Chapter Twenty-One

Sometimes Marilyn Osborne wished that they never came to California. It was just a job and she could have refused the transfer, even if it did mean a promotion, but everyone said that it was career poison to refuse a transfer. So she took the job and sold the first house she had ever bought and pretended that it was hay fever that made her eyes run as she stood next to the dogwood tree they had planted on Daniel’s eighth birthday. He wanted to have his own tree, and he picked the dogwood because it was pretty.

It was on their way to California that they had stayed with her former sister-in-law, Linda. Crazy Linda, grown up with a family and children of her own. She was home schooling, and privately Marilyn thought it was because they could afford it and it was different. And sometime in the week and a half that they stayed with Linda, while the movers freighted their furniture across the country, Jordan bit Daniel and everything changed forever.

Her only son had shown up a little before mid-night looking like he hadn’t slept in days. He was sitting at the kitchen table with his head propped on his hand. He was picking at the black nail polish on his other hand, using the edge of his thumbnail to methodically scrape it away.

She could still remember sitting in the living room with the quiet, soft-spoken English librarian from Daniel’s school as he explained what had happened to her son. She didn’t believe it. She refused to believe it, even after Daniel patiently confirmed what Mr. Giles was saying. And then about a week later Linda called and asked in a strangely incurious way how Oz was adjusting to his new school, and then she knew, and if Linda had been in front of her, she might have killed her for what she had allowed to happen to Daniel.

She reached across the table, not quite touching him, just extending her hand, palm up. “You’re making a mess of it,” she said. “Let me do it.”

He put his hand in hers and she looked at his fingertips, the nails filed blunt, and her thumb ran over the backs of his fingers before she let go of his hand briefly to reach around to the corner of the counter right behind her to get her nail file and a bottle of nail polish remover. Placing those on the table, she dampened a tissue and started removing the nail polish. When she was done with the first hand, she got up to fill a shallow bowl with water and a few drops of dishwashing liquid. When she set it down in front of him and urged him to put his hand in the water, a ghost of a smile turned up the corners of his mouth.

“The deluxe manicure,” Marilyn joked. “Now you know how the other half lives.”

She rubbed the black polish off the fingernails of his other hand, trying not to scrub too hard. She hated the black polish. She knew it was just a fashion statement, but ever since she discovered what happened to her son when they came to California, the black nail polish seems to be more than a fashion statement. It was a badge of otherness that has leached into the ordinary days of the month.

He was home early, and she didn’t know what brought him home. Possibly they had run out of money or just tired of the grind of playing in clubs for little more than food money. The calendar in the kitchen showed the phases of the moon in a discreet corner, and she knew exactly when to expect him home. It wasn't something that they had talked about. She couldn’t talk about it. Thinking about it made her want to scream her rage and grief at the kind of God that allowed men who once were boys who planted dogwood trees to become monsters.

The silence had become habitual. It bled into other areas of their lives. When she realized that he was dating a local girl, she was thrown into a tailspin. There were times when she lay awake at night, agonizing over the possibility that unintentionally, her son might hurt this unknown girl. When she discovered her name, and looked up her picture in Daniel’s yearbook, she was haunted by her.

Willow Rosenberg. She looked the name up in the school directory and cross-referenced it to the tri-city directory, finding the phone number listed under the residential phone for Ira and Shelia Rosenberg. She flagged the address in case there were ever any deliveries to the Rosenberg home, with some crazy idea of taking the delivery herself. Marilyn finally made herself bring the topic up with Daniel, and he had given her an odd look and told her that Willow knew. Not only knew, but sometimes, when he was at the school library, locked in a cage to prevent him from hurting anyone, she stayed to make sure he stayed in.

The next time the full moon rose, and she found her son’s room neat and empty, she had made a couple of sandwiches and packed a bag with chips and soda, and she had gone to the school, to the library and found the girl in the yearbook.

The black and white photo didn’t do her justice. She was sitting on the floor in the library, in front of the cage, reading to him, her long auburn hair falling forward on each side of her face as she leaned forward, her body almost hiding the tranquilizer gun that was resting across her thighs.

They had their little late night snack at the library table, away from the cage while her son made snuffling noises, growling and whining with growing urgency. The only thing that kept her there was the tether of patient kindness that she saw in the girl’s eyes. She put some music on for him and he calmed down for a while before it started again, and then he was flinging himself at the cage, clawing at it, and she kept talking in her soft-spoken way, almost like they were in church, low and hushed. It was, Marilyn realized, a library voice, and that made her smile.

She took his hand out of the soapy water and he put the other hand in, looking bemused as she started to work on his cuticles with the cuticle stick. She looked at him, smiling a little. “I’m surprised that you didn’t go to San Jose to see Willow for a few days,” she ventured.

And he just looked at her, mute, pained, his throat working convulsively, and without thinking about it, she pushed the bowl away and took his face in her hands, pulling him to her shoulder, rocking him the way she did when he was small, her hand fisting into his hair as she felt the heat of silent tears soaking through her t-shirt. Something terrible had happened, and it would all come out soon enough.

She made soothing noises that probably sounded strange since she had started crying too, and she prayed, with everything that she had that the terrible thing that had happened to Willow was not her son.



Chris had left her two sleeping bags, a bottle of soda, and the first aid kit. Angel had left her with a cooler of pig’s blood in Styrofoam containers. She was torn by awe at his tolerance for the stuff and disgust at his willingness to subsist on it. She would drink it because she wasn’t going to starve. The demon wouldn’t let her starve, but it was like drinking Tab when you were expecting a Diet Coke.

She alternated between swigs of the Mountain Dew that had been left for her and the pig’s blood, and then was stuck with a really gross aftertaste and the caffeine high. Her sucky un-life had gone from bad to steadily worse. She was starting to get why vampires acted like Buffy was a big deal. She felt it, a queasy sensation in the pit of her stomach that worked its way up her spine until she was vamped out and trying to figure out what was clamoring at her when the Slayer walked into the crypt followed by her boyfriend.

And that was weird too. Vampire. Not even the creepy crawly sensation that she was rapidly associating with the Slayer—not Buffy, she would never, ever just be Buffy in her head ever again—could completely mask what he was throwing off. There were times when she managed to get close enough to Spike that she could pick up the subtle scent that he gave off and she felt like she was mainlining him. Pete said it was because he was older and more powerful than the others, and he didn’t seem to be bothered by it in the least. With Angel it was even more potent. It made her want to do anything to know that she might be in the presence of that smell.

