The Price of a Kiss

It shouldn't matter what she wore to the Bronze on a night when she was getting together with Buffy and Xander, plus Anya. And Riley. And a half dozen commando guys in civilian college student mufti. Looking down at herself, Willow recognized that it did matter.

She hadn't just gone out to meet her friends. She had gone out to meet her friends to avoid doing something that she was pretty sure would turn out badly.

Last night Tara had almost kissed her. Willow still wasn't sure exactly how it had happened. Giles had been giving her a couple of hours in the afternoon to work on some exercises. She had told Tara about them during a study session that only they had turned up for in the library, and after dinner they had gone back to Tara's.

The feeling of magical energy that had passed between them when they moved the soda machine together had been like nothing Willow had ever experienced. Before Amy turned herself into a rat she sometimes let Willow assist with her spells, but the role that Willow played on those occasions was entirely passive, handing Amy the ingredients that they had prepared and observing the spell. Tara had let her in; including her in a way that she never imagined was possible. It was an incredible feeling.

They worked on the exercises from a book that Giles had recommended. Tara was much more adept at finding what she described as a still point in her concentration. The harder Willow tried, the more elusive it became, until Tara lightly clasped her hands and told her to relax and let her show her what she meant.

At first nothing happened, and then Willow felt the tickle of someone else's magic brush against her. It was like being rubbed with something incredibly soft and warm. Like being bathed in something that was warm and weightless.

"Relax," Tara whispered. "Stop thinking about it, and just let your mind settle into it."

Willow opened her eyes. Tara's eyes were closed, her face tilted up as if she was feeling the sun on her face. Her lips curved into a gentle smile. "You are still thinking," she scolded, sounding patient and amused. "Relax."

Willow closed her eyes and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly, and then another. The image of sunlight warming her face stayed with her and she let it develop until she could almost sense the light through her eyelids. It felt good and something loosened in her shoulders, some previously unknown tension unknotted itself. Released from it, she felt lighter. It was easier to breath. Easier to be still without thinking about being still.

And she understood what Tara meant. A still point. The stillness wasn't in her muscles or body. It was in her mind. It was in her heart. It was a quiet in herself. It wasn't a tool to be used for magic, though she understood that her magic was more accessible now. It was a place with its own value and utility and now that she had discovered it, it was hers.

She was still inside it when she felt Tara's hands on her face, wiping away tears. "I didn't mean to make you cry," she said, sounding upset.

Willow opened her eyes, wondering if she could hold onto the still point. She smiled. The light filtering through her eyelids was from a lamp that was behind Tara that made her ashy blond hair glow with a hint of white. It was so pretty. "This is amazing," Willow whispered, and she let the magic flow back.

Tara's eyes widened, not in alarm, but in wonder. Her palms trembled against Willow's face and she leaned forward until their lips were almost touching and then Willow blinked, startled, and they came apart.

"Uh . . . that was . . . I didn't mean to . . ." Tara started stammering, looking more and more upset. "You were crying."

"I was?" Willow felt dazed. "That was really amazing." She wanted to talk about it, about what it meant, and how it felt, but Tara was turning away from her, looking hurt and confused.

It wasn't the idea that Tara was about to kiss her that had startled her so much as it was the idea that she was curious about what it would feel like to kiss Tara. Spike's crass comment about having your tongue in someone else's mouth came back to her. And she started to blurt out something about how she had been thinking about how much she missed kissing, but Tara was talking.

"I should have told you. I should have been honest, but I was afraid that you would hate me and I know that you are going through something that is really hard right now. It's not f-f-fair. But, I w-w-want you to know that I want to be your f-f-fr-friend. Most of all, that is," she was saying.

Willow was trying to follow this, still feeling a little dizzy. She lay back on the floor, looking up at the ceiling that Tara had painted black in defiance of the dorm rules about painting. She had little Christmas lights strung up around the room. Willow admired the effect for a moment before turning to look at her new friend, slowly catching up with the subject, feeling her heart twist a little in her chest. She hadn't noticed, or maybe she had, but she had decided that it didn't have anything to do with her, and now Tara looked so upset, so vulnerable.

