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.
Author's Notes: Written as an extremely demanded follow up for my Spuffy Fantasy art-to-fic, all human challenge response, Constant Craving. CC is an NC-17 short story featuring a younger, blunt Buffy and an older, more cautious Spike, well, cautious until Buffy pushes him too far, that is. ;-) Thank you to everyone who read and reviewed Constant Craving, I hope you enjoy the sequel and are ready for its bumpy ride!
Rating: NC-17
Author's Notes: I'm extremely thrilled with the direction this story has taken and I'm very excited by all the wonderful reviews I have received for it. Thank you so very much to everyone that has left a review thus far on this story. I do appreciate them so very much and will be answering them more personally within the next couple of days. Special thank you to Mari for the beta on this one, and to Sotia and Im_Bloody_English for the encouragement and support of all my writings. *hugs you all tight*:-)
“I love you,” she breathed into his ear, fingers of both hands playing with the buttons on his shirt as she slowly walked him forward onto the darkly lit porch. “You know that, don’t you, Will? You know that I love you?”
He smirked, reaching behind him to pull her closer against his back; his smirk widening to a grin when he realized it wasn’t quite as close as it used to be. Christ, but she’s getting bigger, innit she?
Turning swiftly, he yanked her against his chest, capturing her mouth in a slow, deep kiss. “Should I be worryin’ about somethin’, love?” he inquired softly, pulling back to gaze into her eyes. “You called me Will. Don’ think I’ve ever heard you say that one before.”
She shrugged a shoulder, her hazel eyes glistening with barely contained excitement. “I thought it would be a nice change, since we’re married and all. I mean, I can’t go around calling you Spike forever, you know. What would the neighbors think?”
Cheeky, li’l bint. “They’d probably think what every other person in this soddin’ town thinks, pet.” He leaned forward, whispering against her lips, “That I stole your innocence…,” he kissed her mouth again, moved up to her left ear, one hand drawing down her side, skimming her breasts before moving to her lower back, gently rubbing a circle before dropping down, “… I corrupted your youth…,” his hand cupped her buttocks, fingers pressing into her thin cotton pants as he lifted her slightly, forcing her onto her tiptoes, letting her feel how much he still wanted her, “… and ‘m gonna burn in hell for ever thinkin’ I was good enough to be with the pretty li’l likes of you.”
He swallowed a grin when she jerked back, swatting at him, and released her instantly, shrinking back in mock fear. “Oi! So violent, love! What would your mother say to that?”
“Do you really want to know the answer to that?” she challenged, arching a critical brow at him.
Mmm, chit had a good point. “Okay, so you win that one. Don’ think I won’ win the next round, though, love. Gonna owe me a prize when I do, too.”
“Oh yeah? And what do I get for winning just now, huh, Mr. Tough Guy?”
He gave her a slow, wide grin. “Baby, you can have whatever that sinful li’l heart ‘f yours desires t’night.” He stopped, sighing dramatically. “‘Course, thanks to your plannin’ this li’l surprise party ‘f mine, your winnin’s will have to wait ‘til a mite later.” He winked when she gasped and quickly hauled her in for another slow, languid kiss, refusing to allow her time to even think about denying his claim.
He drew back to place a hand against her flushed cheek; his other moving into her half-pinned blonde hair, releasing it from its confines so that he could comb his fingers through its lengthy, soft, silken strands. “Let’s get inside, yeah? Sooner this bleedin’ party’s over with, the sooner I can get to openin’ my real birthday presen’ upstairs.”
“Well… who said I was going to be your birthday present?” she dared with a glare, her trembling hands falling from his arms to her hips.
His grin widened. “You sayin’ you’re not, Goldilocks?” He lifted a brow, lightly fingering one wavy strand of her hair. “You sayin’ you’re not thinkin’ ‘f goin’ upstairs and havin’ your wicked, li’l way with me t’night?”
She frowned. “I hate it when you do that,” she huffed, feigning indignation. “You always sound so damn cocky and conceited.”
“Oi! ‘M not bloody conceited! ‘M confident. Big bloody difference between the two, believe me.”
She shook her head, rolling her eyes toward the roof of the front porch. “Sure, Spike. I believe you.”