Anything except trade comments with a Slayer.

Eventually Buffy had withdrawn and it had just been her, with Angel. The faint, bitter reek of the Slayer still clung to him, but she ignored it.

The willingness to do anything did not include revealing that she had attacked Willow. Angel wanted to know how Spike had found her, and Harmony stuck pretty close to the truth, but it was Georgia that went to the bathroom with Willow, and Georgia who tried to kill her, and Harmony who saved her. By the time she had gotten done with the story, she was almost convinced that it was true.

Angel wasn’t, and she knew it the minute that she looked up into his dark eyes, going for flirtatious, and freezing, wondering if sheer terror could stick to her face like that. He held her gaze for several minutes, and then nodded.

“I think I understand what happened,” he said, and his tone was so mild, so soothing that she felt confused.

“Devon said that you wanted to help us,” he told her.

“Please don’t stake me,” she blurted out.

“It’s up to you, Harmony,” he looked at her for a moment. “How long were you with Spike?”

“Not long,” she hedged. She wasn’t exactly with Spike. Pete was with Spike, and Spike barely tolerated him. She was in the less that tolerated category.

“Everything Spike knows about being a vampire, I taught him,” Angel acknowledged. “Minions that don’t keep themselves, don’t get kept. Minions that don’t follow orders, don’t live to learn better. Minions—“

“I’m not a minion,” Harmony was indignant.

“You are sire-less and unclaimed by any Master,” Angel corrected her. “Right now, you are less than a minion.”

“B-but, it’s not my fault,” she said numbly.

“I was leaving a tavern, drunk when I died in an alley, Spike died behind a stable, you died fighting to get away from the Mayor at his ascension,” Angel pointed out. “It’s never anyone’s fault. If you are useful, you stay like this. You don’t kill to feed, and you live a little while longer. It wasn’t my call. I’d have staked you when you lied to me about Willow. Buffy’s not ready to do that yet. If you ever lie to me again, I won’t ask her for an opinion.”

Staring at the blank wall in front of her, Harmony wondered what she could do to be useful.




Willow’s Email (Unopened)

To: Rosenw@clangeek.com
From: drswooffices2@aol.com

Re:

Willow,

I’m not sure if you are getting any of our email. I tried to call AOL customer support and I’m sure that they will get through to me as soon as the problem re-solves itself and they will lure me into staying with another of their diabolical 90 days of free unlimited access. Your mother and I are going to Macedonia. You have the itinerary, but I’m afraid that we will be very difficult to reach with the time difference and our schedules. We will be observing therapy sessions at several refuge camps to work on a standard of care protocol.

Your mother is sanguine. You get that from her, in case you ever wondered. I’m remembering that we are practicing medicine, or in this case, psychology, and I want to get it right.

Your mother is reading over my shoulder. She says that you get wanting to get it right from me.

We hope that your job is going well and that you are learning a lot. Your mother reminds you to call your aunt Carol if you need anything.

We miss you!

Love,

Dad and Mom




One of the blessedly few characteristics that crawled out of Wiliam’s grave with him was the ability to wake himself at a particular hour with a remarkable degree of accuracy. Spike had fallen asleep with a waking time in mind, but that wasn’t what woke him up. It wasn’t the girl, either, though he conscious of her presence even in his sleep. She wasn’t draped over him. There was no cuddling. Ever since he had teased her about her inclination to seek him out in her sleep she had devised increasingly successful ways of keeping herself to her side of the bed. She had one arm wrapped around a pillow that she was hugging to her chest to keep herself from finding something else to grab onto.

It was, he realized, a housekeeping cart, in the hallway, and the sound of a door opening and closing quietly that woke him an hour and a half ahead of schedule. He could have gone back to sleep, but he wasn’t tired. He had gone to sleep just after dawn, which wasn’t his habit. He usually stayed up until ten in the morning and then slept away the height of the day. He made a conscious effort to adjust his sleep schedule since he had taken the girl, rising earlier while Georgia and Colin were still sleeping and sleeping earlier, while Georgia and Colin were still awake, just in case she managed to get out of the room without disturbing him. Two days ago he would have discounted the possibility. Today, he wasn’t underestimating her.

He smiled a little in the dark at the memory of her leaving the club without him. He would have given a lot to have seen that. It wasn’t going to go down in the annals of great escapes, but it wasn’t bad. She should have grabbed his coat, which would have given her his car keys and wallet. She had that figured out by the next morning when she made sure to get both before she tried to walk out of the hotel. There was a pattern to it. Left alone with her guilty conscience after they had sex, she was inclined to bolt. The deal they had struck probably would not out-weigh her flight tendencies, so he started thinking about how to curb that without going back to handcuffing her to the bed or a chair.

He wasn’t totally opposed to handcuffs or electrical tape on principal, but he didn’t want her to think that his range was that limited. He wanted to nurture the idea that he was a bit more creative than that.

Taking her clothes away would send a message. It was for her own good really. There was no point in allowing her to think that his guard was down because their present arrangement included sex. A little show of force outside the door would reinforce the point and give Pete something constructive to do other than follow him around and be annoying.

The cart stopped outside their door, and after a moment, and the sounds of something quietly moved around, he could hear it rolling down the hallway. He got up and pulled on his jeans, going to the door, flipping the safety lock hook to the inside of the door frame to keep the door from shutting completely and locking him out. There was, in the hallway, a conveniently placed, brass clad table top under a fluted brass sconce. A breakfast tray with a bowl of fruit, toast, a carafe of coffee, a neatly folded newspaper and a silver bud vase with a single white rose had been left there with a folded slip of paper.

He opened the note and saw that it was to Willow, from Georgia. He tucked the note in his back pocket and picked up the tray, carrying it into their room and setting it down on the table before going back to secure the door. Georgia was not going to be happy with him for spoiling her courtship ritual, he concluded after studying the tray of food.

He put the fruit in the small refrigerator. Returning to the bedside to retrieve his cigarettes, he looked down at his bedmate and changed his mind. A vampire version of breakfast coffee was right in front of him. He discarded his jeans and got back in bed, sliding over to the center of the bed. She was wearing the t-shirt she had on earlier.