"You are gay," Willow said, her voice softening on the last word.

Tara heard the hesitation and winced. "God, I'm sorry," she said. "I should have told you."

Willow shook her head. "No," she wanted to cut off the tide of apology. It was weird. It made her think of Spike telling her to stop saying that she was sorry. It never occurred to her that you could make people feel bad to hear you apologize, but in the face of this apology she felt bad. She felt inadequate. "You don't have to apologize and you don't have to tell me anything, Tara."

The look that she gave Willow as full of hurt. "Of course I have to tell you," she said, her voice thickening with tears. "I'm . . . attracted to you," she admitted. "I just . . . like you so much."

Willow didn't know what to say. There was still that little part of her that was curious about what it would be like to kiss Tara, and a bigger part of her that ached to kiss someone again. She rolled over on her side, wondering if she should tell her. If she did tell her they would probably kiss. She wasn't sure how she felt about that. Curious, but that seemed so crass and manipulative.

"Oh, Willow," Tara reached for her hand. "I'm not afraid that you'd let me kiss you and that it wouldn't be something you wanted. I'm afraid that you'd let me kiss you because you just want something so bad, that you'd try anything. I don't want to take advantage of you."

Her cheeks burned with the recollection as she smiled politely at the clean-cut fake college boy who had stayed at the table to keep her company. He was one of Riley’s friends, and he lingered at the table to keep her company while she sipped sugary soda. He was cute, in a frat boy sort of way, and she felt a stirring of interest that cooled when she met his eyes and realized that he was just the boy who got stuck keeping Riley’s girlfriend’s dateless friend company.

No one wanted to take advantage of her. Everyone wanted to protect her. Oz. Buffy. Xander. Giles. Now Tara.

Xander and Anya had left as soon as the commandos had shown up. Buffy and Riley were on the dance floor. The other fake college student commando guys had wandered off to dance or get drinks, save for this one, blandly attractive boy who restlessly scanned the occupants of the Bronze while he kept her company. If she told him that she wanted to dance, he would probably oblige.

She found herself looking at his neck and shoulders since those were the parts of him she would interact with if he did lead her out to the dance floor. A fake college student commando guy who was nice enough to feel obliged to keep her company would probably put up with her leaning into him for the comfort of leaning into another body.

Her gaze shifted to his lips, settling there for a moment, before she popped the straw from her drink in her mouth, and let her gaze travel up to meet his.

It was a surprisingly low stakes maneuver, and she almost choked on a mouthful of soda at the startled look on his face when he registered that she had been checking him out like a . . . checker out of fake college boys.

There was a funny little moment there when she could see him rolling the idea around. Then he smiled and became someone she might get to know better. Not tonight. Not in a dark corner. It was the sort of smile that acknowledged interest without any intention of follow through.

When she finished her drink, he offered to get her another one and she took the opportunity his absence presented to slip away quietly. Movement out of the corner of her eye caught her attention. Threading her way to the door through the crowd, she saw Spike flanking her, reaching the door an instant before she did, one hand, stark against the dark paint covering the door, reaching out to push it open for her.

"Spike."

She didn't think he could have heard her over the sounds in the club, but she felt him behind her as she stepped out into the night, avoiding a group of people coming in, losing him for a second, and then feeling his hand on her wrist, pulling her away.

"I'm going home," she announced.

"No you aren't," he said, letting go of her wrist to give the fringed sweater she was wearing a small tug. "Come on," he turned her around and gave her a little push to get her moving.

"I am," she insisted.

The Desoto was parked around the corner, at the curb. "If you want to go home, I'll take you," he said with a hint of challenge in his voice.

She shook her head. "I don't need an escort. Thanks."

"Not going home are you?" He opened the driver's side door. "Where do you think you are going to go in this town to get what you think you are looking for? Get in the car, Red. I'm not asking."

His tone of voice was doing something weird to her. She ignored it and threw her hands up in exasperation. "Fine," she snapped. "What do you care if I walk home by myself? If someone killed me you'd probably get a good laugh out of it."

She got in the car anyway, not really surprised when he didn't correct her. "You don't even like me. You don't like any of us," she pointed out while he got in.

