Okay, so she could get that it would take her friends a little longer than her to adjust. Wasn't like they'd had the dream of a lifetime and knew that being afraid of Spike was a useless waste of energy. Still, she felt like screaming every time she heard the chain rattle against the enamel of the tub, settling instead for a petulant stamp of the foot as she stood fuming beside Giles, cup of blood in hand and sporting a deep scowl.

"I know what you say you dreamed, Buffy. But acting like a spoiled child will not change my mind. For my own piece of mind, I think it is safer for all of us if Spike were chained up." Giles passed her the mug, glared at his restrained vampire and left the room.

Buffy blinked slowly and closed her eyes against the tears that were threatening to bring her to her knees. She finally had him and he was so angry with her. She could see the violence in him every time he looked at her. She had absolutely no idea how to make this sitch better for either of them. She only seemed to know how to make it worse.

"Oi, bit o' nourishment needed over here." Spike had watched her arguments for maintaining his freedom and had clenched his jaw at the obvious failure. So, for some reason she knew more about his condition than anyone and why was that exactly? Did she set the whole thing up?

He couldn't help the twitch of his nose as the scent of warm blood moved closer. He shuffled his bum over the smooth surface of the tub to get closer to the edge, turning his nose up for only a second before he dived on the little bendy straw that was between him and the good stuff.

"I'm sorry." Buffy's voice was soft, hesitant, and she had yet to raise her eyes to look at him.

"Yeah. Could tell that by the great piercing pain in my head." Spike struggled to maintain his angry indifference in spite of her developing sniffles, refusing to let a woman in tears shift his temper when she was undoubtedly in the wrong.

"You weren't ready for me," she stated, watery eyes at last making his level as she begged for some kind of understanding.

She actually looked pretty gorgeous all emotional and the like. Spike tilted his head, straw stuck to his bottom lip as he contemplated what she'd said.

"Don' think any bloke would be ready for you, Slayer."

He got a smile. It was small but a curve of red nevertheless. And for some reason it riled him that it settled the raging beast that wanted destruction. But he felt good inside for the small step away from the violence and his confusion of the past weeks.

"I tried to warn you," she said softly again, sucking in a breath at his raised brow. "That night you walked me back to my dorm."

He spluttered and blood bubbled up out of the mug and sprayed the bathroom wall. "The night you bloody pulled me off, you mean!"

Hell, her blush made him hot and hard in all the wrong places. As Spike shifted in the tub, trying to soothe the position of his zipper, he started to revise that assumption. At least one of those places felt bloody good. Right. No fighting it then. The Slayer got him horny. Slayer made him forget himself and get a little lax with his own security. She had made a few rather odd statements that night, told him to be careful, and he thought she was just barmy.

Well, now he had a little bull ring to tether him permanently in place. That'd teach him for thinking every woman that wanted him was off her rocker.

"Right. Guess you did in a very cryptic sort of way." His back relaxed against the bath and he watched her; wondered at her nervousness. He could see the fun in playing with her, but there was something else that made him wary about staying amongst the same status quo. She might have allowed those military bastards to turn him into a lab rat, but she had also managed to get him out. He couldn't deny the girl was pretty inventive, too.

"Did they hurt you?" And again the tears were evident in her voice, embarrassing the strongest woman he knew into ducking her head and hiding her fear.

Did they hurt him? Other than shoving some pretty incapacitating hardware in his brain and making it impossible for him to be who he was? Nah, he'd just had to wait. Be starved, or drugged...which ever one he settled for that day. But he knew he'd get out, despite the long trail of demons that came out of their cells on stretchers for experimentation only to never return again. Yeah, he'd been pretty lucky. Neutered, but no, not hurt.

"Not really," he replied and Buffy finally released the pent up adrenaline that kept her upright. She sank hard to her knees, gripping the outside edge of the tub and was thankful that she got him out before they did nasty things to his very scrumptious body.

"So, what do you Samaritan types do around here for the holidays?" He waited expectantly, hoping the change in topic would get her back together and stop this uncharacteristic moping around his current bed.

"Huh?" The Slayer curled her top lip and wrinkled her nose, obviously lost in some other dimension of vampire sitting duty.