He lay on his side, careful to keep his hand on the outside of the sheet and t-shirt covering her until they picked up some of her warmth. The slow, steady stroke of his hand from armpit to her hip drew a sleepy murmur from her. He adjusted the pillow his head had rested on while he slept between them and eased her back toward him. She set one of her warm feet against his leg, above his knee, her toes flexing a bit as she shivered and stretched, rubbing her cheek against the pillowcase.

He could feel her waking up. “Sssh, go back to sleep, baby,” he crooned to her as he lifted the hem of her t-shirt, using the pull of the fabric against her arms and shoulders to get her to give up the pillow and lift her shoulders a bit as he pulled the t-shirt over her head. She settled back, her head falling on the pillow he had moved, her hips shifting as she rolled to her back, one hand searching for the blanket and sheet covering her to pull them up higher. Her fisted hand came to rest next to her cheek and she started to roll back on her side.

Under the blanket, his hand rode the curve of her hip before moving over the peachy softness of her abdomen. That woke her up with a startled sound that was abruptly cut off as she remembered where she was and why he was touching her.

He lifted his head, rolling his shoulder toward her, seeking her lips and she turned her head away from him to dodge the kiss. His lips grazed her cheek instead.

“Um . . . I haven’t brushed my teeth,” she said awkwardly, clearly perturbed by the idea of kissing prior to cleaning her mouth.

It was so guileless that he found himself smiling even as he kissed the corner of her mouth, using his tongue to coax her into opening her mouth for him. She tasted like Chambord and something slightly bitter, but not wholly unpleasant.

“You don’t need to,” he told her. Her upper lip was damp from his tongue. “You taste like raspberries.”

“I do,” she insisted. “I need to brush my teeth and . . . other stuff.”

The embarrassment clued him in to the ‘other stuff’ humans needed to do upon waking. He kissed her again, sucking on her upper lip, his hand moving up to cup her breast, and then he backed off. “Go on, then,” he said, turning to the bedside table to reach for his cigarettes.

She sat up, holding the sheet to her bare chest, looking for something to cover up with for the trip to the bathroom, and then gave a small sigh of defeat, unable to see the t-shirt at the foot of the bed. She glanced over at him, and he made a show of being preoccupied with shaking out a cigarette and reaching for the lighter that she took advantage of by slipping out of the bed, her slender, pale body glowing in the dark as she hurried into the bathroom.

Once the door was closed behind her, he grabbed the t-shirt and dropped it on the floor on his side of the bed. He was stabbing out the cigarette when she emerged from the bathroom in the robe, cheating him of the anticipated sight of her returning to the bed naked. He watched her, wondering if she would stall. She left the bathroom light on with the door ajar, and he half expected her to go to the table to get a cup of coffee, but she came back to the bed. Before she could get in bed with the robe on, he gestured to it. “Loose the robe, pet.”

She hesitated, probably working out the logistics of removing the robe and diving under the covers. His surmise was confirmed when she came to the bed, turning her back to him, resting one knee on the mattress as she untied the sash and slipped the robe off one shoulder while sliding under the sheet like a strip tease in reverse.

Lying down with the sheet pulled up snugly under her armpits an arm’s length from him, she cast him one of her wary sideways glances and he laughed at her expression and her overdeveloped modesty.

Anger and something that hinted of hurt flared in her eyes before she looked away, her chin firming up in a resolute way. She didn’t like being laughed at, he realized. No one did, but she really didn’t like it.

“What was all of that about?” he asked, genuinely curious. “I’ve seen you naked.”

Color climbed in her cheeks, “So?”

“So? Why the robe and the scurrying under the sheet?”

She looked at him for a long moment, clearly trying to decide how to answer him. He thought the answer was that parading around naked for his entertainment was not going to happen.

“I’m not used to anyone seeing me naked,” she said in a tone that suggested that it was not a topic she wanted to explore.

“Really? Interesting. I wouldn’t have thought you would go for dog boy flipping your skirt up and—“

“Please don’t do that,” she stopped him.

There was a desperate, fragile dignity to the request that was oddly compelling. Spike found himself nodding. “Fair enough,” he allowed. He leaned back against the headboard. “You’ve nothing to be ashamed of,” he began and as soon as the words left his mouth he knew it was, from her point of view, a ludicrous statement. Ignoring the obvious part of that since it had nothing to do with the point he was making, he plowed on, “You have a nice body, Red.”

He watched the color wash back in her cheeks. “Nice is a bit of understatement. You’re desirable. Sexy,” he waved in the shape of her. “Seems like you either don’t know it, or you don’t believe it, or—“

“I don’t think it’s very important?” she suggested tartly.

He raised an eyebrow, “Actually, I was going to say that it frightens you, but go on. It’s not important? Why not?”

She shrugged. “I’ve seen the pictures. I wasn’t a pretty baby.” She was practically bald until she was three years old and then the explosion of red hair. “I wasn’t a pretty child,” she added. “I had braces, and freckles, and bad hair, and that’s okay,” she said in a tone that suggested that it had not been okay at all. “I’m a lot of things. I’ll always be a lot of things,” there was more conviction there, and a hint of pride.

His gaze drifted a little as he thought about that. “Yeah, you are,” he agreed, realizing for the first time that part of what he was attracted to was not found in her hair or her eyes, or her creamy ivory toned skin, or the delicate, elegant shape of her body. She was also smart and stubborn and loyal as hell, and he liked those qualities. She had a quirky sense of humor and though he had forced her to bend to his demands, she wasn’t broken by her capitulation. There was a streak of hard-headed, almost ruthless, pragmatism to her that made her seem older than she really was.

He found himself thinking about what he was doing, picking at it for the flaw that he hadn’t found in the plan. It wasn’t a detailed insert evil slot A into evil slot B kind of plan. The lack of specifics worked better for him anyway. He liked to improvise. Boredom with the evil slot A into evil slot B type of planning and his tendency to go off on a spur of the moment tangent was something that had spoiled some of his other schemes. The plan for today was to keep the pressure on the Scooby gang with another phone call. He had mailed his packet of Polaroids before they had left for San Francisco, but he considered that moot at this point given her little escape attempt. They would be expecting proof that she was still alive.