Annoyed by his lack of response, she scooted over across the front seat to the passenger side door, with the intention of opening it and getting out. Before she got that far he was leaning across her, slapping his hand down on the locking mechanism for the door before his attention shifted to her.

He was inches away from her face, and Willow felt a twinge of fear. It wasn't an unusual response to him. Last week she was in Giles' kitchen looking for a glass in the cupboard and when she turned around he was right behind her doing the stealthy vampire thing. He ignored her start of surprise and reached around her for a mug from the same shelf and then the corner of his lip curled in a smug little smirk that made her want to smack him. He knew she was still a little scared of him and he enjoyed it.

"Shut up," he said.

She stared at him, trying to decide if he was doing this on purpose, if he was trying to scare her. She could feel herself pressing back into the seat to put an extra half and inch of space between them. He didn't encroach on it. He just stared back at her until he was satisfied that she was going to shut up and then he moved back to his side of the car and started it.

She released a breath that she didn't know that she was holding as he pulled away from the curb.

Guilt at the way she had lashed out at him started to work its way to the surface. He was giving her a ride home. It was odd, but it wasn't a big scary mean thing that he was doing. She had the strangest feeling that he knew perfectly well that she hadn't been planning to go home, though he couldn't possibly know about Tara. No one really knew about Tara. There wasn't anything to know about Tara. Yet.

She shoved her hands between her knees, feeling tense and tired and confused. Feeling bad about snapping at Spike.

What was he doing at the Bronze? Didn't he know how dangerous it was?

He cracked the window on his side open and lit a cigarette. She looked over at him and he returned her gaze, briefly.

"You shouldn't go to the Bronze," she said in a more normal, slightly apologetic tone of voice.

"Commandos," he acknowledged it. "I saw 'em," he said. "I'd rather know where they are than have them sneak up on me."

He had a point there. "You need to be careful," she cautioned.

He frowned, giving her a sideways look. "You say that like you care," he observed.

"I do, don't I?" Struck by that, she relaxed a little, smoothing the palms of her hands over her jeans. "I guess I do. I don’t know why," she admitted. "I guess it's because you are around. Like, there was this guy I went to school with and he was kind of mean to me. Stupid stuff. Like snapping my bra and making rude comments. Not that you do that, but it wasn't personal. I don’t think that you really hate me personally. And you are taking me home."

"Which makes us, what? Friends?"

"Friendly enemies. You can't kill us. We won't kill you. It's a DMZ," she theorized, warming to the topic.

“I'm not taking you home," he changed the subject. "I've been watching you for a while. Mostly because I figured one way or another I was going to even the score with you. Sorry doesn't cut it, pet. Sorry isn’t a double chocolate chip cookie with extra nuts and anxious looks. I'm a vampire. Sorry is tit for tat."

Willow looked over at him to try to gauge how serious he was. "Well, you are still ahead. You kidnapped me and you tried to kill me," she reasoned. "And now I'm getting why you didn't apologize, so–"

He gave a bark of laughter. "That was quick," he complimented, looking over at her. "I forgot about that, so if you were the blood thirsty revenge minded sort, having me fawning over the Slayer would be a creative kind of revenge. Non-lethal. Humiliating. Not bad at all for an amateur."

"It was a mistake," she muttered. "Like I would do that to Buffy."

"You did do that to Buffy, so it is exactly like that. I was the revenge you accidentally wished on her. I don't think I care for being less than a good instrument for creative revenge. It's insulting."

"So this is payback?" she ventured. The chip was still working. It had to be. There was a way to find out but she wasn't sure that trying to get Spike to hit her was the way to go with this.

"No," he said. "I told you. I've been watching you. You never revoked the invite to your dorm room, Red," he shook his head at this omission. "I dropped in one night. Figured I'd scare the living hell out of you. I had it all planned. You'd wake up to find a vampire in game face sitting on you, hand over your mouth, pushing your head to one side to finish what I started," he grinned. "Scare you but good," he said, sounding amused at the idea.

Wide eyed, Willow stared at him. "It would have worked," she said faintly.

