Title: Ogden Nash Blues
Author: Anne Hedonia
Email: annehedonia@comcast.net
Show: Angel
Rating: NC-17
Category: Alternate Universe, Challenge, Drama, First Time, Humor, Romance
Warnings: het
Characters: Spike, Tara
Pairings: Spike/Tara
Summary: Written for the Spara Ficathon community on LiveJournal - my
challenge
requirements were kitten poker and humor. Spike has a gambling problem. It's
not what you think.

Story Notes: Only NC-17 at the end. Timeline: Season 6-ish, some time in the
area of "Older and Far Away/As You Were." Resides mostly in AU!Land
Disclaimer: Me no own.
Author's Website: http://annehedonia.populli.net

This story is also available on the web at:
http://archive.shriftweb.org/archive/29/ogdennash.html


Part 3

His mind's eye tortured him with images of how he must have looked
before he'd left, a situation that was keeping his chest filled with
hyperactive bees. Zero self-esteem much?  Dear God, he'd been a
mopey, pathetic wretch. He'd done a fucking Morrissey impression.
He'd acted like Sylvia bloody Plath without her meds.

But for Chrissakes, that look she'd given him - so much more than he
could ever have hoped for, and her a bloody *dyke* and all - how
could he have seen that coming? Well, yeah, he'd sensed a thing or
two between them, once or twice, but hello? DYKE?  He wasn't supposed
to depend on those little moments! He was supposed to chalk them up
as anomalies and go back to keeping it in his pants. And then the
sting of her practically taking it all *back* in the next look...it
was a wonder he hadn't had a bloody stroke, dead or not. The moment
had taken something...glorious, dumped it squarely into his lap then
snatched it away, all in a hummingbird's heartbeat. It was more than
a bloke should be expected to stand. Little wonder he'd felt so at
sea, lost confidence so fast.

Although, he considered, flailing frantically for a positive thought,
he wouldn't take back what he said about her.  Thriving, that is.
With him or without him, with or without *anyone*...he'd seen how
she'd handled Red. He liked how she handled him.  He grinned at all
the *other* ways he'd like to have her handle him.  He chuckled -
seemed a mite sacrilegious thinking things like that about Tara, but
then...she was a woman like any other, wasn't she? Hell...just the
thought of her as a "woman" made him so hot he shuddered
outright.

She was firm yet gentle, strong yet bending.  Never losing track of
herself, or if she did he couldn't detect it. Tara'd never be
anything but beautiful, strong, quietly growing.

And...here.

Bloody hell, she was here!

There she was in the doorway to the crypt - it was nearly dark
outside, where had the day gone? - holding the door open just enough
to let herself in.

Spike found himself so nervous he could barely make his mouth move.
"H'lo, pet," he managed finally.

"Um...hi." A smile flitted across her face. "I was just um,
checking...on Lulu," she said improbably. "Cause last night was, you
know, her first night out in a while, and I wanted to see how, um,
she was..."

"Yeah, yeah, absolutely..." Spike was grateful for a reason to look
away, to check the floor and other parts of the crypt, gaze at
something besides her face, which was causing him all kinds of
reactions that weren't helpful. "Don't know where she's got to just
now..."

"It's okay, I can do the looking..." She came down the stairs and her
face went behind a curtain of hair. "You don't have to go to any
trouble, you know, if you're busy..."

Spike snorted. "Yeah, busy. Runnin' the world, I am."

Tara's face reappeared at that, with a shy smile that said she was
amused, wished he wouldn't put himself down, had slipped into their
old comfort zone for just a split second.  He cherished it before it
skittered away, before his own weirdness engulfed him again.

"She's been spendin' a lot of time over in this corner, behind the
TV..." Spike started for the area, protecting himself with renewed
focus.  He knew about Lulu, suddenly - where she was lately and where
she wasn't, like the knowledge had been downloaded wholesale into his
brain, like it'd always been there but hadn't been activated
till...last night.  The episode flooded through his brain again,
igniting even more nervous weakness in his limbs. Christ, get a grip.