He had to do something about his current entourage. Pete was annoying, but not a problem to manage. The surviving minion was too intimidated to do anything but follow orders. She survived because she wasn’t too intimidated to follow orders well. Eventually he was going to have to cut Colin and Georgia in on what he was after. He sized up Colin as being too lazy to try to undermine him or double cross him. Georgia, he wasn’t so sure about, but without Colin to back any move she made, she was no real threat to him.

In his post Gem of Amara life, they would be useful. They were mature and stable enough to appreciate the benefits that would be theirs if they accepted his leadership. He knew that that would change the instant Drusilla came into the picture. Minions would accept Dru unquestioningly; the age and power of a century old vampire left an imprint on the more susceptible members of their kind. Her instability was too off putting for either Colin or Georgia to tolerate, and Drusilla would not abide them. She was too territorial to allow a pair of mature vampires to co-exist with them.

Not that it was a sure thing that Drusilla would come back, he admitted to himself. Her instability made that hard to judge, but for over a century his understanding about his future was predicated on her presence in his life and the habit of thinking that she would inevitably be at his side was too strong to break.

All he had to do was stay low, keep himself off the Slayer’s radar, and complete the trade. He felt a relatively small stab of regret about placing the Slayer and her friends off limits. As desperately annoying as Buffy was, he also had a grudging admiration of her. She had fought him to a draw more than once and she hadn’t let her attachment to Angel to keep her from doing what she had to do to save the world, and as loathsome as that attachment was, he knew it was real. The girl had stones. Taking her down, one on one, in a level fight would have been a memory worth cherishing, but killing her after he had the Gem of Amara, after he had an unbeatable advantage, would not be nearly as satisfying.

So, life would go on for the Slayer and the Scoobies as long as they didn’t come after him. The girl lying next to him, under a sheet and a blanket, trying not to breath too loud and draw his attention back to her, her eyes just starting to drift shut as she sought to escape her current situation in a few more hours of sleep, would go back to whatever life he had interrupted. She had mentioned starting college in the fall. He wondered how long her conscience would allow her to keep from trying to curse him. Vampires had a certain amount of innate magic resistance that increased with age. Would the Gem of Amara increase that to a degree that would render any attempt on her part null?

He was sure of two things. As long as she was living, this Slayer was going to keep him on her list of things to do. He knew his own curiosity would move him to come back to find Red. Not necessarily for any reason other than to see what she made of herself. The longer Drusilla stayed away the more attractive Willow might become. No one could replace Dru, but he could see himself assigning some significance to the girl he was with right now once she had some miles on her to add some texture to the more interesting aspects of her.

Her eyes had closed. She wasn’t asleep, but she was willing to go to sleep if he would let her. He smiled at that. Unfortunately for her, he wasn’t sleepy.

He slid down on the bed, moving back to the center as her eyes opened to assess what this meant. Reaching out, he drew her to him with one hand on her hip, nudging her to get her to roll over on her side so he could spoon in behind her, arranging the pillow to support her head and smoothing her hair down as he tucked her in closer, her back to his chest.

She had tensed when she felt him behind her, his growing erection nestled against her ass. He stroked the arm outside the sheet down to her fingertips before threading his fingers through hers.

“What—“

“Sssh,” he rubbed his cheek against her hair. “I’m starting to get used to how warm you are,” he said, pitching his voice lower. “It feels kind of odd, but nice.”

She didn’t say anything about that, but she made a little sound that was probably as close as she was going to come to disputing the observation. He could tell by the twitchy way that she was moving her fingers that she wanted him to let go of her hand. He obliged and promptly moved his hand under the sheet to rest against her bare skin. He tucked her hair behind her ear to give his lips access to her ear, feeling her shiver as the tip of his tongue traced the outline of it.

His tongue bathed the back of her earlobe before he pulled it between his lips, sucking lightly before setting his teeth against her skin and tugging just hard enough to drag his teeth over her earlobe before reclaiming it. He felt her heartbeat speed up the tiniest bit. Pressing up against his chest, he could feel it against his skin.

Under the sheet his hand moved up, following the centerline of her body to rest on her breastbone for a moment with the slight weight of one breast pulled down by gravity to fit neatly between his thumb and index finger. He kissed the hollow under her ear while his thumb stroked the underside of her breast.

“Your skin is so soft, right here,” he said, peppering her neck with tiny kisses. “And here,” he repeated the motion of his thumb and then rubbed his hardening cock against her ass, “and here,” he kissed the underside of her jaw.

When he started playing with her nipples, he returned to her earlobe, flicking it with his tongue as his thumbnail scraped the hard peak of her breast, rolling it between his fingers as he sucked on her earlobe. Tugging it lightly away from her chest as his teeth scraped over her earlobe and repeating the process until she was unselfconsciously stretching her neck to give him better access to her, her eyes half closed, her lower lip between her teeth, probably to keep quiet.

He pushed the sheet away from her. “I need to see you,” he kissed her shoulder, opening his mouth over it, looking over her shoulder at his fingers, his chipped black nail polish stark against her skin. “You have the prettiest tits,” he pinched one nipple, twisting it just enough to make her flinch a little. “Look down. Look at yourself,” he coaxed. “Can you see it? Look at these nipples. They’re perfect. So hard and rosy against your skin,” his thumb flicked at her nipple and he took it between his thumb and index finger again, pinching it, tugging it until he felt her back tightening. He twisted it harder this time, wringing a startled gasp from her.

“Too much?” he guessed, lifting her arm to guide it around his neck. His hand moved to her other breast as his tongue tenderly laved her abuse nipple. For a moment her hand rested awkwardly on his shoulder. His tongue circled her nipple with little cat like licks. He blew on it and felt her hand tighten and then move hesitantly to the back of his neck, her fingertips gingerly moving into his hair. He drew her nipple into his mouth, licking it, sucking, the suction tugging on her nipple as his lips slid over the distended flesh, kissing the curve of her breast pulled down by her position on her side, and returning to her nipple to repeat the process.

Her fingers slid into his hair, a little awkwardly. She was still far to aware of her own reservations about what she was doing with him to be at ease about touching him, but her back was arching and he could feel the change in the way she was breathing as she shivered and flinched as he continued his oral exploration of her, savoring the warmth and the sound of her blood rushing through her pumping heart. Leaving the breast he was fondling, his hand moved back down her smooth abdomen, finding the indentation of her navel, leaving his thumb there as his fingertips brushed over the nest of curls between her legs. “Open your legs for me, Willow,” he said, lifting his head.