"But you woke up," he went on, tossing the cigarette out the window and turning the steering wheel sharply to the left. Willow had to put her hand out to grab the dashboard. The interior of the Desoto felt incredibly claustrophobic as the car lurched over what sounded like a gravel road before coming to a halt.

"I thought it might," he said. "But then I had a better idea," he set the brake and turned the engine off, opening the door on his side. "C'mon, pet. We are here."

Where was here? Through the streaks of paint, she couldn't see anything. She wasn't getting out of the car. Nope. Whatever he had in mind, it was going to happen outside of the car, and she wasn't having any part of it.

He braced his arm on the roof, peering in at her. "I thought you might balk," he said. "So, let's add a twist to this. We are still in Sunnydale, after dark. You are sitting in my car. Alone. Heart pitter pattering madly. I can hear it. You have a choice. You can come with me, quietly, like a good little girl," his lips curled into a smile at the choice of words, "Or, I handcuff you to the steering wheel," he fished a pair of handcuffs out of his pocket, "and we see if you make it through the night without some lucky vamp stumbling on you and drinking you."

He rattled the cuffs. "You'll fight, and I'll have a miserable headache after I get you cuffed," he allowed, "but it won't change the outcome."

She tried to decide if he was bluffing. It was a battle of wills, and she was pretty sure that she had the nerve to bluff. She was also sure that Spike lacked the patience to do anything but follow through on the threat. She edged closer to the open driver's side door. He watched her for a second and backed up to give her more room to get out.

She half expected to find herself at a cemetery, but when she got out she was nowhere that she could place immediately. There was a gravel road flanked by a stand of trees, an open clearing, and more woods. A million possibilities occurred to her. He might leave her out here, alone, to make her way back to Sunnydale. He hinted that there were vampires around. They might be around because he told them to meet him here.

"Come on," he gestured to the woods. "We are almost there. We'll go the rest of the way on foot."

She shook her head. "Okay. I'm scared. You scared me," she pointed out. "That was what you wanted, right?"

He cocked his head to one side, looking pleased. "It's a bonus. You didn't say that you were sorry. That's good. I don't want to hear that."

She looked sorry. Abjectly sorry, and scared. He thought that he was going to have to touch her to get her moving and that she might panic if he did. It was a problem he didn't know how to solve. He shut the door to the car, and saw her flinch at the sound. Her heart was pounding. He half hoped that she would run. Crashing through the woods giving off that heady scent of fear, heart pounding. It brought out something primal.

"Let's go," he said, walking towards the woods, listening for her to follow him, or run.

She followed. He tried not to feel disappointed. He wasn't here for that.



She kept him in sight at all times, and it was few minutes of walking before she realized that she was following him on what was a groomed trail. In the moonlight that filtered through the trees she saw a wrought iron bench nestled under a pair of trees, and when they reached a creek there was a small bridge to cross it. He was waiting for her on the other side and without comment, he took her hand in his.

The trail curved around the trunk of a huge tree, and for a moment, she was behind him, only able to see his shoulders and the gleam of his hair in the dark, and then they were in another small clearing, on the back side of the Crawford Street mansion.

The relief she felt was intense. She knew how to get home from here. She knew where the closest shelter was. Where the closest phone was.

She was familiar with the house in a general way from the year that Angel had lived here alone, not that she ever had the run of the place. The door that Spike used took her inside a part of the house she was not familiar with. It was in the back of the house and they had to go down three shallow steps to reach it. Spike's grip shifted from her hand to her elbow, offering her more support on the stairs. They felt slightly worn and slick under the soles of her sneakers.

The door gave an atmospherically creepy groan when he opened it, pushing it with his shoulder while he pulled her from where she was hanging back behind him. There was a short hallway and another door, this one well oiled, opening soundlessly, and a soft spill of light offering relief from the darkness that was unnerving her. She followed him in, trying not to freak out at the sound of a bolt being thrown as she looked around what appeared to be a kind of family room.

It wasn't a huge room, like the great room beyond the front entrance and foyer. This was a medium sized, cozy room with a fire in the fireplace and wainscoting on the walls at variance with the art deco parts of the house she was more familiar with. There were a pair of slightly mismatched leather sofas, an armchair, and a television that was off at the moment. It was so much more comfortable than the drafty, austere great room that she was surprised and a little hurt that she had never seen this room before.