"You know, pet. What is it? One of those nauseatingly chipper days where everyone sits around telling tall tales about how grateful they are no one was able to kill them?"

"Oh," she said as her eyes lit up, and she hopped up on the edge of his prison and looked down into his eyes. "You mean Thanksgiving? Wow, Indians. And Angel." She scrunched up a brow as if trying to remember something and then slid inside the tub and ended up shockingly in his lap and on his semi-erect cock. Spike was too shocked to react. As her arms curled around his neck and she shifted in his tub to be more comfy against his hardened appendages, he was mesmerised by the wry amusement that flashed within the green.

"How about I take the bear and kill the Indians, and you can make pumpkin pie?" She was back to the beaming, her happiness a mystery to him despite the promise of sweets.

"There's a bear? How'd you get a bear?"

And she giggled, tapped her nose and whispered, "It's a secret," before devouring his lips in a heated kiss.

Spike was moving swiftly from one shock to another, but his body didn't seem to have a problem that the woman whose blood he wanted to paint the finest mural with was pashing him within an inch of his unlife.

He was just starting to get into it, starting to think this having intimacy with the Slayer wasn't too bad a thing to have in secret, when it was over. Gone. But still he had warm flesh curled up in his lap with her soft hair and head tucked up under his chin.

"I'm still going to kill you." But his attempt at a snarl seemed to come out a hell of a lot huskier than he'd been going for. She shifted in his lap and he felt the side of his cock rub almost painfully against denim, tearing a whimper from his throat even as his eyes crossed. He came to and found her staring at him in wonder, catching his eyes in an unwavering gaze that seemed to convey some deep emotion, and it wasn't of the hating variety.

"Not unless I kill you first," the Slayer whispered back, and then she was moving closer, fraction by fraction as she refused to surrender the look that was holding him in thrall. Her lips enclosed his lower one and she sucked hard, moaning against the flesh as her hand fell to his chest and she gently stroked down to a nipple.

Then there was tongue and Spike felt like his mind had imploded, this display of the most exquisite sweetness too much for his tired brain to withstand. She tasted so delicious and he struggled to get a hand on her, swearing mentally at the chains that held him captive and away from exploring her flesh. Just as he managed to get one hand under her shirt, she pulled away.

"I can make this better, Spike. I promise. It's not as if you haven't been a temporary white hat before. I know you can be good. I've seen it. Please, just give me a chance." She stopped and just watched him while she waited, obviously holding breath while he came down from the feel of her lips.

It took several seconds for the words to kick in and he almost roared in fury. His body jerked and he sent her clear across the tub, petty happiness soaring through him when she banged her hip on the pipes.

"You think you can train me like some dog?" He vamped out and snarled at her. "This is what I am, baby. I'm a killer, and I love it. I love to see you stupid humans scream in terror, try to get away while my fangs are in your throats and the jig is more than bleeding up. You're off your bird if you think one act of desperation will lead to massive stupidity on my part."

He stood and loomed over her menacingly, this time finding joy in her tears as she shrunk back in the other end of the tub.

"You could flop your pussy in my face right now and I'll do nothing but use what you offer. I don't know what you think this lust is going to lead to, but I won't be your willing slave. Now get the hell out."

She shuffled out of the tub and bathroom as if hell were riding her tail, tears streaming down her cheeks. She stopped at the door and suddenly turned, anger glinting in place of the misery he'd wrought just seconds before. With determined strides she was back in front of him, her mouth set hard and determined.

"I obviously went about this all wrong. You're a bonehead and you need it, don't you? Need to fight for it. Well fine. You're chipped and useless and we'll fight. May the best m...woman win." And she slugged him hard on the jaw, nearly dislocating it as it decided bravely to stay connected to his skeleton.

Spike blinked in surprise, but she was gone. Teenage petulance leaving behind a delicious flavour.

Right then, would be possible to say that that didn't quite go to plan. If he'd bothered to shut his mouth for five so he could actually make one. Oh well, he had the Slayer pissed off at him rather than sending him those mushy looks that turned his insides. It couldn't get any better.

As he settled back into his temporary prison, he couldn't help that little voice piping up and remind him that the turning of his stomach wasn't exactly in a way that had made him sick.

He was buggered.