And Here We Go Round Again

Megan/Peta (megpf@netspace.net.au)



Disclaimer: Joss owns it all...

Rating: this chap is tame but fic overall NC-17

Pairing: shamelessly Spuffy

Summary: Following on from the end of As You Were. Spike, devastated by Buffy's rejection, finds solace in a bottle shared with Anya and finds his unlife turned completely on its head. He finds that vengeance might not be for losers after all as he is thrust into the opportunity of a lifetime. But can he convince Buffy to take the risk? 

Chapter Nine

The night was a revealer of secrets. Buffy had never felt, since becoming Chosen, that anything could hide from her amongst the crisp curtain of darkness. It was when the monsters emerged that the reality of her life in peril became clear, and her path and destiny mingled with the hidden truth of day. Clarity was a spicy nightmare that lost its secretiveness as soon as the moon shadowed the earth and evil lost its cloak.

Buffy stretched toward her seventeenth birthday with a yearning that recognised that every birthday in her life was a major achievement. Since being called she could almost hear the ticking time bomb counting down to each concluding year. But it warned of the need to grasp hard what was offered, what was given. It was almost funny to her that it was in the dark as she wandered through graveyards that she felt freest to think about her birthday and what it might bring her.

Her most earnest wish was that it might bring her Spike.

A smile touched her lips as her eyes glazed over, blurring the ground in front of her as her feet still took steady and sure steps along her mission of demon eradication. The night was still, allowing her mind to expand her thoughts, to ponder over recent meetings with the blond vampire and wonder at her lack of fear, her lack of concern in his possible evil motives. It was hard to consider someone that made her feel so good—someone who liberated her body and heart so fully—could be setting her up for some kind of fall.

It was beyond hard.

The thought of Spike doublecrossing her, handing her over in some evil plot to meet her end, was enough to freeze her solid. Evil was as evil does, and Spike had quite believably shed his evil wear, donning a white hat with the best of them. He constantly rubbed shoulders with Giles, a Watcher with history and learning steeped in the contradictory yet blinkered teachings of the Council. He traded barbs that hung on the right side of insulting with Xander, and Willow...well, Willow seemed to be really okay with him. Didn't hurt that Spike seemed to go out of his way for them all.

The absence of Angel in her life weighed on Buffy's mind, however. The ease in which she had made a decision, had swapped her outer vampire wear, shrugging off large brooding soulful purpose for the touch of fire, the vision of angelicness in the devil's clothes. Even if black and red really suited him.

She felt shallow. Thoughts of all she had achieved with Angel made Buffy stand still in sudden apprehension. She couldn't possibly have tossed her soulful boyfriend aside merely because a better-looking, tastier version landed in her school corridor. Sure, kissing Spike stole her senses and made her burn in all the right places. But was it right for her to abandon Angel just as he had gained new responsibilities? Buffy hadn't pushed the physical side of her connection with Angel until recently, and to dump him because he didn't show a lack of control around her like Spike did? Well, shallow.

But that didn't seem right, either. It was more than just a molten, burn-the-house-down moment when she was with Spike. Sure, her hormones let loose and created crazy dancing within her soul, but something of him called to her, leveled her so thoroughly that she could do nothing but submit to him on every level. It was deep, whatever this thing was between them. The fathomless emotion she sunk into every time he looked at her? Buffy might be unsure of her own feelings for the blonde vamp, but there was no confusion in regards to his, despite the lack of declaration. His actions shouted at her, drowned her in feelings of fire, of devotion, of newness and right.

And God did it set her alight.

Made her so excited and happy she couldn't help but skip as she spun her stake.

Exhilarated her so much she was all enthusiastic for the killing of vamps. Making with the dustiness.

Another couple of steps and she was making with the frustration. No vamps. Buffy stopped and pouted, taking a longing look around the cemetery grounds, looking for one little sign of the walking undead. She couldn't even locate some torn turf.

"Grrrr," she chastised the ground as she rewarded the unfettered grass with an irritated stab with the toe of her shoe.

"What'd the poor innocent grass do to you, pet?"

Buffy spun on her heel with a large grin erupting on her lips.

"Spike!" she almost shrieked as she leaped into his arms, her legs clamping around his waist as her arms wrapped around his neck. They laughed together as he began to spin them in a circle, dizziness soon making them fall in a lump to the ground.

Predictably, the randy soulless vampire landed on top, neatly slotting his pelvis into the V of her legs. His hard protrusion was another thing that was not hidden in the dark, and a small frown replaced the delight that had speckled her lips and eyes.

