His Childe

Chapter 39 - Seeing Red (1)

Spike followed Buffy down the steps into the three idiots’ lair, grinning at the way she had kicked the door open. Said door was now reduced to remains the sizes of matches. Ok, maybe that was an exaggeration, but she was bloody good at that game. Of course, it rather helped that she was really pissed off. He pitied the nerds when she found them. Even in his worst days, he had rarely made her that mad.

He observed her as she walked around the basement. God, she was gorgeous when she was angry. The rest of the time too, naturally, but the way her eyes gleamed with gold… Just bleedin’ gorgeous, there was no other word.

Oddly enough, he wasn’t angry as she was. Amused, rather. Annoyed too, but mostly amused. So what if the Scoobies had caught a free show? It wasn’t like any of them didn’t know. No, it was just amusing the way they avoided his gaze or blushed or stammered as they looked at him and the Slayer. Except for Anya. The ex-demon had seemed more interested in making sure they had cleaned the shop than in pretending to be prudish. Annoying on the other hand was what they could have seen. Buffy biting him. Buffy in game face. Again, Spike didn’t care about the Scoobies, they knew that she was a vampire now and they certainly weren’t going to tell anyone. But the three wankers might have discovered that. According to her friends, Buffy’s face had been mostly hidden and they didn’t see her vamp out. Still, the possibility had existed.

And yet, it was no more than annoying to him. He felt ready to take on the world to protect her. That she was perfectly able to protect herself changed nothing about it. Unlife was just getting better each day, so how could he be angry? Absently, he fingered the two small and puckered wounds on his wrist. One less thing to think and brood about, on a list that was becoming shorter every day it seemed. Not that he brooded about it, of course, he left that to Peaches.

Returning to the present, he surveyed the basement with his eyes and ears.

“It’s useless, luv. They’re gone.”

Buffy muttered a curse, and he half smiled at hearing the familiar expression in her mouth.

“Let’s just grab whatever they left behind,” she proposed, gesturing at a pile of papers and books. “Maybe that will help us find them.”

Nodding, Spike gathered all he could hold. From the corner of his eye, he saw Buffy tilt a white board. He raised his eyes toward her, reading the short message at the same time as he heard the buzzing sound.

Too late.

“Slayer! Duck!”

For once in her life – or unlife – she listened to him without asking questions first, and narrowly avoided the huge buzz saw that sliced the board in front of her. He heard more buzzing sounds, coming from different directions.

“Let’s get out of here!” she shouted as she ran past him, grabbing a handful of papers and CDs as she did.

They had to slalom, jump and dive to avoid being cut in slices, but they finally made it out without damage. Or rather, almost without damage. Her eyes narrowed as she looked down at her jacket, which had been neatly sliced in the front. He didn’t smell blood, so she was untouched, but the jacket was completely ruined. And he had thought she couldn’t get any angrier…

“Okay,” she said very low, her eyes flashing gold furiously. “Now that's gonna cost them.”

Buffy woke to find Spike sitting across her legs, massaging her back with long and insistent motions. She purred in her pillow as the tension was eased from her body by his skillful hands. Very skillful hands. Hands that could fight or stroke with the same intensity. They had done both, the night before. They would do both again many times if she had her word to say about it.

As he noticed that she was now awake, his touch changed, becoming more caress than massage, tracing elaborate patterns on her skin that set all her nerves on fire. His fingers traveled on her, running along the sides of her breasts, then gliding down the curve of her back and across her ass, finally sliding between her slightly parted thighs. He let out a soft murmur of appreciation at finding her ready for him, and softly nudged her legs farther apart. Agonizingly slow, he pushed until he was buried inside her. His chest pressed against her back, his tongue brushing against the marks on her neck. Her whole body tingled at the touch and she unconsciously raised her hips, eliciting a quiet moan against her skin.

He rolled them so that they were now lying on their sides. His arm wrapped around her waist, his fingers returning to their sensual exploration of her skin as he moved inside her in a lazy rhythm. She clutched his hand, leading it to her breast, her nipples begging to be touched. He obliged, caressing and teasing until the pebbles were hard against his palm. Then his hand slid across her stomach, and as his fingers found the other part of her that was begging for attention, she couldn’t help but marvel at how well he knew her body. He flicked and twisted her clit in time with his thrusting, his pace now increasing. Buffy felt an unexpected fang graze her shoulder, and she quaked with the sweet release as Spike held her tighter against him, his own body quivering inside and around her. They remained in the same spooned position, quietly enjoying the feel of each other.

After a while, Buffy laced his fingers with hers, bringing them to her mouth. As she traced each digit with slow licks and kisses, she noticed the marks on his wrist. An involuntary growl escaped her throat. Spike rose on his elbow so he could see what she was protesting about, and kissed the side of her face tenderly.

“Mine,” she said softly, her eyes running over the healed punctures.

“Yours,” he agreed.

She brought his hand higher, nipping at the scars with blunt teeth as if trying to erase them, and a low rumble rose from his chest. Thoughtlessly, she shifted to game face and bit his wrist, covering the offending marks with her own.

