Chapter 28, Part 2: Now
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Of all the things Buffy imagined they might do together in this sordid affair, giggling like BFFs in on a private joke never once made the cut.
But that's what they kept doing. It was only when their eyes met, and it didn't last long, but it was totally inevitable, every single time.
They hadn't talked much, partly because she was still recovering from the neverending powergasm, but also because neverending powergasms, it turned out, made her ravenous -- and with a snap of his fingers there was a smorgasbord of tasty delights to sample. Factor in the natural high, with her senses extra amped, and each new bite became THE Best Thing She'd Ever Eaten. Plus, sidebar? She was fighting an obscenely strong urge to fasten her naked body to his for the rest of her life. Public appearances might pose a challenge, but they could work around that...
On his stomach beside her, considering a strawberry, Spike sent her another sidelong glance, she sent one his way, and it happened again. The giggling. The absurdity of it made them laugh more.
"What?" Buffy finally asked aloud.
"Nothing!" As if he were some kind of innocent bystander.
She accused him with a calamari ring. "You."
He shook his head, beatific. "You."
"God," Buffy said, cheeks warm, and focused on the taste of calamari.
"Yes?"
She smirked at him. "You were all Shy Guy an hour ago. Now you're The Almighty?"
He twisted to his side to face her. "You make me feel a lot of things, Buffy."
She loved the way he said her name. He didn't say it, he breathed it. Made it sound like the prettiest name in the world; like it was sophisticated and exotic -- not like it was weird and dated and rhymed with 'fluffy'.
He gently brushed her hair off of her neck. "An' that was two hours ago."
"It was not." She checked her watch. So it was. "Oh. That was... so... long."
"Thank you."
She shoved him. He held her hand to his heart and flopped onto his back with a big ole' satisfied sigh.
"Hello, protein? Variety?" Buffy wiggled a cluster of fried tentacles over his face. "A man can't survive on après-sex fruit alone." She leaned in to add, "Don't make me the only one with squid mouth."
He bit it out of her hand and gobbled it up.
"Good boy." In her periphery, she noticed that those words, and the way she was petting his chest, had an interesting effect. On his penis.
Still chewing, he gave her a naughty look.
"Down, boy," she chastised his stirring loins. "Act your age."
Spike put an arm behind his head, nearly upending the fruit platter. "He's emotionally stunted, I'm afraid."
She moved the platter away from him. Placed an errant bunch of grapes on his navel, making his skin quiver, and put two cold apple slices on each nipple as she said, "How do you keep it up so long? And then all over again?"
"Astounding, i'n'it?" He waggled a brow. "I can go a whole day if I want."
"Thank you for having mercy on me." Adhering to his side, she draped one bent leg over his thighs, grabbed two grapes from his navel and popped one in her mouth, one in his. "Come on. You can tell me. What's your secret?"
"I don't take anything, if that's what you're implying."
"Actually, I thought it might be Tantric."
He smiled and confided in a whisper, "I could be a yogi, all the tricks I know."
She bit her smiling lip. "Will you teach me some?"
"You're a bit of a natural, pet." He combed a hand through her hair, breathed in. "But yeah, I'll teach you. One condition."
"What's that?"
"You only do it with me." Their eyes met, and she saw how serious he was. Of course, he couldn't know that she wasn't having sex with Lindsey. She'd never told him.
She tried to get it across when she said, just as seriously, "It's a deal."
He squinted at her, reading her eyes. "Yeah?"
She nodded. "Only with you."
They kissed, ardently, again -- and she rubbed her inner thigh on his erection and got achy again -- until she noticed that the sun's nightly show had begun.
"God, look at the sky from up here," she sighed. "This view makes me sick, it's so sexy."
"It's yours whenever you want it." Spike picked one apple slice off of his body, gave it a munch and held the other to her lips. "Nice and ripe."
He must have known what he did there. "Tempt me twice, shame on me."
Finishing it himself, Spike said, "I mean it. Keep the key, come and go as you like."
"Shush." Buffy didn't want to think Future thoughts. She wanted to think Here and Now thoughts. "Sunset."
"Oh. What's it saying?"
She smacked his chest, another giggle escaping. "'Pay attention'. That's what it's saying."