"What's wrong?" he asked, immediately noticing and hating the anxious expression that clouded her happiness. So used to her down moods, her internal struggle to live, Spike nearly bit his tongue to stop himself from panicking.

"It's just, it's..." she hesitated, unsure of whether to bring up her age considering all the experimentation she had been doing lately.

"Tell me, Buffy. What is it?"

Buffy startled at the look of fear that was blatantly taking over Spike's previously carefree demeanor. Sometimes he seemed shadowed by something dark, and when Buffy picked up on it she felt like kicking herself. Hello, evil vampire lying wedged between her thighs. He's supposed to be all dark and mysterious. But this was different. Like he was afraid of her. Afraid of the pain that she could cause, which made no sense.

"I was just thinking about my birthday," she offered at last, and she quirked a brow at his tremendous sigh of relief. He buried a suddenly heavy head into the crook of her neck.

Buffy lay completely still, pricklingly aware of how close to her vein his mouth was. As if he could read her mind, his blunt human teeth sunk into the soft skin of her neck and she released a low, lustful moan. Absolutely contrary to her expected reaction, she felt the warm, overwhelming gush of fluids in her panties and she wiggled a little in embarrassment.

When his tongue began to trace the length of her throat the continuing flood made her tremble and flush scarlet with heat. Her less than seventeen reaction was to abruptly push him to the side, away from the tender and extremely sensitive column of her throat. She jumped up away from him, and with one quick look at the confusion swirling in his azure depths, she bolted.

Suddenly darkness was not her friend as she barely made it a few metres away from him before she was confronted by a small vamp gathering.

"Why is it that when I want to see you guys, you're all with the absent, but when I don't, you're right in front of me? In big, evil packs? Guess I'll just have to deal with you so I can be on my way."

"Not so fast, Slayer," said one unfortunate, stepping up to make his point but quickly finding his way impeded by a shapely carved stake protruding from his chest. And he was a large gust of dust in the fresh nightly breeze. Buffy coughed delicately as she turned to the remaining two.

Looks of understanding passed between them and they suddenly took off out of her way. Unfortunately for them, they ran in the direction from where Buffy had been making her escape. They barely heard the tread of her trainers as she kept up with them and thrust them into eternal darkness with her trusty stick of wood.

It was too late, though. Spike had merely needed to walk to catch back up to her, and he snagged her elbow and spun her back to face him. The whole motion had the tinge of darkness, of evil determination, and the sexiness of it made her shiver.

"What the bloody hell got you all spooked?"

His face was the picture of abandoned sex; his eyes all smoky with desire while his body displayed his condition rather prominently. He didn't even blink when Buffy's eyes couldn't stray from the bulge in the front of his pants. The patented smirk spread and he tilted his head.

"So what were you wantin' for your birthday, luv? Anythin' I could perhaps get for you?"

Buffy gulped as images of what she wanted to unwrap flashed behind her eyes.

And then she heard high-pitched, maniacal laughter that set her teeth painfully on edge. Almost by the second, Spike's head had swivelled to the direction of the sound and his feet had begun to carry him in that direction. Buffy followed wordlessly, and not without an ample supply of irritation.

When they found themselves at the park and watching the antics of Spike's ex-love, Drusilla, Buffy found herself groaning with a seething hatred. It was tempered only slightly by the accompaniment of Angel. The dark-haired couple was not immediately aware of the appearance of the blondes, or at least they acted like they weren't. But that they were standing once again at the swings, the fruit loop dancing between the chains and sweeping her hands out to touch on each revolution, was enough to shoot Buffy into a foul mood.

They'd interrupted. What exactly, she was still debating. Not a moment really, as she shamefully admitted she'd blasted that to smithereens the moment she had jumped to her feet and run like an inexperienced child. Which was a bit much for a girl who'd experienced the engorged wonder of having a vampire's penis in her mouth.

No, they'd interrupted the make-up scene. And everyone knew that make-ups were so much hotter than the normal making-out.

The Buffy pout was pushing into existence as the feelings of deprivation strengthened and piled high with the irritation. By the time Buffy had accepted her level of annoyance, Spike had crowded her side and slid his arm around her waist. The sensual slide of his coat against her back calmed and soothed her to the point of uncaring. Almost immediately Buffy raised her relaxed gaze, only to clash with feral amber as they studied her comfortable connection with the peroxided vampire.

"Be careful what you wish for, Slayer. Birthday parties are fine for showers, but little presents are better with the background of thunder."