“Always yours,” he purred into her hair.

Willow raised her eyes from her computer screen toward the two vampires entering the living room. She felt her cheeks grow hot, and scolded herself mentally. They were the ones who should be blushing, not her! Casting a quick glance at Tara next to her, she noted that she wasn’t the only one still embarrassed by the events of the previous day. Her eyes scanned the room, finding that Xander’s face was slightly flushed. Dawn was munching from a box of cereal, a satisfied grin on her lips as she watched her sister and Spike come closer. Anya was oblivious, concentrated on a heavy spell book, inside which, Willow had noticed, she had slipped the latest pictures from her honeymoon.

“Hey guys,” Buffy said cheerfully. “We're here! Ready for action…uh, bad guy fighting action.”

If vampires could blush, Buffy would probably be crimson by now. Spike, on the other hand, was a picture of smugness.

Buffy gestured to the piles of papers, books and CDs on the coffee table.

“Any luck with that mess? I tried to look at it last night but couldn’t find anything useful.”

“Not much progress,” Willow answered with an apologetic smile. “But we’re getting there. We’ll find what they plan and where they hide.”

Buffy nodded, her face suddenly becoming somber as she looked at the Scoobies around the room.

“Guys, I’m sorry to ruin your Sunday with research. I’m sure all of you would have better things to do…”

Again, Willow felt herself blush. This had not been how she had planed to spend her first day with Tara back into her life. Oh well… They would have all the time in the world once the geeks ceased to be a problem.

“Come on Buffster,” Xander quipped, “what could be better than digging through moldy books and Klingon love poems to find the evil trio and kick their sorry asses?”

By the heavy silence that followed, all of them could think of something better to do. Trying to return her mind to the task at hand, Willow reminded herself to ask Xander later since when he could read Klingon well enough to identify love poems…

Buffy kneeled by the coffee table, picking up a pile of papers and starting to run through them. Spike on the other hand was slipping his duster on, apparently getting ready to go out.

“Uh, Spike,” Dawn said worriedly, “it’s kinda sunny out there, you know.”

He came to her, smirking, and ruffled her hair playfully.

“I noticed, Nibblet. Don’t worry for me, I do that all the time.”

Coming from a man whose face was a mass of bluish bruises, the comment wasn’t half as convincing as it would have been otherwise. He cast an amused glance to them all, before declaring:

“You kids have fun with your books. I’ll go hit the demons bars and see if I can find any rumors.”

He bend to kiss Buffy as she looked up at him, and Willow wondered, annoyed, when she would ever be able to look at them together without starting to blush.

“Don’t wait for me for patrol,” he whispered to the Slayer. “’Have a couple of things I want to do tonight.”

“You mean you let me patrol without you?” Buffy said in mock surprise.

He certainly had been very protective of her since he had turned her, Willow told herself thoughtfully. Then she realized, it had started long before that.

“Just this time, pet. And be careful.”

With a last kiss, the vampire was striding out, protecting himself of the sun with a blanket. Willow noticed that Buffy’s eyes had followed him out, and the Slayer gave a small sigh as the door closed behind him.

“We’ll find them,” Willow said quietly. “It will take time, but we will find them.”

He friend gave her a thankful smile, and they returned to their research.

Walking through her third cemetery of the evening, all her senses focused on finding vamps to dust, Buffy couldn’t help but wonder where Spike was. She had gotten used to having him around on patrol, even if most of the time he did nothing but watch her fight. She missed him, his quips as well as his comforting presence. She had missed him all day long, as she and her friends went meticulously through the seemingly endless pile of evidence salvaged from the nerds’ lair. Dimly, she wondered whether Spike had had any more luck finding useful information. She couldn’t wait to find the three idiots, but at the same time she wasn’t sure what she would do then. Fight them? They were humans, and as annoying as they were, she had no right to kill them. Give them to the police? For what crimes? There was no evidence that they had been behind the bank robbery or the diamond’s disappearance. They had turned her invisible, but who would believe that? They were behind that young woman’s death, she was sure of it, but again she had no evidence. They had spied on her and her friends, but now their system had been torn down by Willow’s care. What would they invent next to make her unlife miserable?

Her Slayer sense tingled and she spotted a vampire, a few yards away. As quietly as she could, she approached him, intent on dusting him before he knew what was happening. However, he noticed her and evaded her stake, launching a few quick blows at her. After the training she had had the night before, this was nothing. Easily, she avoided all the hits, and plunged her stake toward the vamp’s chest, already grinning in self-satisfaction. Yet, before he turned to dust, he managed to finally touch her, kicking her hard and sending her flying into the nearest headstone. She grunted at the impact, which had been violent enough to break the stone in two. Grimacing, she got back to her feet, her hand reaching to her sore back, suddenly glad Spike wasn’t there. He would have been pretty upset at seeing that, and she was sure she would have heard about it for days. Trying her best not to limp, Buffy made her way out of the cemetery and toward home.