Her eyes opened slowly. She looked torn between obeying him because it was more or less required of her and obeying him because she knew that she was going to enjoy what he would do if she opened her legs.

And then he realized that it wasn’t just that. It was the awkwardness of doing what he wanted while she was lying on her side, and figuring out how to make that work that made her look a little uncertain. He slid his hips to the right to make room for her to shift her hips to lay on her back and saw an unmistakable flash of relief as he solved the problem for her. He kicked the sheet and blanket away from them, wanting to see her, feeling her move her leg closer to the edge of the bed. Seemingly unable to help herself, she looked down, her eyes fixing on and then skittering away from the sight of his cock.

Was this more modesty or awareness? He smoothed her hair back before bending his arm at the elbow to rest his chin on his hand. Her hand started to slide out from behind his neck and he lifted his head to catch hers before she could move it away from him, leaning in to kiss her, watching her eyelids drop as he got closer to her mouth. A flick of the tip of his tongue over the seem of her lips was all the prompting required to get her to open her mouth and let him in. She was just letting him kiss her, letting him slowly thrust his tongue into the warm cavern of her mouth. He backed off, frowning a little. Her mouth tasted strongly of cinnamon flavored mouthwash masking the more familiar taste of her. His more highly developed sense of smell made the mouthwash taste almost overwhelming.

She started to move her leg back and his foot shot out to stop her. Her eyes opened. The corner of his mouth turned up as he shook his head and then returned his attention to her mouth. Her lips were kiss swollen and reddened. Probably from the medicinal sting of the mouthwash. He licked and sucked on her lips. The mouthwash taste was less strong though it stung his nose a bit. He nipped at her upper lip until she moved her head like she was chasing his lips, and then he slanted his mouth over hers, stroking her hot little tongue until it was curling around his.

His hand moved down between her legs, parting her, finding the delicate, sleek, wet folds that complimented the texture of her mouth. A sound vibrated in her throat as she felt his fingers stroking her apart. The sound was ambiguous enough that he wondered if she was sore until his dampened fingers reached her clitoris. The sound his stroking fingers drew from her was a throaty moan. He drew back to let her breath, kissing her jaw, her throat, scattering kisses over her breasts as worked his fingers up and down her slit, keeping his touch firm but gentle.

He took her neglected nipple into his mouth, feeling her squirm a bit as she resisted the impulse to push herself against his mouth and hand. Her fingers were back in his hair as soon as he let go of her hand and her head had fallen back, unwitting exposing her throat to him. Penetrating her with a single finger he heard her whimper something that sounded like, “oh, oh, oh, oh,” and his lips tightened on her nipple, pulling on it hard as his finger moved in an out of her. The sleek tissue lining her channel felt a little swollen to him, but she was wet and getting wetter.

“Feels good, doesn’t it,” he purred, “such a hot, tight, pretty pussy you have, kitten,” his voice has deepened. He withdrew from her warm, grasping cunt and pinched her clitoris between his fingers. “You’re so wet. Feel that? Feel how wet you are?” His lips stroked her nipple between tongue curling caresses. “I need to feel that under my tongue, all that hot, sweetness filling my mouth,” he tugged on her nipple feeling her hips rise beneath his hand as he scraped her clitoris with the back of his thumbnail, making her cry out at the sensation.

“You like that, don’t you? You like having my head between your legs. You like having my mouth on you while I’m fingering your hot little quim?”

His tone of voice confused her. The things he was saying were true, and they were feeding mental images to her from last night, but he wasn’t taunting her with her responses to him. The low, intimate purr of his voice was ardent and . . . appreciative. Almost as if he was savoring the same mental images he was feeding her. The muscles inside her thighs were still a little achy. He had done that last night, gone down on her while his fingers fucked her until she came. She and Oz had experimented with oral sex. They had talked about it a couple of times before they tried it and it had been a little awkward, like a science project or an experiment with sketchy directions. She hadn’t been sure what she was supposed to feel, and he had been more concerned about her embarrassment and discomfort.

It had become a part of their repertoire, usually as a prelude to intercourse. During sex they hadn’t talked about sex exactly, other than to point out what did and didn’t work and to express feelings that had more to do with why they were having sex than feelings that actually came from having sex. The idea of doing some of the things she had done with Spike with Oz made her heart race.

Her hips rose as the idea took root and bloomed in her mind. Spike pinched her clitoris again, and she heard herself making a mewling sound. She pushed his head down in an unmistakable way. “Yes, yes,” she chanted, keeping her eyes closed. Oz’s hair was always spikey and a little stiff with gel, but when it was just washed, before he put any gel in it, it had a similar texture that came in part from the dye that was in it.

A little surprised by her shift from passive participation, Spike laughed softly at her enthusiastic response and let her push him down. Without prompting on his part she opened her legs wider to him, making room for him to kneel between her legs. Her fingers clutched her his hair, and a sharp comment about the ‘no hair pulling’ injunction occurred to him and was discarded as her other hand closed around his wrist to press his hand down harder as her hips lifted sharply.

He sat back on his heals for a moment just to admire her slim body, his gaze lingering for a moment on her flat abdomen and her small breasts with their hard nipples begging for attention. She had her eyes closed and she was panting a little, her kiss swollen lips parted.

His fingertips slid downward to the gulf of her vagina, pressing against the opening without penetrating while she ground herself against the heal of his hand. He slid his other hand under her ass. “That’s it, pet,” he breathed. “What a beauty you are,” he slid two fingers into her, slowly. They could explore the pleasure/pain principal some other time. Right now he wanted to reward her for the pretty display.

She bent her knees, heals slipping a little on the sheets as she pushed herself onto his fingers. He bent over her, feeling her fingers twist in his hair as she fucked his hand with a delicious roll of her hips. Pressing kisses into the red gold curls that veiled her cunt, he made his leisurely way down to her clitoris, listening to her moan in frustrated anticipation.