“You should, you contrary li’l girl. ‘S the bloody truth, you know.”
She stuck her tongue out at him. “I am not contrary,” she denied with a narrow-eyed glower. “I’m confident. Big bloody difference in that.”
“Oh! Now you’re jus’ askin’ for it, li’l missy.”
“And what are you gonna do to me?” she questioned, smirking at him, skirting around his outstretched arms and backing up to discretely open the door behind her. “We’ve got company, remember?” And with that, she darted into the house, giving him no choice but to follow in her footsteps, praying the night would end quickly so that they could begin the real celebration upstairs.
Some celebration that was, Spike thought rolling over onto his back and thrusting a forearm over his eyes, blocking out the irritant patches of sunlight streaming in through the tiny cracks in the frilly, white lace, girly-girl bedroom curtains. The second they’d stepped foot in the house and into the party, everything seemed to go to hell, their happiness together most of all.
He should have gone upstairs the instant he noticed Lindsey standing next to Joyce and Rupert in the kitchen. But he’d been so distracted by Buffy’s playful antics that he’d just pushed his irritation over his bloody “friend’s” appearance to the side, choosin’ to deal with it later instead of right then.
Big mistake that. Should’ve dealt with it the first chance he had. Maybe then things wouldn’t have gone so horribly wrong for him and Buffy.
Bleeding Christ. How did things go so bad so fast? He’d never been able to figure that out. No matter how many times he had relived that night over in his head—and he’d done it more than a few times—, he’d never quite been able to determine the exact moment everything started to change. Whether it stemmed from when he first spotted Lindsey chatting up his in-laws or after he’d overheard him make those foul comments about Buffy later on. He just knew something switched, and not just in him.
The whole bloody party had been one catastrophe after another. Like all the sodding fates had decided to conspire against him, him and Buffy. Looking back on it now, Spike had to wonder if that wasn’t the bloody powers-that-be’s way of putting things back to rights, returning things to their natural order. It sure as hell bleeding felt like it.
Shaking his head, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and sat up, frowning at the familiar knick-knacks and pictures cluttering a shelf by the window. Most of the items he saw were mementos from Buffy’s college years, photographs of girlfriends he didn’t know, gifts from boyfriends he’d never even seen. She’d been a part of him so sodding long, and he had heard so many bleeding stories about her life from Rupert over the years, it was sometimes easy to forget they hadn’t been together physically in damn near a decade.
But he could remember it now. The loss, the pain, all the bloody emptiness inside. He’d not truly been happy since he before left her, since before she lost the baby and came apart in his arms. Those days were the hardest he’d ever had to live and he’d promised himself then, he’d never again bloody see that barren look of devastation in her eyes.
Yet he had, hadn’t he? He’d seen it many times since he’d walked out on her all those years ago. In his memories. In his nightmares. In every bleeding thing he ever said and did, it was there. Always, always there. Eating away at him, burning in his gut, his lungs…, his heart.
He’d never erase his guilt from that night. The pain of knowing he’d been the one to cause her so much grief, so much hurt. Oh, he’d done his share of blaming Lindsey in the past and yeah, Joyce, too. But his blame for them couldn’t touch the blame he had for himself. Because he knew, he bleeding knew, if he’d just bloody listened to her, to Buffy, if he’d just sodding walked away when she asked him to and let it go, everything, everything would be different.
But he hadn’t walked away and because of that, she and the baby had been the ones to pay the price for his sins. Not him. Not Lindsey. Not Joyce. But her, and… it, the baby, the child they’d never been able to truly know.
The knowledge cut him to the quick, it did. Made him regret ever deciding to come back to Sunnydale, to her and the life he’d left behind. Even though a part of him knew she needed him to return, to be there for her and help her get through this sodding mess, another part of him knew she needed him gone, away, out of her life and out of her heart.
Too bad he was too bloody selfish to actually do it. He needed her as much as she needed him and while it hurt him to admit it, even just to himself, he knew he couldn’t leave her. Not yet. Not… now.
Still, he owed her an apology. He wasn’t sure what he was apologizing for exactly, but it had to be for something he’d done. Or rather, something he’d failed to do. Maybe if he just asked her, just pleaded with her to tell him what she wanted him to do, he could do it. Get it over with and get them back to the way things were before he’d fucked it up by being a jealous, hypercritical idiot.