"Where are you going?" He tried to hold onto her as she climbed over him.
"Front row." She sat on the chaise at the wall o' windows, stretched her still-trembly hamstrings, bringing one straight leg to her face, then the other, then bowed back for her quads, then forward into hero pose for a couple of Virasana arm stretches. When she finished, Spike was still on the bed, cheek propped on his hand, watching her with dewy afterglow eyes. She hadn't meant to give him a sexy naked yoga demo, but that was clearly how he interpreted it. "Aren't you gonna sit with me?"
He smiled to himself, got off the bed, sauntered over and sat aslouch, one leg on each side of the chaise.
"Look at the sunset, dummy, not me."
With a pout, he said, "But you look so lovely bathed in orange smoglight."
"Whatever, Scrooge McPratt."
"That's what all that hazy orange is, you know." Nosing closer, he teased her like a little boy coming at her with a creepy crawly, "Bad, evil pollution."
"Evil or not, it's beautiful. Look at it."
Quieted, he kissed her shoulder, put an arm around her, and followed her gaze.
The sun sank out of sight and the sky looked like a painting: brilliant yellows, oranges and reds at the horizon, merging with shades of purple that darkened into a deep indigo blue.
"Come to Catalina with me," he whispered at her ear.
"Huh?"
"Got a sailboat at the Del Rey harbor. You and me, sunset on the water? Any weekend you want, or just for a day, we could..."
Brow furrowing, Buffy shut her eyes. Excursions meant excuses which meant lying in the faces of people she didn't want to think about and...
He stiffened, let her go. "Bad idea. You're right. Forget it."
"No, no," she assured him, squeezing his knee. "It sounds great. Really. Really really... but--"
He nodded, squinting out the window. "Too fast."
"I'm still getting used to this wild 'hotel room' idea."
"Yeah. I just... When you're around, I--"
She touched a finger to his lips, ran her nails down his naked torso and murmured, "Cinnamon and roses fall to the ground?"
His eyes smiled at her. "Like that, yeah."
"I wish I didn't have to feel so guilty," she whispered. "But I do. Don't you? Just a little?"
"A little," he admitted, transfixed by her wedding ring as he rubbed it side to side. "I know I've betrayed him, more ways than one. I know he'll hate me 'til the day I die, and rightly so. But you're not his, and you never were." He raised his gaze to hers. "You're mine. And I'm yours."
She stared into that searing blue gaze of absolute conviction, of intense adoration, of possession and surrender, knowing that there were things she should have said in response. She should have tried to prove him wrong, prove herself independent, prove that he was being an impractical romantic... but he'd taken her breath away.
"Come wash off with me before you go."
In a trance, she took his hand and followed him to the bathroom.
* * *
Well, if she thought seeing Spike again would make her blushy grin go away, or that leaving him would make the random giggles stop, she was oh so mistaken.
He'd taken a car from the hotel and dropped her off, whispering in her ear before he let her out, "I can't wait to make you gush like that again."
That led to a whole new giggle/blush/grin rotation through the lobby, up the elevator and down the long hallway to her apartment door.
The gush happened in the shower. There was a perfectly placed bar she could grasp onto while jets sprayed her with mist and he stood behind her, cock pulsing in her oiled rectum, middle finger massaging her g-spot, her legs butterflied around his back.
Breathe with me. Hold it. Stay. Don't let go just yet.
Then, he held her close and pumped his finger just so, and when he pulled his hand away? An uncontrollable cascade of come, spurting out of her in a way she'd never seen or felt or even knew was possible.
Ohhhhhhhhhoh my GOD! Ohhhhhhhhhoh oh oh my--
"Buffy."
Husband? Home? Before her? What? "Hi."
"Where've you been?"
"Gym," she said, showing him her bag and hanging it on the coat rack. "Power yoga."
"Oh. Didn't get my message, huh?"
"No." Mouth suddenly dry, she swallowed, took off her jacket, hung that up. "What'd it say?"
"Well, the first part said I'm sorry."
She looked down at her shoes and, mechanically, stepped out of them.
"You should probably listen to it." Lindsey put his hands in his pockets. "But yeah, that was the gist..."
Rubbing her lips together, she shifted. "Okay. And the second part?"