Buffy stared at the crazed vampire and giggled. Even the warning squeeze around her middle couldn't stop the reaction, and Buffy ignored his tactile advice.

"You so have to stop taking teatime with the Powers that Be. Vague it up, much? Thanks for the birthday cheer, though. I'll be sure to not care." She hid well her freak out that the weirdness of mentioning her birthday—still a few months distance from the night—had rolled from the evil red lips on a night when certain desires had already been thought about. She knew that vamps had enhanced hearing, but for Elvira the ho to hear from that distance defied even the Slayer's belief.

Buffy's eyes switched to focus on Angel—her eyes sweeping by accident over his throat—gasping loudly when encountering the littering of fang marks spattering his neck in purple splotches.

"Oh My God. Angel, what has she done to you?" The words were not enough, and Buffy found her legs carrying her swiftly to the vampire she had discarded only days ago, and allowing her finger to gently scrape over the numerous healing pinpricks in his skin.

His flinch away from her touch halted halfway through the movement, and instead he pressed himself into the slack cup of her palm. All sound fell away from them as the two interlopers fell silent; shock a crack in confident armour.

"It's nothing bad, Buffy. I thought Sire blood might help to cure Dru. Seems to be working so far. She's much stronger than what she was a week ago."

Buffy nodded her head without really processing what he said. Her hand still lay against the flesh of his throat, almost absent in its continued position, and her mind fell lost to thoughts of her other vampire. So consumed in thoughts of Spike, she remained ignorant of the soft growls vibrating in his chest, projected from a few metres behind her.

Not until the hysterical cackle from her least favourite vampire broke through her reverie did she finally notice that Spike had turned away from her absent display of affection and was striding across the park. Stepping away to follow him was a useless move as Angel caught her elbow.

"Forget Spike. I don't know what his problem is, anyway. I'd have thought he would have asked after Dru, made sure she'd settled in okay."

Buffy raised startled eyes, and couldn't help the childish reaction of jealousy from tumbling past her lips.

"And has she settled in okay?" The spite felt all rumbly inside her, and Buffy was forced to consider the jumbled reality of her feelings. Without allowing him the chance to answer, Buffy held her hand as a halt in front of his face. "Don't tell me. It isn't my place to know. You need to be with Dru, Angel. And I need to go after Spike."

Before he could grab her again, Buffy swiftly stepped away and began to jog in the direction that Spike had disappeared. No sound of his steps meant he was in stealthy vampire mode, and Buffy stopped with a frown. She pushed her senses out to try and sense vampire, but the three vamps ambling in a dorky, uncoordinated fashion toward her made the efforts redundant.

They stopped a few metres away from her, recognising the Slayer by the pointy stake clasped in her hand, and they turned in the direction of cowards and ran. Watching them disappear, Buffy felt a twinge of guilt for not chasing them down and dusting them. But as her eyes followed their progress to safety, she halted her slow pace at the gliding beauty of an enraged Master pounding on the three as they pleaded for their continuing unlives.

When their particles had drifted to the grass, Buffy's smile froze on her face as she encountered the furious ridged mask. Spike pivoted on his heel and was striding away, fury pumping his thighs. He ignored Slayer calls for waiting; gliding along with larger strides until he reached the copse of trees that bordered the next cemetery.

A burst from her own legs had Buffy catching up and repeating Angel's earlier move of a clutch at the elbow. The slicing anger of his movement had the smooth leather of his sleeve slipping through her fingers, though, and she was left frowning and hurt in the entryway.

As he disappeared in the dark, rejection bouncing off him and fading into the night, Buffy recalled her earlier assumption that the night held no secrets for her. This night was turning into a fizzer as far as clear sailing was going.

But maybe she was missing something. Maybe the severity of Spike's defection told her more than their continual hormonal dance could. Buffy had admitted to herself earlier in the night that the vampire had an ease of feeling for her that she was able to recognise, if not be sure of reciprocation. Her reaction to Angel told her there was a residual love still lingering on the edge of her feeling for the larger vamp. But her hand had not felt his clammy coldness as it rested on flesh. She'd felt the hum of another's, and felt like kicking herself at the silly act of daydreaming while showing major concern over something that wasn't any of her business.

In truth, the bite marks hadn't done more than caught her unawares. Had her imagination leap to areas brushed on earlier in the night, but which had had her running way in severe opposition. Spike's mouth against her own throat launched her into a moment of tingling anticipation, and the comfort she gained from the desire to feel his teeth sink into her vein catapulted her into majorly wiggy territory.