He didn’t really know how he felt about the possibility of her being pregnant with Lindsey’s child. It damn well hurt to know someone he despised had been with her that way, not only been with her but more than likely had managed to give her something Spike in his idiocy took away.
Yet at the same time, he knew she needed it. Needed someone to care for, to shower her with love and hope and all the things Spike had failed to give to her. If she wasn’t pregnant, he knew her well enough to know she’d be disappointed in it. No matter the father’s name, she would be the mother and she’d make a damn good one, despite the secret fears and apprehension he knew laid inside her head.
Rising to his feet, he made for the door, ignoring the warning inside his head that told him not to seek her out, not to force an issue that neither one of them were ready to tackle just yet.
Buffy heard the knock on her bedroom door and purposely ignored it, knowing she wasn’t ready to deal with Spike and his lame attempt to apologize for something he still had no idea he needed to apologize for. It’d be different if he actually understood what his inability to fight with her meant, but he didn’t, he didn’t have a clue about any of it and that, more than anything else, made her want to avoid him at all costs.
If he couldn’t bring himself to fight with her, there didn’t seem to be much hope for anything else between them. Not that she was, you know, thinking of there being anything else between them. She wasn’t. She so wasn’t. She just… wanted some closure is all. Wanted to put the past behind them and start fresh. As friends. Close friends. Close friends who also happened to be divorced spouses.
She frowned, dropped the shorts and tank top in her hands onto her bed, and carefully flopped down beside them.
Who the hell was she kidding? She didn’t want to be friends with Spike. She wanted it or them to be… different, more. She wanted… what they used to have, before everything got so messed up. Before she’d let her mother guilt her into letting him go, letting him divorce her and live his life so many miles away from the life they shared.
If she’d gone after him, maybe convinced him to come home and work things out, both their lives might have changed, been better. But she hadn’t done that, had she? Instead of fighting for what she wanted, what she needed, who she needed, she’d let go, let go but always, always looked back, wondering if she’d made the right choice, taken the right path.
What might’ve been played havoc with her dreams at night, made her do things, think things she never would have done otherwise. She had no doubt that was part of the reason she’d gone to bed with a womanizer like Lindsey. She’d been searching for a glimpse of the man Spike used to be, the guy that listened even as he stripped her of her clothes, the guy that comforted her even as he stalked her nerves and invaded her heart.
But Lindsey wasn’t a replacement for Spike. He’d only been a drunken distraction from the pain, from the loneliness and the fear of watching her strong-willed mother grow weak from cancer, from the knowledge that there wasn’t anything she, as a daughter, could do to stop it.
“Buffy? Luv? Can I… come in? Talk to you for… a minute or two?”
She frowned, glanced toward the door. She wanted to talk to him. She really did. She even knew they needed to talk, badly. But… she wasn’t ready yet. She so wasn’t ready yet. “I…” She stopped, knowing she couldn’t do it, knowing she couldn’t turn him away, not when she wanted to hear what he had to say to her, see the need in his eyes as he looked at her. “G-give me a second,” she whispered softly, pushing back to her feet. “I need to—”
The door opened, Spike’s head popped into view a second before his body followed it, his mouth falling open even as his eyes raked over her trembling frame. “Oh…” he paused, swallowed once and slowly, so slowly, looked up to meet her eyes, “…bollocks.”
Dazed by the sight of her nearly nude body—and sodding hell, wasn’t that a nice bit of illuminating, money-well-spent lingerie?—Spike nearly forgot how to breathe. Until she spoke from in front of him, that is, her sharp tongue holding every bit of scorn her hazel eyes lacked.
“Don’t you ever listen? I told you to give me a second!”
“Christ in hell, Buffy. I thought I heard you say come in!” He pivoted on his boot heels, shaking his head as he reached for the door jamb, trying to steady himself, to keep from turning around and yank her into his arms. “Should take more care to warn a bloke, pet. Speak a bit louder so he can understand you, yeah?”
He heard a faint chuckle behind him, frowned when he realized it had come from her. Sodding bint was laughing at him now, was she? He twisted around, arching one eyebrow as he stalked closer to where she stood at the side of the bed, the bed on which he’d had her back beneath him on only one brief day ago. “What’s so funny, love? You enjoyin’ drivin’ me round the bloody bend? That it?”
