Summary: *Sequel to Constant Craving* When William “Spike” Pratt walked out of her life nearly seven years ago, Buffy Summers never expected to see him again. But here he was, home for her mother’s funeral and determined to get her to open up to him by using whatever means he deemed necessary… even if it meant holding her hair back when she got sick.
Rating: NC-17
Author's Notes: So I spent the past two days getting a reserve of chapters built up on this story, which means, for you, that I will have regular once a week updates for the next few weeks. No more long waits between chapters, folks! :-) This chapter really starts the ball rolling on this story and given that I've already got the next four chapters written, I can say with "absolute clarity" that Spike and Buffy are in for a fun, bumpy ride. I do hope you'll go along with them on the rest of their journey, it's sure to be an exciting time!
Cocooned inside a warm, comforting embrace, Buffy fought the urge to fully awaken, knowing even as she did that the battle was futile. With a regretful sigh, she opened her eyelids, smiling as the man lying next to her swam into focus.
He looked so peaceful lying there beside her, his dark, thick eyelashes closed in sleep, his soft, pouty lips parted in breath. The scene wasn’t unfamiliar to her by any means. She used to love watching him sleep in the past, his head perched so deliciously close to her own, his broad, muscular chest rising with each and every breath he drew in.
Of course back then, he’d always been sans shirt, his lack of attire tempting her fingers to touch and play and tease him into consciousness. Now, though, things were different. They were different, much too different to contemplate drowning herself in the way he made her feel.
Yet even as she thought it, she found herself leaning into him, placing a chaste, hesitant kiss along his cheekbone, his jaw line, his… mouth. He groaned in his sleep, his arms tightening around her waist; she pulled back, startled by the frayed sound of his breath, waited for him to open his eyelids and look at her with those intensely confused, crystalline irises.
But he didn’t look, instead settling further into sleep, closer against her. She trembled as his hot, moist breath hit the sensitive skin of her throat and gasped as he thrust one leg over both of hers, ensnaring her within the circle of his body.
She could feel the heat of his skin through the fabric of his clothes, the hard curves of each powerful muscle as he coiled his sinewy frame into her. It had been so long since she felt him against her like this, so warm and solid and… there.
She wanted to drink him in, drink him down, until all the outside world faded away, leaving only the two of them on her bed, in this house, in this town. She wanted to hide herself inside of him, to let his inner strength ease her worries, her fears, her doubts. To let his protective spirit chase away every demon that plagued her days and nights.
She wanted him to make her forget, just for a little while, that she had a life outside of him, a life outside of them. She wanted him to… to love her again, to hold her and touch her and make her believe that everything, no matter how big or how bad, would be all right. Because he was there, and he would make it so.
Buffy sighed, wishing things were different, knowing they never would be, and gave in to the longing to kiss him again, to lose herself in those soft, pliant lips and let herself feel the drowning passion he once felt for her.
Cupping his face between her palms, she gently brushed her mouth across his, allowing herself to feel the moistness of his breath, the acquiescence of his lips, and the promise of his kiss. So hot, so familiar, so very much what she needed to distract her from her thoughts, from her life, from the life that could be growing inside of her.
“I need you,” she breathed into his mouth, rubbing herself against his heavy thigh, crushing her breasts against his chest. “I need you so much.”
He moaned against her lips, his hand traveling to the nape of her neck, his shaking fingers knotting in the underside of her hair as her tongue slid into his mouth, flicking, massaging, and stroking his to respond. She gasped as he captured the thick muscle between his lips, sucking hard as he rolled over onto his back. Both legs stretched out, the back of his calves brushing alongside her shins, trapping her legs between his against the mattress, the rough material of his suit scratching her skin through the sheer, black pantyhose she wore.
She could feel his erection, pulsing beneath her, its thick, steady throb a prompt reminder of how they used to be, how hot she used to make him, how out of control she used to feel when she was with him. “God, I want you,” she whispered, moving her lips from his mouth to his jaw to his ear to his throat. “I want you so much. So, so much.