It was a variation on the way he played with her nipples as his tongue circled and licked before his lips closed around the distended flesh, sucking gently at first while his tongue flicked back and forth over her clit. Oz had fingered her before, but not like this. Two fingers. It made perfect sense. If one finger felt good, two was better, and what he was doing with his mouth . . . oh, God. It felt amazing. The way he was tugging on her clitoris, his tongue, the tip of his tongue teasing it, the flat of his tongue soothing the tickle.

She was riveted, one part of her mind busily cataloging the ‘what’ of what he was doing to her. The other racing with the possibilities that it suggested.

His fingers slid out of her and she moaned a protest at the loss as the hand under her ass urged her up higher. “I just want a taste,” he murmured, his tongue following the path that his fingers had, stabbing into her without any warning in a hungry way. His nose bumped against her clit as his tongue fucked her shallowly, curling against the walls of her vagina. She felt the hand under her ass moving down and his tongue was replaced with his thumb, forcing the cheeks of her ass apart as his thumb entered her.

He licked his way back to her clitoris, kissing it as his thumb slipped out of her. She wanted his fingers, and bent her knees, pushing her heals into the mattress, feeling an odd warm sensation in the soles of her feet.

His thumb, warm and wet from being inside of her pressed against her asshole, and the feeling of being touched there, where no one other than her gynecologist had ever ventured got her attention. “Don’t,” she choked, alarmed. “Please-“

“Sssh,” the sound vibrated against her clitoris in a wash of hot and cold sensations as the welcome bulk of his two fingers slid into her. “Not going to hurt you, baby. Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said roughly, nuzzling her. “Such a sweet girl,” his tongue swirled against her clit.

She could feel his thumb flexing as he started to push it into her while his lips clamped down on her clitoris and his fingers moved in and out of her. His lips slid over her clitoris as he tugged on it. “I’m going to make you feel so good,” he promised. “Just relax, and,” his tongue flicked over her clit, “let me fuck you. Fuck your sweet cunt and your--,” his thumb pressed deeper, and his smooth, hard teeth scraped over her clitoris, making her body jerk once as his thumb pushed deeper. His fingers moved a little faster and harder and his lips seized her clitoris, his tongue hard and demanding as he lashed her clit, forcing his thumb deeper into her.

Her orgasm seemed to start in her feet. She had a last second of clarity as an icy sensation prickled her skin from her scalp down to her feet and then her head fell back as she jerked convulsively against the pressure of his mouth.

Feeling her clamping down on his fingers, Spike opened his eyes, looking up her body, wanting to see her when she came. Her skin was damp with sweat and her hair was tousled, and when she came, her mouth opened on a silent scream, eyes flying open, unfocused and unearthly, a view that was lost to him as her back arched. He hardly had to hold her while she shook and the strangled sound of her pleasure sent a bolt of lust down his spine.

He let her fall back on the bed before sinking inside of her luxurious heat, feeling her spasming cunt grab at him. The sensation made him close his eyes and grit his teeth against the gathering knot of pressure at the base of his spine that proceeded an orgasm. When he was completely buried inside her, he carefully rolled them to the center of the bed, putting her on top, feeling her gasp for breath and shudder as the little aftershocks that were gently milking his cock worked through her. He ran his fingers through her hair and stroked her back, waiting for her to recover.

She made no effort to keep her weight off of him, and it felt good despite how damp and hot her skin was. When she started to catch her breath, he tipped her face up to him, running his thumb over her lips.

Her eyes flew open, a frown wrinkling her brow. “That isn’t the thumb that you—“

“Fucked your ass with?” he smirked, and rubbed the thumb against her lips. “No,” he said, amused by the disgust that made her small nose scrunched up. He brought his hand to his mouth, licking the fingers that had been inside of her. “These are the fingers that I fucked you with,” he closed his eyes, moving his hips under her. “God, but you taste good,” he said.

She was looking at him like she didn’t quite believe him. “C’mere, pet,” he urged her up higher in his arms, his mouth seeking hers. “Taste yourself on my lips,” he whispered before kissing her.

The smell of her own arousal on him hit her just before he claimed her lips and she made a choked sound. His fingers in her hair kept her from pulling back from his lips as he leisurely explored her mouth.

She could taste herself on him and tried to decide what it tasted like. Not bad, or good, but different than she expected. His free arm snaked around her hips, holding her as his hips moved beneath her.

He kept kissing her, barely allowing her to breath, his body rocking under hers, changing the depth of his penetration. “You’re so warm. I can feel you all around me, quivering inside, so hot and wet,” he murmured between kisses. “You’re going to do that for me, soon. Fuck me with your warm mouth. I can’t wait to see these lips--,” he kissed her again, his tongue slipping into her mouth.

He rolled them over onto her back, easing almost completely out of her body before slowly sinking back into her. “Open your eyes, witch,” he ordered.

Her eyes opened, reluctantly, heavy lidded. The earlier orgasm had taken a lot out of her, and she was tired. He could feel that too in the slight tremor in her thighs. He studied her eyes, solemn, sleepy, and pleasure dazed. He watched her eyes as he withdrew again, just the head of his cock inside of her, and let himself sink into her again slowly as she drew an unsteady breath, blinking as muscles in her face tightened and relaxed in a reaction to his slow penetration.

He rested his forehead against hers, holding her eyes. His gaze flicked briefly to her lips, damp from kissing, parted as her breath left her in time to his cock’s slow in and out stroke. He reached down to move her leg, slipping his arm under her thigh and bringing it up high watching her eyelids drift down as she absorbed the difference in the depth and angle of his penetration.

He kissed her the space between her eyebrow and the bridge of her nose. “Open your eyes,” he insisted. “I want to see it in your eyes when you come,” he said.

She shook her head. “I’m not going to,” she predicted. “Too . . . orgasmed out,” she explained. When she took in his skeptical expression she was almost tempted to tell him that she had been thinking as much about Oz as responding to him when she came before, but that seemed to be a potentially stupid thing to do. Her expression cooled. “But, I can make some really good sounds if that helps,” she said with a hint of sarcasm.

He chuckled at that. “I’ve heard that performance, and it’s not convincing.”

To her surprise, he lifted himself off her, slipping out of her body in a way that made her shudder. For a moment, he just hung there, balanced on his arms, engorged cock bobbing slightly drawing her attention as she recalled with a sense of foreboding his insistence that reciprocal oral sex was in her future.