"It's not the dungeon," Spike said from behind her. "You must have wondered if Angelus had one and if you were going to see it."

"Actually, no," she said, a bit more sharply than she intended.

"No?" Spike shook his head at that. "It's thinking like that pet, not seeing that there are consequences that is bound to get you into trouble. There are always consequences."

It was stupid, but as soon as she saw the house, she felt safer, and feeling safer, she was starting to get angry with him for scaring her. He wasn't talking about Angelus at all. He was talking about her bungled spell. "I was there," she reminded him. "I saw the consequences. I nearly got Xander and Buffy and Anya killed. I blinded Giles."

"What you did to me was the least of it, eh?"

He said it. "Yeah," she said. "You said it yourself. Kissing's not so bad when you've got your tongue inside someone else's mouth."

"Hmm. I said that?" he looked amused. "Did it make an impression?"

She ignored him, looking around the room. "So are we going to watch television? Movies? Have some popcorn and talk about revenge?"

"Maybe," he said, taking off his coat and dropping it on the arm of the sofa. "You were going somewhere tonight. Looking for something," he said, moving toward her, making her take a step back. He smiled at that and took a step forward, grabbing a handful of her fringed sweater, using it to pull her toward him. "You can do a lot of things for yourself, except kissing. Isn't that what you were looking for? To close your eyes, to feel someone closer and closer," his hand cupped the back of her head before he let go of the sweater, sliding his hand under it, over the waistband of her jeans, down, his hand resting on the small of her back as his lips hovered over hers.

His lips nipped at her upper lip, and she brought her hands up to push against his chest. "What are you doing?" she demanded.

He shrugged. "I haven't decided yet. I watched you. You woke up. I guess you couldn't go back to sleep. You needed something. I watched you. Covered to your chin, hands beneath the blankets. Couldn't see much save your face, while you were fingering your pussy. I could hear it. Smell it. God, you smelled so good. I wanted to rip off those blankets and watch you fucking yourself."

Her eyes widened in stunned comprehension. Color flooded her face. He had been in her room? Watching her? "You . . . bastard," she choked out, pushing against him and twisting out of his loose embrace.

"Probably would have used it to torment the living hell out of you," he admitted, "but I miss kissing too," he moved to the right to cut her off when she tried to move around him to the door. "No," he shook his head. "You'll be out there looking, waiting, wanting someone to kiss you again. I couldn't let that happen."

Willow glared at him. "Oh, great. So you are going to save me from the bad rebound relationship that everyone else has?"

"I am the bad rebound relationship," he countered, moving faster than she could follow. One moment she was back away from him and the next she was pinned between the wall and his body, no longer on her feet, and he was pushing aside the thick layers of her sweater where it bunched around her neck with his nose and chin, taking lip biting kisses that tugged on her skin.

"This is what you want," he rasped. "Need it, don't you? I watch you, biting your lower lip, looking like you are savoring the taste of someone on your lips. Wanting it so bad."

"I want Oz," she wailed, feeling guilty.

"You'll settle," he predicted.

She knew that it was true. Oz was gone. He had left her, and Spike was hoisting her higher in his arms, pressed up against the wall, the chair rail scraping her back. He kissed her throat, her chin. He caught her earlobe between his lips and traced the shape of it with his tongue.

She was pushing him away until she wasn't. Until she had a fistful of his t-shirt in one hand and she was touching his throat with the other, feeling him grind his hips against her as he shuddered. "Know your vampires, don't you Red? Go for the throat with your hot little hand."

She kissed him to shut him up. It was awkward and clumsy. Too much pressure. Her hand went to the back of his neck and he shuddered again, backing off just the slightest bit, enough for her to turn her head and open her mouth to meet his tongue.

"Want to feel your hands on me," he said harshly between kisses. "I want to feel your hands on me while I'm kissing you."

"I want Oz," she insisted. Oz, or maybe even Tara, though the idea gave her a fluttery sensation in her tummy that she associated with roller coasters and a tightness in her head that was like the feeling she had right before she dreamt about falling and woke herself up.