“I missed you. I missed this.” She latched on to the pulse point in his neck, sucking hard, her fingers sliding into his hair as she marked him as hers. “I missed your lips, your touch, your taste. I missed your eyes, your smile, your… voice. God, did I miss your voice, Spike. So silky and sinful and… perfect.”
The hand in her hair tightened, its harsh grip pulling her up, forcing her to meet his eyes as he arched his upper body off the mattress to cover her mouth with his, trapping her face between his palms as he lowered their bodies back toward the bed.
“Maudlin li’l bint, aren’t you?” he teased between kisses. “Wakin’ a man up jus’ to hear his bloody voice? Naughty, naughty. Could think of better things to do with a mouth than talk with it, kitten. Should I show you one?”
She trembled beneath his gaze, losing herself inside the wild, lust-filled craze of his eyes. “Please, Spike, show me. Make me forget everything but the two of us. Everything but this. But you and… and me and… how good we make each other feel.”
“Wasn’ always good, kitten. Had us some bad times, too.”
She nodded, briefly looking away before turning back and staring him down. “I remember, Spike. I haven’t forgotten, but… I want to remember the good times now. Please, I… I need you, Spike. I need you to make me forget. I need you to… make me feel, anything, everything, just… please, please be with me. Be inside of me. Like you used to be. Like I want you to be again.”
“Buffy… do you know what you’re askin’, love? What it… means?”
She nodded again, lifting herself up to plant both palms flat on his chest. “I do, Spike. I know what it means, and I know what I want. What I need you to give to me. Please… show me how we used to be? How I used to feel when I was with you?”
Taking his silence as agreement, Buffy settled herself across his thighs and quickly began to unbutton his shirt. She only got two free before his fingers closed over her wrists and the regret in his eyes penetrated the lusty haze of hers. “’M sorry, love. But I can’… do this. We can’ do this. Isn’ right, pet. Feel like I’d be takin’ advantage of your grievin’ and I can’… I can’ be that man, not with you, never, never with you.”
She frowned, closing her eyes as a spiteful barb settled on her tongue. “You did once,” she accused, lifting her eyelids and pinning him with a stare. “Right after we— You came to me, begged me to let you help, begged me to let you make me forget.”
“But you didn’ forget, pet. Don’ you see? Havin’ sex only made things worse for you, for both of us. Confused things that didn’ bloody need any more confusin’.
“Be the same thing here,” he said, raising a hand and dragging it across his face. “I’d hurt you by takin’ you like this, kitten, and I can’ do that again, not even for you.”
Tears welled in her eyes; she blinked them back, disentangling herself from his legs and climbing off the bed. “Fine. Forget I asked. Forget I ever thought you would…” She turned away, angrily swiping at her cheeks with the back of her hand. “I can’t believe I actually thought you still cared about me. That I thought you would still… want me. I must be an idiot.”
“You’re not an idiot,” he muttered, getting up and reaching out to grip her upper arm, gently swinging her around to face him. “You’re not, Buffy. You’re just… in pain, love, and as much as I’d like to see you deal with that pain right now, the way you’re choosin’ isn’ healthy, for you or for me.”
“And that’s what you’re really concerned about, isn’t it, Spike? Yourself.”
She yanked her arm out of his hold, stepping back out of his line of reach. “It’s always been about you. You left me because you couldn’t handle the mess I made. You couldn’t handle that I lost the baby, that my mom didn’t want us together, that being with me made Giles disappointed in you. You took the easy way out and then chose to hide behind it by saying it was, ‘for my own good.’
“Well, fuck you, Spike. I know what’s good for me and I don’t need you tell me that, or coddle me or protect me from myself. I never have and I never will.”
His eyes looked like granite by the time her speech was done, but his voice scarcely reflected the rage his posture suggested he held back from her. “Are you finished, pet? Feel all better? Got it all out of your system now?”
Feel better? No, she didn’t feel better. She didn’t feel better at all. “You’re a bastard,” she hissed, stepping around him and collapsing back onto her bed. “A sick, sadistic bastard that gets his kicks by irritating the hell out of me.”