Her eyes flew to his face. “Remember when I said that you might find that this isn’t the best deal for you because there are things that I haven’t done? Did I mention haven’t done well? I think I should have—“

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he grumbled. “This is the result of nearly universal birth control. Back in the good old days when girls went to their husbands with their hymen intact for fear of getting pregnant a good hand job or cock sucking was a lot easier to come by.”

Natural skepticism made her wonder if he was serious, even as he was pulling her back against his chest, directing her leg over his hip, the head of his cock bumping against her ass, and then her thigh before it brushed against her damp curls.

“You made that up,” she accused. “Which old days?”

His hand moved between her thighs to grasp his cock, lining himself up. He held her still as he slid into her with a happy sigh. “All of them, pet. If people ever got tired of this, you’d cease to exist,” he pointed out. His fingers found her clit. “Now, you were saying something about making good sounds?”

He kissed her shoulder, scooping her hair away from her sweaty neck, blowing on it when he noticed how hot she was. That made her get all goosepimpely again and she shivered feeling his fingers stroking her as his cock moved in and out of her. He kissed her shoulder and her neck and sucked on her earlobe until the sounds she was making were an indication that she was winding up to another orgasm.

“Are you almost there, baby?” he crooned to her, kissing her throat. “Such pretty sounds you make,” he said. “Give me some more,” he coaxed, his tongue pressing down on her neck, roughly licking the spot, then returning to suck on it, and lick again.

Neck. Vampire. “No!” she shouted, twisting her shoulders, as she tried to get her arm between his face and her neck.

He grabbed her wrist and pinned it to the bed over her head, eyes narrowing as the position she had twisted herself into tightened the muscles that were already squeezing him. He sped up his thrusts, pushing her down into the mattress. She saw his face change and tried to get away from him. His arm wrapped around her waist as he drove into her hard and fast, his head thrown back as he came with a shudder, jerking against her as he held her in place.

She could hear nothing but the sound of her own harsh breathing and a kind of purring sound that was rumbling in his throat as his head dipped and he rubbed his ridged brow against the exposed side of her breast, almost like a cat would. The purring increased in volume slightly, and then started to taper off as he rubbed his face against her, occasionally kissing her.

“Spike?” Willow whispered hesitantly. He was still inside her and his fingers were still rubbing her clitoris.

“Ssssh,” his tongue stole out between the fangs to lick her breast from the underside to the nipple.

“Spike?” she tried again, striving for a soothing tone of voice.

He responded with a dry laugh. “Oooh. The extra reasonable voice,” he said in a voice that sounded a little strained. He let go of her wrist and clumsily patted her hair. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?” he asked.

“N-no,” she stammered. “Spike?” she reached down to curl her fingers around his wrist. “Please stop,” she said softly.

“Said I’d make you feel good,” he muttered stubbornly, suddenly opening his mouth over her breast. She felt the tips of his fangs breaking her skin and tried to push his head away. The shallow puncture wounds oozed blood in two thin, bloody rivulets, the lower one dripping to her breastbone, the upper mark flowing downward to her nipple.

He licked it off, pulling out of her with a wet sound, leaving a smear of semen on her thigh as he bent her back to get at the rest of the blood on her chest. Then he bit her again on the upper swell of her other breast. It was another shallow bite, just breaking her skin. This time his tongue was there almost immediately, milking the small punctures, his fingers plucking at her clit, tugging on it.

He nuzzled her stomach, nicking her on the upper edge of her belly button and catching it on his tongue with a groan as he held her hands down, using his body to keep her down, under him. She tried to close her legs, but he only laughed at her efforts. Her face was pink with exertion and her eyes were luminous with unshed tears, and when he hungrily licked her clitoris she made a sound like a cat in heat. He sank his fangs into the incredibly tender skin of her inner thigh, feeling like he was sinking into butter. Blood filled his mouth and he swallowed it all, pushing her thighs apart to get at her, licking the swollen folds of her cunt, tasting her and him on her, tormenting her swollen, blood engorged clit with the tip of a razor sharp fang. The temptation was almost too much for him, and at the last minute, he turned his head to suckle the bite on her thigh before shaking off the game face entirely and applying himself to making her come again.




In a moment that reminded him of their aborted tryst in the club, Willow was on her side, her knees pulled up to her chest, her arms wrapped around herself. After she had come, he had licked every lingering trace of blood from her skin, savoring the taste of her, rich with the hormones flooding her blood. When he was satisfied that he had gotten all that she had to give without biting her again, he got up and went to the bathroom to soak a washcloth in cold water.

She didn’t put up a fight when he used the washcloth to wipe off the lingering evidence of his orgasm and her arousal or protest the cold cloth pressed against her swollen labia. When he was satisfied that he hadn’t done any real damage to her and removed the washcloth she had glared at him bitterly.

He poured a cup of coffee for her, adding sugar and cream until the coffee was the muddy brown color she seemed to prefer. Feeling like a bit of a ponce, he brought her the coffee. Sensible creature that she was, she accepted the coffee, and refrained from dashing the contents in his face. She just stared at him with angry eyes, her hair a wild tangle around her face and called him a bastard.

That got a crooked smile out of him before he went to take a shower.

When he emerged from the bathroom, the half empty coffee cup was on the bedside table and she was under the blankets, hugging her pillow to her, curled up in a ball around it. He got dressed, leaving her alone for the time being.

She was nodding off when he sat beside her on the edge of the bed. “You need clothes. Do you want to go shopping with Georgia?”

“And spoil her vampire Barbie Doll fun?” Willow was sarcastic.

His eyebrows rose. “I’ll take that as a no, then,” he said coolly.






Willow woke up a little after eleven in the morning according to the clock beside the bed. She was alone, as in alone. No Spike in bed beside her. No Spike in the bathroom. Alone. She looked around the room for her pants and t-shirt, left on the floor last night. They weren’t on the floor, or in the closet, or in any of the drawers. With a sinking feeling, she checked behind the bathroom door, and then in the hamper, and swore under her breath.

He left her alone, without clothes. Even the robe was gone.

With nothing better to do, she went to the bathroom and started to get ready to take a shower. Her collection of bruises courtesy of Georgia had faded and now they had friends, on her hips and thighs. The bite marks and her breasts, stomach and thigh had stopped bleeding before she went back to sleep, and were already scabbing over.