"You'll settle."

She didn't miss kissing like this. Like it was a battle or a contest. The chair rail digging into her back hurt. She missed the back of Oz's neck. The way his breath caught when she ran her tongue over the edge of his earlobe. He had small earlobes. When he tried to do the same thing to her, inevitably he would get his tongue in her ear and the loud, wet suction was kind of gross and funny.

Spike's lips felt different. Cooler. His lower lip was fuller than Oz's. Softer when she took it between her lips and firmer when his lips brushed back over hers. He seemed to catch on to her shift from passive participation, backing off slightly so she was no longer wedged between the wall and his body. He was a little taller than Oz, but the difference in height wasn't the mismatch that it was with Xander.

Through her sweater she felt his hand on her back. He took a small step backward and she followed it, reaching up blindly to find his ear, tracing the outer edge with her fingertips. There were times when she and Oz made out on the sofa in her living room, or in the front seat of his van, and she wondered if he would ever understand that she touched him in ways that she imagined being touched. Like there were messages in the shape of humble body parts and the texture of skin. Like there was something to say just in touching that no words would ever encompass.

Oz was quiet and Spike was not.

They were moving to the couch. He bumped into it, a strangely graceless thing for him to do that had him holding her around the waist to steady her as he leaned against the padded arm of the couch. She opened her eyes to find him leaning toward her, his hands on her waist, an expression of intense concentration on his face.

She kissed the corner of his half closed eye.

She missed the art in kissing. And it was there, in the way he turned his head, not wanting to break contact with her but to find some place to explore that would be equally pleasing. His lips moved over her cheek. His nose brushed against her skin.

There was an awkward moment when he moved to sit on the couch and she didn't quite know what to do as his hands on her waist were pulling her down with him. He solved it by pulling one of her knees over his lap and she hesitated, uncomfortable with the idea of straddling him, but he cupped the back of her head and guided her to him, lips brushing hers and then coming back.

It wasn't so hard to rest her arms on his shoulders. In fact, it was probably the safest thing she could have done. His hand moved down her back and for a moment she felt both of his hands through her jeans, holding her while he moved under her in a way that had him pressing up between her legs.

The shock of friction, from the seams of her jeans and the hard shape of his erection, made her aware of two things. She missed this too. She missed the unpredictable nature of being touched intimately by someone else. She also realized that she had a choice that she could either make or pretend that she wasn't making.

There was something a bit mind boggling about it that made her feel a fit of semi-hysterical giggling bubble up. His hands held her as he rocked against her. If they were naked, he would be pressing up against her, maybe sliding inside of her. It wasn't possible to accidentally have sex with someone. It was more than possible to have sex with someone that she didn't love.

She thought that she should mention that she wasn't going to do that, and if she believed that she wasn't, she probably would have. But even as one hand moved up, under her sweater, up her spine, fingers exploring the back of her front hook bra, she was nibbling on his earlobe, wondering if he would figure out how the bra worked on his own. Did girl vampires need a bra? She wore one for the sake of modesty and comfort. Going without a bra chaffed her nipples.

If she had kept her arms on his shoulders when he started pushing her sweater up, they might have stopped to talk about it. But he was kissing her mouth again while his hand cupped one breast, his thumb brushing back and forth over her nipple.

When he pulled her sweater off and unfastened her bra, she wasn't sure if settling entered into it at all. She had always taken off her own clothes. Spike was taking them off now with the kind of urgency that she never sensed from Oz, rolling her over on her back with the weight of his hips pressing against her as he unsnapped the bra and brushed the unstructured cups out of his way. He watched her face while his fingers found her nipples, rolling them gently between his fingers as if he was testing the shape of them.

A mental image of clothing, shredded, flung across the floor of an improvised cage in an abandoned crypt flashed through her mind. It hurt that Oz wanted someone desperately enough to be so demanding. It wasn't like that with them. For a moment it hurt so bad that she squeezed her eyes closed to force the thought out.

The coolness of his hands on her face made her suck in a breath. "I never wondered what you looked like naked," he told her.

He held her face in his hands and kissed her, his lips moving softly against hers. A small smile tugged at the corner of his lips, she could feel it.