He gave a light chuckle at that, kneeling on the floor in front of her, tentatively reaching out to take her hand in his, tenderly stroking his thumb across her skin. “You were wrong about what you said, love. Well, some if it, at leas’.
“I was a coward, you were right in that, won’ deny it, even if you didn’ say it in those exact words. But you were wrong in sayin’ I don’ care about you, that I don’ still wan’ you. Think I proved how much I want you before, pet, after your soft, li’l lips woke me from my nap.”
She blushed at the gentle reminder of how forward she’d been with him even as she told herself it wasn’t as forward as she’d been in the past. “How do you do it?” she questioned, frowning. “How do you go from making me want to hate you to making me want to hug you for being so understanding and supportive of me?”
He shrugged a shoulder, one corner of his mouth lifting to form a smirk. “Jus’ talented, I s’pose.” He turned her hand over in his palm, tracing a light design into her skin. “I never meant to hurt you, pet. My leavin’ back then, I thought it would be best for you, and for me, too, I admit.
“Maybe it didn’ work out quite like I thought, but… I don’ regret goin’. Not anymore at leas’.” He gave a wide smile when she furrowed her brow at him. “Look at you, love. You’ve grown up, become your own woman and… ‘m not sure you could’ve done that if I’d been hoverin’ around, always crampin’ your style, that independent streak I love so much in you.”
He sighed, ran his fingers through his hair. “I’d have killed it, Buffy. I’d have made you depend on me for everythin’, and you didn’ deserve that. Couldn’ ’ve lived with that, or me.” He spared her a hard glance. “Don’ tell me you don’ know that, kitten, because I know better, love. I know you, and I know you would’ve resented the hell out of me if I stayed and tried to be there for you the way you wanted me to be.”
God dammit, she hated when he was right, and he was, she knew. No matter how much it hurt for him to leave her, how much it hurt her to admit to it now, she knew he’d left her out of love. Out of some misguided need to help her become a woman she could enjoy, a woman she could respect and admire and… maybe even someday grow to love, like he had loved her from the start.
She wasn’t quite there yet, but she was close, a lot closer than she’d been at sixteen years old. Back then, the most important thing in the world to her was finding new ways to get him inside her body and make her cum. Now, now things were different, she was different, and judging by the way he’d rejected her advances earlier, so was he.
“Thank you,” she whispered softly, linking her fingers with his and pulling him up off the floor so she could link her arms around his neck. “Thank you for being stronger than I was.”
Bloody, stupid ass ponce is what I am.
Spike shook his head, tightening his arms around Buffy’s waist, ignoring the effect the sweet, ambrosial smell of her perfume had on his semi-erect penis. “Anytime, pet. Gonna be there for you this time, I promise. Won’ let you go through any of this alone.”
“You aren’t just talking about my mom’s death, are you?” she asked, lifting her head and searching his eyes. “You’re talking about the baby, too.”
He was, though from the sound of it, she didn’t want him to be. Who the father is doesn’ matter, Spike. The only thing that matters now is that it isn’t you. “You know, you never did tell me who the lucky daddy-to-be is, pet. Tell me who it is, yeah? Tell me who I have to kill for touchin’ you when I couldn’?”
She sucked in a sharp breath, her greenish-blue, amber-flecked eyes going wide with a renewed sense of panic. “I—I can’t tell you that.”
Why the bleeding hell not? Didn’t she know? “Buffy, love? What is it? What’s wrong? Why are you… so afraid of tellin’ me the bloke’s name? Do I… do I know him or somethin’?”
She looked away, tears of regret pooling in her eyes. “I… I’m sorry, Spike. I’m so, so sorry.”
What did she have to be sorry for? They were divorced, weren’t they? He might not like it, but she had a right to a life after he left her. Same as he’d had a right to his, even if he didn’t bloody take it. “Pet, ‘s okay. I promise. Whoever it is, we’ll get through it, yeah? Won’t change nothin’. Won’ change a soddin’ thing.”
“Yes, y-yes it will.” She glanced back at him, her eyes filled with tears and pain and so much bleeding heartache it hurt him just to bloody look at it. “It’s Lindse, Spike. I slept with Lindsey McDonald.”
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