Seeing the evidence of vampire marks on Angel's throat brought back her own feelings on the topic, and she was horrified to admit that the image of sharp canines breaking her skin wasn't as frightening as it should have been. Dying from it once—the lulling effect that robbed her of consciousness and had her drowning in a puddle— seemed to lend her a tougher shell against the consequences. Resting her palm against Angel's bites meant nothing more to Buffy than an acknowledgement to herself that she was curious to experience the same.

But Spike couldn't read her mind, and she had really mucked up her secret message. The darkness was his world, and just because it seemed to simplify things for Buffy, didn't mean the same was happening for Spike. In fact, his disappearance beyond the foliage would suggest another story.

So involved in her self-castigation, Buffy didn't hear the approach or take note of any tingly sensation heralding the arrival of a vamp at her feet. Sitting on the damp grass, her first clue was the heavy black boots that stomped up to a point in front of her crossed legs. Buffy couldn't tear her eyes away from the scuff marks on the toe points, and instead of gaining strength from the knowledge that he'd come back, she felt tears sting at her eyes and a wobble settle over her lip.

"I'm sorry," she whispered to the boots, courage deserting her in the face of this new relationship. The Slayer bent forward a little more, her hair curtaining around her face and hiding the extent of her misery.

"Got it sorted?"

Buffy's confusion at the remark did what all his soft reassurances wouldn't have been able to. It halted the clog in her throat and forced back the tears. It gave her courage to lift her face to seek understanding in his.

She'd gotten it sorted all right. She was a child. Gave up one guy to be petty when he'd shared an intimacy with another that he'd never even suggested to her. Then when she had recognised who she did want to experience something so intimate with, she'd mucked it up by touching the wrong vamp.

Spike's face was ravaged with uncertainty. He looked like a puppy that had been kicked one too many times, his shoulders slumped and his usual cocky stance a mere shadow of his usual confidence. He avoided her eyes, not sure of what he would witness if he turned fully to her. In fact, his little sojourn into the patrol alone was enough to convince him how completely stupid he'd been to think he could change anything by going back.

It had never been Buffy.

All these years Spike had been convinced that it was the girl's reaction to the great Lunkhead that had ruined all hope for Spike. Without a soul, he'd never have a chance. And even then he'd be pushing it. So, like he thought, it was never Buffy.

It was him.

Spike, William the Bloody Awful Poet who just never had what it took to get the girl.

In all of his progressive personalities and personas, he'd never moulded himself into being the kind of man that would be chosen. Well, not in the way he wanted to be chosen. His mother had pushed him continuously to find someone to help him flee the nest. As loving and indulgent as she might have been over his awful talent, she was eager to see him settle down and thus out from under her thumb. How many mothers were eager to see the back of their influence in their child's life?

And then there was Dru, picking him off the street while in bitter tears, cornering him in a barn where no one could witness his wonky judgement to take what she was offering. It had seemed with her sweet, knowing words that she required him, and her beauty and mystique had sucked him in completely. Only after he'd risen did he get the memo. He'd been created to be a playmate. Not important, not a chosen mate, not someone to love. Just a playmate to keep the younger member of the family entertained.

And then Buffy. Well, what could he say about Buffy? The Slayer. He'd been so determined to extend his evil reputation by depriving Sunnydale of her protection. Only she'd come armed with her mother. The memory of Joyce clubbing him good and proper with an axe brought a nostalgic smile to his lips.

But Buffy was pure light, she had a destiny and no part of that indicated space for an ex-evil vamp with no soul. She'd made her choice years ago. Or now if he was being pedantic. Angel. Spike could get her hot, could lower her defenses and might be devoted to keeping her alive and healthy, but he would never succeed over Angel. His position in the family order predicted it. Angel's desertion, leaving Spike the paternal victor of their ever decreasing group, being the youngest Master vampire in history did nothing to placate Dru, to secure his importance in the order. He remained the childe. Forever behind the eight ball in the collection of his due.

So, as long as Angel was there first, Spike would never have a chance with Buffy, and obviously coming this far back in the past did nothing other than give him angst free encounters with her. But the way she had caressed the Poof's neck. Spike hadn't been able to control his animosity, knowing that if he'd stayed he would have caused some kind of hurt. Better to keep the pain restricted to himself, because he knew intimately how much of it the blond Slayer was in for when she finally breached the lines with the amazingly pathetic 'Daddy.'