She got into the shower. The soaps had changed from honeysuckle scented to lilac since the last time she had bathed. It was probably a thing. The fragrances were rotated or something. Or maybe Spike liked lilac. She made a face at the thought, hearing him say ‘you need clothes’ like she was some cheap Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman wanna-be who would be swept away by a lot of fancy clothes purchased with money stolen from people he had killed or stolen from stores staffed by people he killed, or removed from the bodies of people he had killed.

She shuddered at the last thought and made a mental note not to wear anything that arrived without a tag.

Assuming that she was going to be supplied with clothing at all, she thought a few minutes later as she gazed in bewilderment at the hand towel she had pulled off the rack. It was the third towel she had pulled out. They were all hand towels, or washcloths, and the robe that had been hanging on the back of the door was gone.

She half expected to find that while she was in the shower, the bed linen disappeared, but when she came out it was still there, tangled up from having been kicked aside and tugged up, and balled in her hands. She yanked the flat sheet loose, folded it lengthwise, and made herself a halfway credible toga before tiptoeing to the door to look through the peephole into the hallway.

Pete and Jeannie were out there with a card table between them playing what looked an awful lot like Boggle.

Kicking the trailing edge of her toga hem, Willow paced. When she got tired of pacing, she looked in the refrigerator and found that the salad left there last night had been supplemented by more yogurt, a bowl of cut fruit covered in cellophane, and a few cans of Diet Coke. The plastic fork left with the salad and the metal in the Diet Coke safety tabs constituted the most lethal threat in the room.

She had the fruit and drank a can of Diet Coke before cracking open a second can and settling into the chair at the table, angling it to see the TV. The remote had been moved from the bedside table to the rectangular table that also served as a desk. She flipped channels, glaring at the television, hefting the remote thoughtfully. It was your standard plastic remote, but there were batteries in it that gave it a little weight on the butt end. She looked at it for a moment, staring at the buttons with a frown.

Then she looked at the buttons. Really looked at them, and then at the television, hardly daring to believe. Her thumb hovered over the round yellow button on the base of the remote, and she depressed it. The television screen flickered and then scrolled up blue with the message, “Welcome to The Hermitage Internet TV”.

It went on to say that a charge of $9.99 per day would be added to the room for 24 hours of Internet access and that additional charges might be applied for pay per view movies or games.

She hit the OK button to order now, and set the remote down to look for the keyboard, half suspecting that Spike had removed that too in his quest to strip the room of anything remotely useful. She was about to give up when she grabbed the swivel base the television was resting on and gave it a tug. It slid out a few inches and something fell with a clatter that made her heart leap in her throat while she watched the door to see if the noise would bring Pete or Jeannie to investigate.

When no one came after several agonizing moments, she reached behind the television, feeling around until the slim rectangular shape of a keyboard took form. Gingerly, careful not to make a lot of noise, she pulled it out and did a very abbreviated Snoopy dance that almost ended badly when she stepped on part of her toga and stumbled.

Victory dance later, she decided, eyeing the door. There was nothing to keep her from throwing the safety lock from the inside. It would slow anyone down who was trying to get in.

She went to the door, peered out at Pete and Jeanie again, and slammed both of her hands on the door, watching Jeannie jump and Pete glare at the door. With a cautious glance over her shoulder to make sure that the Internet access screen was not visible from the door, she opened the door. She didn’t have to manufacture ire. “Where is he?” she demanded.

Pete leaned back in his chair, smirking. “That’s a good look for you,” he told her.

“Beats shrieking ‘fire, fire’ and slapping at myself like a girl,” Willow shot back. “Right. I get it. You aren’t going to tell me where he is. Or when he’s coming back, or where my clothes are.”

“That just about covers it,” Pete agreed. “Now, shut the door, from the other side,” he ordered.

Willow slammed it shut. Unfortunately for her, the dramatic gesture fell short when her sheet got stuck in the door. “Crap,” she muttered, rolling her eyes. She tugged the door open, yanked her sheet back in, grimaced at Pete who was chuckling at this, and shut the door, threw the inside bolt and the safety lock for good measure.

“Fine,” Pete muttered. “Lock yourself in you silly bint.”

Jeannie cocked her head to one side. “What’s a bint?” she asked.




It took a bit of trial and error to get the wireless keyboard and the television lined up well enough to work with an acceptable degree of success. Willow had it balanced on her knees as she typed, working her way into her email account. It had taken her a few nail biting minutes to remember how to do this since it was not a web based account, but she figured it out.

The hotel Internet system went down while her mail was downloading, and she almost screamed in frustration before doggedly working her way back and restarting the process. Quickly scanning her email titles and addresses, she spotted several emails from her parents amongst emails from her boss, Sara Engstrom that went from lower case, “Willow, Where are You?” to upper case, “PLEASE DON’T MAKE ME FIRE YOU!”, and back to lower case, “Notice of Termination of Employment’.

Most of the email addresses were familiar to her, and then there was one that stood out. B.summers@uscs.edu. Buffy. She opened it and scanned the note. Buffy had set up her computer and sent her an email. Without a mouse, she had to use the up and down arrows to get to the Reply button. She started composing a message, packing in as many pertinent details as she could think of. They were in Sacramento, in a hotel. Called . . . . she had seen it on a notepad, on the screen, what was it? Hermitage! She kept typing steadily.

When she got to the end of her pitifully thin amount of hard data, she chewed on the tip of her pinky nail and considered what questions the email might raise as well as answers. The first question would be authentication. She closed her eyes to think of something that would prove it was her, and started typing again.

Shutting down the Internet connection and tucking the keyboard away was the hardest thing she ever did. Preserving the fact that she had access to the Internet was critical.

She shut it down.

(Buffy Summers’ Email, Unread)

To: b.summers@uscs.edu

From: Rosenw@clangeek.com

Re: You-hoo!


Buffy,

I’m in Sacramento. We are staying in some kind of hotel called The Hermitage. Ask Angel if there are Hyatt Hotel’s for vampires, because I’m thinking with the lack of windows, this is one. When we left San Francisco Spike was with eight vampires, including Harmony—long story. In the last day I’ve only seen four.

I’ll keep updating you as long as I have the Internet access.

Willow