"We won. The case." That's when she noticed the candlelight, the dinner settings, the champagne. "I won."
"Oh. Wow." She breathed in. "Congratulations. That's... I'm proud of you."
"Look, I know what I did was unforgiveable..."
"Don't," she said, fast and harsh. Please don't be good to me again.
"Don't what? Don't apologize? What do you want me to--" He stopped short when he saw what was on her wrist.
Oh. Shit. Shit shit shit.
"Why are you wearing that?"
"This?" Buffy covered it, shrugged. What was she thinking, putting it on again? Some silent way of telling Spike that he was right? They needed better modes of communication. "I don't know. I needed a watch, it was there, it went with my shoes?" She unclasped it. "If it bothers you, I--"
"I thought it bothered you."
"I..." She was too exhausted for this. And too conflicted. "It's just an object, Lindsey. That's all."
He reeled himself in. "I don't want to fight, babe. I'm trying to patch things up, here."
"Well, you're... doing a really bad job."
Exhaling a laugh, he scratched his head and said, "I noticed. Can we start over?"
With a sigh, she ambled to the couch. Though her body was busy singing the praises of Spike, she still loved Lindsey, and here he was, desperately trying to reach out to her. She owed him a conversation, at the very least. "There's nothing to patch. I understand. I should be apologizing. I forced a confession out of you, and I'm sorry. You don't have to share everything with me."
"But I want to." He sat next to her. "I want to be the kind of guy who can."
She gave him a tight smile. "Things are hard enough right now. Don't stress yourself."
"I'm scared, Buffy. I'm petrified of becoming my father."
"That will never, ever happen." She fixed her gaze on his knees. "You're not him. You're in control of who you become, and I know that's not what you want. You're your own man."
"I know that," he said. "And that's why I'm dropping the case."
She looked into his eyes for the first time that night. "You are?"
"I don't like what it's doing to me," he said, and averted his gaze. "What it's doing to us. It's tearing us apart."
He took her left hand in his, touched her wedding ring. Just the way Spike had earlier that night.
"There's something I gotta tell you." He inhaled shakily, breathed out. Kept touching her ring. "You are the best thing that ever happened to me."
Her eyes fell shut. It was so much easier when he was being distant.
"I don't want to lose you... I can't. But I wouldn't blame you for..." He trailed off, and she felt for him. Thinking that he'd done something so awful to her, when in comparison, it was nothing.
She could say it. She could say it right now. She could say it, and he would be hurt, and it would be over, and things would be hard for a while, but the pain of being duplicitous would end. All she had to do was open her mouth, and--
"I slept with Lilah."
Buffy closed her mouth.
"I didn't want to. I don't want her. I want you, but the other night, I just..." Lindsey rubbed a hand down his face. "I lost it. She was taunting me, and... And you were so far away from me -- and I know I did that, I pushed you away, and you should hate me for sleeping with her, for laying a hand on you -- you should kick me the fuck out of your life forever, I should pay for what I did, I know it, but..." Tears sprang to his eyes. "I need you so much right now. Please, Buffy..."
She stared at him, trying to make sense of everything he'd just said.
"I need your help," he sobbed, begging her.
Compelled by feelings she couldn't quite name, Buffy brought his head to her shoulder and pet him softly. "Shhh."
* * *
After Lindsey was asleep, Buffy went out to the balcony to make a call.
"So soon? I am good. ...Or not good enough." Not getting an immediate reply, Spike got serious. "Everything okay?"
Smiling at the moon, Buffy took a deep breath. "Let's do it."
"Bloody right let's do it!" Another pause. "What are we--"
"Catalina. Sunset sail. Let's do it. And whatever else you want."
"Hang on. Yeah, I'm awake. What changed your mind?"
"Isn't it enough that I'm ready and willing?"
"Absolutely it is. Saturday morning, ten o'clock. That work for you?"
"Perfectly."
"Now, tell me," he said, as if he were about to ask a very important question. "Have you got a pink bikini? A little one with the slidey triangle tops?"
She grinned, blushed. "No. It's more of a multicolored halter thing--"
"Expect a package tomorrow. Wear it underneath."
Yes, sir, Dominant Power Guy. Yes. Sir. "Okay."
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