So, he'd acted like a lovesick fool and escaped to another cemetery. But at least he'd come across a number of fledglings and had been able to expend a little of his frustration and surrender to killing.

For a moment he'd found the need to wonder why. Why persist in something he was never going to get? Why put himself in the middle of the Scoobies when he could easily just gobble them all up. He knew that his love for Buffy wouldn't let him even squander a second of his unlife contemplating to kill her, but the others...there was nothing leashing him anymore. He had no chip; he had no reason to stay here. He was pretty much invincible now with the gem, and if he was getting nothing in return, why should he stick around and put himself in the front line of being tortured time and again in the name of love?

It was the blond hair and wide green eyes turned on him with an expression of wariness and fear that brought him back around. That was why. He would stay to make sure she lived. He'd lived with a broken heart for the past three years, what was another how many of her lifetime? And be satisfied with being in the background of her life.

"I'm sorry." She struggled with the huskiness of her voice, her eyes returning to the moist stage that convinced her of her emerging feelings for this vampire. He made her feel, in a way wholly different to anything she'd felt before.

Spike held back, but the glassiness in his eyes softened at her apology, and he hardly believed the possibility that she wanted him to know she felt remorse for earlier.

"Angel and I broke up."

He couldn't help the severe swing of his head as he tried to take that one in. In one breath she turned all his assumptions arse over tit. He felt the push of awe take him over at the opening she'd given him, but it still didn't explain her moment of jealous protection.

"What does it feel like?"

Again her quiet question blew him out of the water.

"What does what feel like, Pet?"

The answer obviously caused her some anxiety as her hesitance stretched into the night accompanied with impatience. He'd finally given up on her wide eyes, her racing heartbeat and fluttering pulse when she opened her mouth and uttered the response guaranteed to strip his pretensions bare.

"Your bite?" Her nervousness gentled his heart and he tipped his head to the side in amazement.

"My bite, or the poof's? Or just a bite in general?" He balanced on edge, waiting for the devastation that could be her answer, but it was postponed with banter he hadn't been ready for,

"Have you been bitten by Angel, too?"

Her wide-eyed innocence was adorable, and it momentarily threw him from the revelation she was asking him to make. He wanted to hold back, wanted to conceal how close he'd actually been with his vampiric family, but it would be wrong, and that was what he was trying to reverse.

His automatic jump into the wrong option of everything.

He considered her closely, wondering if she was really ready to know the truth of vampire existence, of tradition and survival. He faltered at the wariness that lent her green eyes a black shadow, but garnered the strength he would need to acknowledge something he'd taken pains to forget since the day he'd encountered Angel in Sunnydale. Moments he was now finding it far from enjoyable to do over again. Sharing Harris's basement while his folks screamed and threw things at each other above their heads was a pleasant memory in comparison.

But if he didn't answer, it would be something held over them for Heaven only knew how long. Spike was a vampire, and Buffy the Slayer. She had to know the truth of life for those she killed. She had to know the truth about Spike. She had to be lowered to his reality, so when she made statements like breaking up with Angel, he'd know that she said them fully prepared for the consequences. He pulled her to her feet so he could look her in the eye.

"Yeah. I've been bitten by Angel. And I've bitten 'im. We were a close family, Buffy. It's what vampires do. Sharing blood with your Sire is a gift. Almost like Christmas." He smiled at her, trying to reassure her that it wasn't as evil or macabre as she probably thought.

"I get that," she shocked him with. "It's...almost like an honour to be chosen to be bitten. Even as food."

Spike nearly fell to his knees, wonder at this younger, less emotionally scarred Buffy overwhelming his sense of order.

"Not a bloody honour for the fledge trying to take you out."

Spike felt a little angry at this response, this negligence and acceptance of the bite. He was torn, the erotic possibilities of her desire to feel the sensual slide of fangs into her soft flesh opposing the almost frantic fear of her passing at the teeth of some strange vamp.

"But, it's being chosen," she countered and his mouth dropped open, absent a vital clue of where she was going with this topic.

"What are you gettin' at, sweets?"

He hoped. Spike held himself still, waiting in almost agony for her to speak further. The image of biting was circling around his head now at breakneck pace and he felt a little dizzy at all the potential.

"When," she paused and her gaze fell to study the grass with furious intent. "When you chose those Slayers, when you chose me?" And courage was gained with her desperate need for confirmation. "When you chose to kill us, don't you see that we would consider it an honourable death? Not killed in a car accident, or disease, but by an opponent worthy of our calling."