She never wondered what he looked like naked, though she was wondering about it now in an uneasy sort of way. If she saw him naked, would it really make any difference? Did it have anything to do with what she wanted? She moved her hands up to catch at his. He cocked his head to one side, letting her move his hands away from her face.

Shifting against her on the couch, he used an elbow to support his upper body. Lacing his fingers through hers, he brought the open palm of her hand to his lips and bit the heal of her hand, without breaking skin.

He was supporting the weight of his upper body on one elbow. Having lost contact with his chest, Willow's free hand hovered over her breasts to cover them.

His eyebrows rose. "Go on," he encouraged. "Touch yourself. Think of something soft touching them. Fur. Soft, silky fur moving back and forth over your tits." He kissed her wrist.

Mute, she shook her head, but her hand moved. Under her own fingers her nipples became flaccid. They looked odd to her, like mutant nipples, a little too big and prominent compared to the rest of her breast.

He kissed the upper swell of her breast, watching her fingers. His tongue swept out to lick her skin, just grazing the darker edge of her other nipple. It puckered instantly, almost painfully.

Her fingers curled. No one has sex accidentally, but sometimes they turn their head to one side and close their eyes and cant their hips up a little higher to feel the weight and friction of an erection roughly stroking against the junction of their hips. She didn't need to watch what he was doing. She could feel it. She could feel his tongue curling around her nipple and his lips tugging on it.

"The things I would have done to you if I knew what your tits looked like," he sighed against her skin. "That little lilac number you were wearing that night at the factory? I would have ripped it to shreds to get at these nipples. I would have felt them against my hands while I put you on your knees."

She frowned at the mental picture. It isn't sexy. She remembered exactly what she felt in the factory with Xander out cold, possibly dying, blood caking the side of his face, leaving her to deal with an angry and drunk Spike.

"No," she whispered, shaking her head.

He felt the change in her heart rate. The little fearful quiver of it near his lips, throbbing delicately under her skin. He lifted his head to look at her, taking in her averted profile. "Yes," he countered. "I didn't say you would have liked it, or even wanted it."

She frowned a little, turning her head to look at him. "But, you would have done it anyway?"

He shrugged. "Maybe. I might have just decided to take you with me. Put you in a dress that Dru would like, and do all sort of nasty things to you until the smell of you brought her home. I bet you were a virgin back then? Not really my thing, but that was one of Dru and Angelus' favorite games."

"That's disgusting," she said, feeling repulsed.

He brought her hand back to her breast. She felt her nipple, wet from his mouth, under her fingers, lifting his hips away from her. He settled back against the back of the couch, sliding his arm under her neck as his other hand moved down her stomach to unfasten the button at the waistband of her jeans. He grasped the zipper tab, tugging it down.

"It wouldn't have to be disgusting," he said, slipping his hand inside her jeans to press his fingertips against her clit through damp underwear. "It could have been like this," his fingernail scraped over her through the cotton panel. He nodded to the empty armchair. "Drusilla would be over there. Watching. She liked to watch." His thumb slid under the waistband of her panties, tugging them down. "She might have come over here after you were naked, to hold you while I fucked you."

His thumb pressed against her clitoris and Willow sucked in a breath, her legs quivering. He smiled at her reaction. "I'd fuck you so slow, too," his fingertip traced over the outer edges of her cunt, moving back and forth, deeper with each pass until he was pressing lightly against the opening of her body, his lips next to her ear. "Pinch your nipple, baby. Feel my finger, right there?" he wiggled the tip of it against her. "I can't wait to feel you fucking yourself on my finger."

She told herself that she wouldn't do it. She wouldn't stop him if he did, but she wasn't going to do what he said. But even as she was thinking it she was hooking her foot behind his knee for leverage and opening her legs wider. His thumb rotated lazily over her clit. She closed her eyes, absorbing an impression of how wet she was from the way his fingers where moving over her.

"She'd play with your tits. Pinch your nipples until they were so hard that I'd have to suck on them, and while I was fucking you so slowly, sucking on your pretty tits, she would slide her hand down your stomach and start frigging your clit. And every time I'd thrust into your cunt, your ass would rub against her."