They spent about five minutes checking the places she might be, Spike
giving occasional, absent instructions about where else to look.  He
was putting a knee on the couch and leaning to look over the back -
no cat - when he stood back up and startled to find Tara right behind
him.  Something apparently struck her funny about that, but she
didn't explain.

Awkwardness soon reigned - most of the room had been exhausted. Spike
had no idea what they'd do without their search.

"Could she be downstairs?" Tara asked finally.

"Yeah, s'pose she could. Lemme check."

"Oh, that's okay, I can..."

Spike and Tara turned as one to head for the ladder, but neither made
it.  Their swinging, forgotten hands bumped mid-air, a gentle brush
of wrist against knuckle.

And everything ignited.

The world became a blur of his hand clamping firmly around that
wrist, pulling while feeling himself pulled, hands past his rib cage,
wrapping arms around her back, long soft hair in his face, lips
colliding, yielding, demanding, devouring.

Oh dear God in heaven.

If there even was one.

Although Spike counted this as the first bit of evidence.

So soft. She was nothing but softness. Comfort defined.  Silky limbs
and hair and warm breasts against his hard chest and lips he was
suddenly afraid he might bruise with his clumsy need.  He was just a
brute, after all, a reckless thing, but then...she was just a mortal,
a fragile girl not a fourth his age, so hard to remember when she
felt so important, so overwhelming, like a being infinitely more
powerful than he.

And she was laughing.

Against his mouth.  In a good way.  In a quiet, overjoyed kind of
way.  Spike was happy, but confused.  Was kissing funny? He suddenly
felt like he'd never done it before, like an alien who'd just landed.

He pulled back; her eyes were shining and brimming.  "Pet, what did
I...are you..."

She shook her head, kept smiling and gently pulled his forehead
against hers.  Still soft.  Bloody, bloody hell.

"I'm just...I guess I'm relieved," she said.  Her laugh was shaky.
"That I did it.  That I didn't chicken out."

Spike was a mite floored that chickening out could be possible with
him. But he smiled too. "Thought you said I didn't scare you."

"You don't," she said wryly. She stroked his face. "*This* does. A
little."  Her eyes searched his, hoping he'd understand, and the
sheer affection there made Spike's heart swell to the point of
bursting.

He marveled at her, soaked in her beauty.  "But you did it."

She nodded.  "I did."

He grinned and prepared to make An Understatement: "I'm not your
usual gig, am I?"

Tara barked out a heartfelt, teary laugh that Spike loved. "No, no,
you're not," she said, when she could speak again.  "But...for some
reason, it's more about the 'who' of you than the 'what' of you..."
She smiled guiltily. "It's kind of always like that with me."

He was starting to get it, feeling her body up against his, and he
pulled her closer with a gentle tug on her hips, a little
snuggle-grind.  "But there's nothing else to be done, is there?
We're drawn.  Inexorably." The truth of his words thrilled him.  He
could feel they were so.  He'd never been so happy in his life.

This was Big.  He'd fallen into something Big.  Not the
force-it-till-it-fits Big, but the Mutual Big.  The right kind of
Big.

He suddenly had all the faith in the world.

"We might have to go a little slow," Tara said reluctantly...but
staring at his mouth all the while.

"We can go slow..." he whispered as he descended, his voice a husky
ache, "...but you and I have got to *go*."

Neither of them noticed Lulu, tucked into a small nook way above
their heads - way above where she'd ever climbed before, actually -
looking over the whole scene inscrutably.

***

Tara had always been good with cats, but she was wondering when she'd
actually become one.

Because she had.

Was it Spike, his influence on her over these last couple of months?
He was so...prowly, and slinky, made for stealth and powerful
seduction.  Had her time with him affected her?  Had it rubbed
off?

Literally?

She giggled, a little breathless.  She knew how to prowl now, too.

And she very much liked her prey.

Oh God, but he was beautiful.

