always foils to themselves. The drops of dew he’d licked off his fingers had nothing on the unbridled taste of her trickling down his throat. Of the sensation of drowning in hot perfection without any want of a lifeline. Spike was a goner, and he knew it.
There was no coming back from this.
“Will…”
The phantom’s name enraged him, but he couldn’t deny himself. Instead, Spike poured all his aggression into devouring her as she’d never been devoured. His fingers manipulated her clit, his tongue thrusting so deep inside her he worried he might get stuck that way. But there was no better place to be. With Buffy under his hands, her blood hot for him. Her body responding to him and him alone.
Even if it was the name of someone else on her lips.
Someone who she claimed was him even if he knew the truth.
Know me. Know ME. KNOW ME!
The welcome baptism of her orgasm had him drenched, but he didn’t care. He hogged it all—the delicious flavor of her spendings, the stolen laps at her inner walls as his fingers teased her. He could tease her forever. He could remain here forever. He could.
Only nothing could prevent the truth from separating them.
How much time passed, he didn’t know. Spike found his cheek pressed against the warmth of her belly, her fingers curled lovingly through his hair as the cool breeze of night settled down upon them.
“I know who you are,” Buffy whispered at last, her voice hoarse. “I really do.”
“You have a funny way of showin’ it.”
“You’ve changed. We both have.” Her fingers continued to drift through his hair, and while he was torn inside, there was peace with her that he’d never found before.
He might be only a visage of what she wanted, but it was closer than he’d ever come to perfection. He’d be a dolt to give it up on the case of mistaken identity.
No matter how much he wanted to be Will. Because from the sound of things, Will had it pretty great before he ran off and got himself killed.
“Buffy…”
“I know who you are, Spike.”
“But this isn’ what you want.”
He flinched inwardly. There were times when his thoughts and his actions really didn’t agree.
“No, it—”
“I’m not what you want. I’m not Will. I’m jus’…” He trembled. “’m drawn to you, love. God knows I am. Always have had a thing for slayers. An’ it’s different with you. Bleeding hell, it’s different…I don’ know if it has anything to do with what you’ve told me—”
“Spike—”
“My life’s gone lopsided, you hear? I came here to kill you an’ now…”
He felt her humorless chuckle. “We’re two-for-two.”
“Buffy, I’m serious.”
“So am I. It’s kinda funny…when you think about it.”
“A laugh riot for those who get the joke, I’m sure.” He pulled back and met her eyes, willing her to see inside him. “You might’ve loved this bloke you think you…you might’ve loved Will, sweetheart, but I’m not him.”
“Yes you are.”
Bloody stubborn chit.
“No, sweet, I’m not. An’ if you…’f we do this, it can’t be about…him. Or what all. It has to be you an’ me. You an’ me. If you can’t love me for not bein’ him or—”
“But I—”
Spike held up a hand. “You can’t love me. If I’m not him, there’s nothing to love. Nothin’ but a pipe dream. An’ someday you’ll realize it.”
Buffy stared at him for a long time but said nothing.
He’d never seen joy melt into sorrow so quickly.
He’d never seen anyone look so haunted.
Spike sighed and tugged her down before he could stop himself, folding her small, perfect body in the welcoming protection of his arms. He didn’t know what he was doing anymore and he honestly didn’t know if he cared. All he did know was his reality was mucked beyond repair. That the girl he’d meant to destroy was suddenly the one thing worth living for.
He didn’t know what it meant, and he was too blasted tired to try to figure it out now.
Right now, he was just content in holding her in the quiet.
A few stolen moments with his night angel.
If they were lost, they might as well be lost together.