Buffy paced across her moonlit room, carpet matting beneath her toes.

"Not gonna happen," she muttered for the umpteenth time, and stopped in her tracks. She resolutely lifted her chin. "'I changed my mind, Spike. We can't do this. Go home.'" She folded her arms and tried again. "'Go. Home.'"

Catching a glimpse of herself in her full-length mirror, Buffy realized, "Probably more convincing with clothes on."

Hurrying to her bureau, she rummaged through the drawers for something... Spike-proof. A Spike deterrent. Well, it was worth a try, anyway.

A swatch of maroon caught her eye. Sunnydale High sweats: old and worn, and a few seasons past spring fresh. They would have to do.

As she dug out the matching shirt, the prickly hairs on the back of her neck alerted her to an undead presence.

Damn, she thought. Actually, it sounded more like Yes! -- but who was listening?

She turned, expecting to see him at the window, and found his face just inches from hers.

Buffy's breath snagged in her throat. She tried to make her mouth work, make the sounds come out, but he was staring her down with those stupid, penetrating... sexy... No. Her brain looped a frantic plea to force him away, but her nerve endings kept insisting on singing an electric rejoice.

As he watched the conflict shine through her eyes, Spike reached out to caress her cheek, then traced a path down her body that stopped at the clothing she held in her hand.

"You won't be needing these," he said, easily divesting her of her armor and setting it back in the open drawer behind her. His nose lightly grazed hers, and as always, a palpable hum of an aura surged between them even before their lips connected.

Oh god oh god oh god... Mewling helplessly, Buffy gave in. Just one kiss, one last kiss, and then she'd tell him to go.

He groaned into her mouth. Four days he'd been without this, and that was four days too bloody long.

Calloused fingers swept down her spine and rested on the lower curve of her bottom to pull her closer, pick her up; maneuver her to a soft place.

Buffy resisted, her back hitting the bureau.

He shot an arm out to steady the wobbling dresser before it made a sound. "If it's more foreplay you're looking for, we can take this outside," he whispered, free hand leisurely combing through her hair. "Unless you want little sis to come knocking, askin' what all the racket's about."

Buffy quivered. Later. She'd tell him to go later.

"Reflex," she explained, her delicate fingers linking at the nape of his neck to guide his curtly smiling mouth back to hers.

When he took her in his arms again, she let him carry her to her bed.

Their tongues softly teasing, she felt her head connect with a pillow... and the contrast between this and their previous tryst struck her. This wasn't fierce or bruising -- this was a subtle, mounting whisper of a thing that ached with an entirely different kind of need.

The kind of need, he noticed, that had sod-all to do with 'convenience'.

Spike resurfaced to shed his jacket and t-shirt, then his boots, which weren't laced properly anyway, and finally, his jeans, with her assistance.

Fingers moving over the supple planes of her body, he kneeled at her side and effused, "God, you're magnificent."

She tremored at his words... or was it his touch? Both worked simultaneously to shut down all pretenses of will, logic... motor function...

Hands continuing to coast across her shivering form, he lowered his head to let his soft lips tickle her skin, his tongue occasionally darting out to remind her of everything he could do with it.

When he fluttered past her hipbone for the second time, she thrashed forward and clutched his head. "Oh god! Stop it!"

"Stop... what?" he rasped, almost innocently.

"The foreplay -- the phonecall... enough... Please!"

Smiling, he lay beside her, lazily trailing his fingers up and down her goosebumped torso. "What do you want, exactly?"

She captured his roaming hand, then answered shakily, "You. I-I want you."

Spike was surprised by her candor and willingness to say those words. But mostly he was impressed by how much she seemed not to hate herself for it.

He grinned cockily. "You want me to what?"

"Stop teasing me!" she begged, hating that he was able to render her helpless like this. "Just do what you came here to do!"

He chuckled. "What did I come here for, love?"

To get beat down? Buffy wanted to retort. But she had to play by his rules, or the game was over. "To make..." No, that wouldn't work. "To have..."

"To make to have? You'll have to be more specific than that."

She glared at him. "To fuck me."

"That's not what I came here for," he said with a shrug, and started to get up.

With a whimper, she caught his bicep, pulling him back to her. "The other thing."

He smirked at her. "What other thing?"

"The... the thing. The... m-making. Of stuff."

"'The making of stuff,'" Spike repeated scornfully, though he didn't really mind the way she was tracing little circles around his nipples. "Nice try."

"God, it's just a euphemism anyway!"

He shook his head in disappointment as he eased himself over her. "You'll say it."

"I won't," she swore, then dared, "You say it."

Easy for me to say. "I came here..." he murmured into one ear, then moved to the other, "to make love to you."

At once, her entire body responded -- eyes rolling back, chin jutting upward, back arching, arms and legs constricting around him.

Well. This was new. Maybe she wasn't in love with him just yet, but she sure as hell didn't mind hearing about his love for her.

Taking advantage of this new insight, he closed a hand around his cock, guided its tip to the apex of her inner thighs and said, "Not fucking, not having sex, not shagging your bloody brains out. This is making love."