She shook her head, biting her lower lip to no doubt keep from laughing at him again. “N-no, Spike. I-I’m sorry. I thought you heard me say just a second.”
“Well, I bloody well didn’!”
“Obviously not.” She rolled her eyes, reaching for the red cropped tank behind her, yanking it down, over her head, across her breasts and torso. “What are you so bent out of shape about anyway? I’m the one being with the almost naked here, and it isn’t like you haven’t seen it all before,” she pointed out calmly.
Yeah, a long bloody-ass time ago. “Seven years, Buffy. I haven’ seen you in seven soddin’ years and you were just a li’l girl back then. Now you’re a woman. Got a woman’s curves to prove it,” he accused, frowning as his gaze once again fell to her bare legs.
“That still bothers you, doesn’t it?” she asked, the disappointment in her tone dragging his gaze back to her face. “That I was so young when we were together, when we got married?”
He lifted his shoulder, knowing better than to lie but not nearly brave enough to tell her the truth. “It is what it is, pet. I came to terms with it.” For the most part. “Doesn’ mean I don’ still feel like a dirty old man standin’ here next to you, ‘f course.”
“You could always turn around again, if it makes you so uncomfortable.”
Christ, but she was a saucy little chit, wasn’t she? Least that much hadn’t changed in their time apart.
“What’s the matter, Spike?” she taunted. “Can’t you do it? Can’t you look away? Can’t you fight the temptation to ogle me?”
He blinked, narrowing his eyes on her face. “Buffy,” he warned, fisting his hands to keep from reaching for her, to keep from proving her right, proving him right. “You’re already playin’ with fire here, pet. Do you really want to go ‘round fannin’ the flames jus’ now?” With me.
“Maybe I do,” she responded boldly, reaching out to flick her fingernail along his chest. “Maybe I want to see how far I can push you.”
“Keep doin’ what you’re doin’, love, and I guarantee you’re gonna bloody well find out.” He smiled devilishly at her then, letting her know he meant what he said, and reached out to trail a single finger up her arm, relishing in the shiver her body gave to him in response. “What do you think, Buffy? Want to play a li’l game with me? See which one of us will cave in firs’?”
She shook her head, taking a quick step back, her chin lifting in defiance even as a spot of doubt lit her eyes. “No games needed, Spike. We already know which one of us would cave first… you.”
He chuckled at her certainty, pursing his lips in consideration. “Think so, love? ‘M not so bloody sure ‘bout that anymore.” He tipped his head a bit, looking her up and down. “Seems to me, you’re the one that keeps fightin’ things now, love. I’m the one standin’ still, yeah?”
“I so am not fighting anything, Spike.”
Then what did she call it? Giving in without admittance? He shook his head. “Don’ fool yourself, kitten. You’ve been runnin’ from me, ignorin’ me, since our li’l tiff mornin’. Worried I might make you feel somethin’ you don’ wanna feel jus’ yet, I ‘magine.”
“That’s a lie! I was ignoring you because… ugh, you make me so damn crazy all the time!”
Crazy, was it? Well, crazy he could do. “Why is that, pet? Why am I makin’ you so bleedin’ nuts all ‘f the sudden? ‘S been seven years, Buffy. Not like you’re still in love with me, right?”
She blinked, looking away. “You know why, Spike.”
“Say I don’. Say I need you to explain it to me.” He waited until she met his eyes again then quietly asked, “What would you say, Buffy? What would you tell me?”
She frowned, glaring at him. “I’d say you need to ask someone else. I shouldn’t have to be the one to tell you things all the time.”
He nodded, biting the insides of both cheeks, hard. “Right, well then, guess there’s nothing much left for us to say to each other, is there?” He turned to leave; she stopped him with a firm, warm hand on his forearm. He closed his eyes at the feel of her fingers against his skin, opening them again to refocus on hers. “Shouldn’ bloody do that, love.”
“Do what?” she asked daringly, not removing her hand. “Stop you from walking out on me again?”
Bloody hell. Would she ever let that sodding mistake go? And more to the point, would he ever stop bleeding making it in the first place?
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