Her effect on him amazed her.  It was visceral, bodily, undeniable,
and left her in awe. No one had ever responded to her presence the
way he did.  No one had ever been so in thrall at her touch, made
such primal noises, such predatory faces.  No one had ever taken the
slightest gesture given him and returned the favor instantly and a
thousandfold, till she couldn't breathe or speak or think, till her
capacity to feel seemed exhausted and yet she kept surpassing its
limits, time after time after time.

And yet he loved it when she took the lead, when she tried out her
own "slinky" skills - they couldn't be half as potent as his, she
felt sure, but he always succumbed readily. It had never been like
that with Willow - their relationship had never been about power
play, about these kinds of win-win games and even if it had...Willow
would probably not have ceded the power often.

Speaking of playing...there was a toy in front of her.

Spike was trailing light fingers down her arm, a feeling she adored.
It was hardening her bare nipples, raising delicious goosebumps in
all the right places.  She lifted a leg and rubbed it against his,
feeling the coarse hair on his calf and thigh...and eventually aiming
it so that it grazed his warm and flaccid cock.

"Oh," Spike chuckled satedly. "He's tired now, Pet."

"Is that so?" Tara raised an eyebrow in her best imitation of him. A
moment later she was braced above him on her hands and knees, and he
was watching her with amused interest.  "I say he's never too tired
for me."

Spike's features darkened pleasantly.  "Is that so?"

Tara nodded with feline authority.

The taste of him was still a novelty as she kissed her way down his
torso - such a uniquely male flavor and scent, she thought she'd
never stop noting the difference.  Still, she'd decided she somehow
preferred groans in a lower register, and the astonished huff of his
sighs when she put her lips to his skin.  Men were so controlled in
their reactions, compared to women - getting them this exposed seemed
more of an accomplishment.

More of a thrill.

She had nearly reached her goal at this point, and was hovering her
mouth near the part he'd said was too tired to respond.

She was already proving him wrong.

Taking him in her mouth now, laving her tongue under the ridge near
the smooth top, up and down the underside, feeling all the different
areas and textures.

Spike was feeling too, if the hard arch of his back and the hiss
between his teeth could be trusted.  It made her stomach twist with
arousal so strong it was almost unbearable.

This hadn't been too hard to learn to do, yet it wasn't as simple as
she'd expected.  A man's cock had more variety to it than she knew,
more secret places that needed attention, more potential to respond
and cede to her this power she'd never known she craved.

She lapped at it, let her saliva coat it, rubbed her closed lips over
the top.  The ecstatic, barely-controlled thrash of his body gave her
such a hot humming pleasure that she groaned deep in her throat,
arched her nails into his hips where she held him.

Her prey was nearly hers.

She wrapped one hand around the base of him, and let the other drift
between her own legs.

She was almost there by the time he was, too, by the time he was
gasping and clutching the bed and her head and she was taking the
head of him as far back toward her throat as she could, letting his
come bathe it until his body went still.

But there was no time to rest, apparently, because he was pulling her
up the length of his body, over his face, finding the sweet spots of
her pussy and licking at them so quickly and unerringly that her body
jerked in surprise as well as pleasure.  Now it was she that was
crying out, becoming hoarse and untamed so quickly, grabbing the
headposts like some romance novel heroine with her long hair just as
tousled and wild as they always wrote about, and she laughed a little
to think of it until her orgasm started pounding up her spine and she
felt nothing worldly at all, just sweet, ecstatic peace.

When she could see him again he looked so completely conquered.  And
happy to be so.  She drifted down into his arms, let him pet her.

She nestled against his chest. "Wasn't too tired," she murmured
smugly.

"You inspired him," he answered, kissing the top of her head.

"You inspire me," she said, suddenly serious, large eyes taking him
in.

He smiled and returned the look in that entranced way of his, fingers
playing with the hair along the sides of her face, just as Lulu came
jumping up on the bed, settling at their feet.

"Feeling's mutual, pet," he told Tara.

They slept.

All of them purred.

### The End ###