Buffy shook in his arms. The anticipation of being filled with him, she told herself.

"God, the way you tremble when I..." He exhaled a shiver as he slipped into her. And just like the first night, a single thought gripped him: this was where he wanted to stay, forever.

"Mmmn," she purred, the same desire fleeting through her mind, despite her better judgment.

Slowly, Spike began to pump, resting his weight on one fully extended arm, deliberately keeping himself at a shallow depth. Tonight, he would show her that a good 'rough and tumble' wasn't his only purpose.

Emitting a desperate whimper, she bucked upwards to take him in all the way.

He stayed her hip, reminding her, "Nice... and slow."

With each subsequent thrust, he slid in just a little more, promising, "Gonna make soft, slow, hot, blinding love to you, all... night... long."

She cooed mindlessly.

"You like that, baby?"

Eyes closed, she nodded, biting her lower lip.

"Look at me, Buffy," he said, moving faster.

She obeyed. His thumb brushed against her lips, and she captured it between her teeth.

It made him quiver, his jaw clench. "Drive me crazy, you know that?"

"No, you," she slurred, her tongue flickering against his thumb.

He took a chance. "Say it."

She swallowed, hard. No fair.

He saw the fight flash in her eyes, but then...

...then she whispered it -- a little defiantly, but clear as water: "Make love to me."

With a satisfied smile, he thrust his weight forward, deftly catching her inevitable cry in his palm.

"Buffy," he choked, and released his hold over her mouth.

"Spike," she breathed, wrapping her arms around him and pulling him into her, wanting him closer than he could possibly get.

"You know I can't stay away," he whispered feverishly. "Can't stay away from you..."

Her reply was muffled into his shoulder, but it sounded an awful lot like, "So don't."

"God, Buffy..." He kissed her neck, her ear, her mouth...

And she wouldn't let him go.

They writhed together, legs and arms and tongues intertwined.

As the bed began to squeak in time with their increasingly urgent pace, he proclaimed through grit teeth, "Mine, you're mine..."

Her body began to shake uncontrollably and her mouth began to spill: "Spike, yes, yes, yes, please, please, yes..."

Feeling her glorious internal muscles tightening around his shaft, he muttered, "My Buffy... My Slayer... so bloody... gorgeous... beautiful little bitch, love you!"

With a silent scream shaping her lips, she came, digging her fingernails into his back and unwittingly spurring on Spike's tethered beast of a climax.

Gasping and spent, he rested his forehead on her collarbone while she hissed a series of awed and exhausted post-orgasmic obscenities.

Spike loved that he was the cause of that, yet again.

After several minutes of idly stroking his hair, she said, "You know you're not leaving, right?"

He lifted his head, still dazed. "Wha?"

"You're not going anywhere," she resolved for him.

"I'm not?"

"No," she whispered, then caught the glimmer in his eye. "Don't get excited. I'm just saying. You did say 'all night long', and it's not even three o'clock yet, so, you're not allowed to just get up and leave."

He smirked, then rested his jaw in his hand before asking, "When am I allowed to leave?"

"Well. Tomorrow. You know," she said matter-of-factly. "When the light of day makes me wanna throw you out again."

He laughed. At least she was getting to know her own Jeckyll & Hyde-like tendencies.

"Deal?" she asked, tracing a nail around his ear.

"Deal. But only if you show me that thing."

"What thing? You mean this?" She opened her mouth, then flattened her tongue to set it into a rolling motion.

"How the--" Spike stuck his finger inside her mouth, then tried to move his own tongue the same way. "How the hell do you do that?"

"Must be magic," she teased with a shrug.

"Black magic, more like. That thing's the devil's work."

"Nuh-uh!" she objected playfully. "It's a superhero thing."

"Yeah, because it's so bloody imperative to be able to lick your enemies well."

She snorted. "Didn't hear you complaining."

He lifted a brow and offered, "It did bring me to my knees."

"See? Superhero technique."

He moved in close to murmur possessively, "Not gonna use it on any other enemies, are you?"

She smiled. "I think I'd have to get to know 'em a little first."

He pulled her flush against him in one swift motion. "Lucky I get to kill 'em before you have the chance."

"Aw..." she goaded, "But what if they're really hot?"

Growling, he clasped his human teeth over her neck and dipped a hand between her legs.

She shuddered and moaned, and took it all back. "You... hot... You... hottest of all hot -- hot--"

"And that thing with your tongue?"

"For you... only..." she shivered. "Only you."

He teased a finger in her most receptive spot. The place that with one nuanced touch, he could get her to say just about anything he wanted. "Because it's...?"

"Yours," she finished. "Yours. It's yours."

He took his hand away and grinned at her.

She shoved him. "Bastard."

"What'd I do?"

"That thing," she answered sorely.

"What thing?"

"That thing you do. With your hand."

"What? This thing?"

"Unh! Yesss! That thing!"

"But you like that thing..."

"No!" Her head lolled back and she corrected, "Love that thing."

THE END