Spike was dumbstruck, not only by the image her words brought to mind, the memories that brought a hesitant smile to his lips, but the maturity of thought and acceptance of her fate.

"I s'pose it is. It was definitely an honour for me. To win against the girl born to take me out, though I didn't taste them both, pet."

She was nodding her agreement, and instead of the frown that he expected to accompany the subject matter, she completely leveled him with a seductive wink.

"It's my birthday in a few months."

Her change twisted his gut into an excruciating knot.

"Yeah. Not likely to forget," he told her, anxious over the timing in relation to Dru's deathday. In his past he'd been heavily immersed in reassembling The Judge. Thankfully, this time no one was in the position to carry that out.

"I was wondering...hoping..."

Spike fell into the promise she projected from her increased heat. It reached out and captured him, steadily reeling his coherence into a drooling ball of vampire lust. He wanted her so badly, and all this talk of biting was rendering him helpless with control. He found his body moving closer to hers, almost unwillingly, still confused over the show over Angel.

But he needed the contact with her. Needed to touch her and reassure himself that this was past Buffy, pre-Angelus and re-ensouled Angel's desertion. Not the Buffy of his future—cold, almost dead inside, and rejecting everything to do with his love. Despite his earlier fears, with this Buffy there could be hope for him to cling to.

But the conversation had become stunted while he had buried himself in his rhythmic panting. He was teetering, so close to her now he could feel the burn of her body through two layers of clothing.

"Yes," he breathed almost soundlessly, encouraging her to speak the words, to add to the element of fire that was raging within and around them right now.

Her eyes were focused on him, so close he could see the tiny flecks of gold immersed in the jade of her iris, and the grey line circling all the colour. So close, his unneeded breath expanding his diaphragm regularly enough to brush his chest against the tips of her nipples.

"I want you to bite me on my birthday."

For one startling second Spike could feel the disintegration of his body. Saliva rushed his mouth and he could feel his fangs tickling at his gums, his demon struggling to emerge and take her up on her offer. He was desperate to do something, and as near to her as he was he felt impulse rule his limbs and he was crushing her against him, his cool breath gasping at her neck.

She trembled in his arms, excitement forcing her blood to rush against the thin covering of skin, almost reaching out for him to take, to taste.

Spike felt tears of gratitude burn at his lids and he hiccuped a single sob, his hands clutching desperately at her hair as he forced his demon back. Her birthday. She wanted it as a gift on her special day, to mark another milestone year with a new set of marks, ones given in love and affection rather than intent for death.

Then he was kissing her, his lips frantically bestowing wet, sloppy kisses on her neck and working toward her jaw. By the time he'd captured her lips he was gone, disappeared to a place where Buffy was his, claimed and mated so that Angel never had a hope of getting her back.

"I want to make love to you," he mumbled against her lips, his mouth working hard to catch every surface of her plump softened flesh. Her eyes, temple, nose...he wanted it all.

"On my birthday," was her answer and he almost whooped at her permission, the final step about to be handed to him on a golden platter.

He was indeed a lucky bloke.

Buffy struggled for breath as she quite happily submitted to being crushed against Spike's body, knowing the trembling was reciprocated. She'd taken the step, admitted what she wanted and she was in a hurry for the first time in ages to get to a birthday. Even if a quarter of a year was still to be lived.

The images that bombarded her mind, of being completely naked and free to worship his body...she felt like growling. His blunt teeth snapping at her throat elicited moans of pure passion and she seriously considered bringing her celebrations forward.

To right now.

In the graveyard.

Long licks of his tongue had her knees weakening. As she felt herself lowering to the ground, it seemed to bring him back to himself and Spike held her away from him as he gasped in air, a relaxation technique to regain control.

"Right, we should get you home."

Buffy felt disappointed, but still placed her smaller hand in his and allowed him to walk her home like a date.

They shared an innocent kiss at the tree under her window, and instead of words, she conveyed her girlish excitement for her birthday gift with a grin. Then she was gone, shimmying up the tree and disappearing inside her bedroom window.

And Spike walked back to Giles's on a cloud that should be unavailable to the likes of him. But she'd offered it to him, not Angel. Her innocence, she would be his. His confidence was surging back and he just knew things would be different.

Bloody hell! She wanted him to bite her. His Buffy had never submitted to the thought of his fangs in her throat. This Buffy desired it. Thought it an honour for him to choose her. He felt like he was about to keel over from a heart attack, except for the absence obviously of a beating heart.

But his luck was definitely changing.