If that was the way it really would have happened it wasn't all that bad. It was sort of consensual, and the way he described it, it was passionate and weirdly tender–not that she wanted to be the center of a Spike and Drusilla mating ritual. She suspected that they probably had done things like that before and it probably ended with someone dead.

That was the part that appealed to her. She didn’t have a death wish. She had a desire that probably wasn’t that unique, to be defined and rendered to the uttermost end. If she was a match, she wished to be lit even if it meant that she would be consumed. She wanted to live inside the surety of that moment, and not to wake again to the ambiguities that crept in and undermined her understanding.

She didn't pinch her nipple or press against the teasing pressure of his fingers. Instead she unhooked her foot from behind his knee and reached down to push the loose waistband of her jeans down. But her hips rose anyway, to slip her jeans down over her hips, and his fingers--not one finger, but two--slid inside her. It wasn't what she wanted. She didn't really want her jeans bunching around her ankles because her shoes were in the way. She didn't think she wanted two fingers pushing into her, the margins of a relatively cool hand pressing into her upper thighs. She didn't want to lose his thumb rolling back and forth over her clitoris, though that was exactly what happened.

That, and he was kissing her again. Her arm was squashed against her side and chest when he rolled toward her, smothering her startled moan as his mouth covered hers. She could feel him along one side of her body, his cotton t-shirt against her arm. The cold metal of his belt against her hip, the shape of his erection pressing against her thigh as he moved one knee between her thighs. Most of all she could feel his fingers inside of her. Vividly. She understood that it had something to do with the differences in their body temperatures, but she hadn’t expected it to feel like this.

She pushed against his arm, trying to dislodge the hand between her legs so she could sort out the mess she made of not quite being naked. Then she pushed against his chest. His tongue was inside of her mouth, somehow finding the same rhythm as his fingers, but it was too much and she felt like she couldn't breathe.

She could feel herself getting lightheaded and for a moment she wondered if he wasn't telling her what he meant to have happen tonight. She wondered if Drusilla or Angel or some other vampire hadn't crept into the room to help Spike fuck her and kill her, and if they were, would it be such a bad thing? Would it be worse than the idea of the things she might do? If someone broke her heart again, would she hesitate before she did a spell to make them unable to love? To make them do her will?

She was almost disappointed when she noticed that Spike had stopped kissing her mouth. He was trying to ease his arm out from under her neck.

"Where are you going?"

If he thought it was an odd question, he didn't say so. Instead his fingers slid out of her with a wet sound that she found embarrassing and he picked her up, stumbling a little on the edge of a throw rug she hadn’t noticed on the floor. "Bedroom," he said.

Change from her pockets clattered nosily as it slipped out of her pockets. He pushed a door open with his shoulder and carried her into a smaller room. It was furnished simply with a huge platform bed, and a dresser topped with an unnecessary mirror. She half expected to be dropped on the bed, but he let her slide down to stand unsteadily in the tangle of her jeans bunched around her ankles with her bra hanging off her shoulders. He pulled his t-shirt off and started unbuckling his belt.

There was no one else here and she wasn't going to die before she had time to think about what she did or didn't do. She reached down to pull her jeans back up, but only to free her feet long enough to toe her sneakers off. One after the other, followed by her socks and then, with her jeans hanging precariously on her hips and her panties bunched up around her thighs, she slid the straps of her unfastened bra off.

He took it from her and tossed it on the ground. There was a kind of symmetry that had been achieved in their state of undress. His jeans were half undone and his boots were on the floor next to her sneakers. His hands came to rest on her rib cage as she lifted her arms to awkwardly hug him with some peculiar idea that she couldn't have sex with someone that she couldn't bring herself to hug. He didn't seem to notice. As soon as his chest made contact with her bare breasts his hands swept down, skimming her jeans and panties down.

She closed her eyes, feeling him moving with her, one hand fisted in her hair, the other keeping her pressed up against him as she stepped out of her jeans one foot at a time. She felt the smooth edge of the platform behind her calf.

"I'm not going to let you fall," he said, picking her up under her armpits. She held onto his shoulders until she was standing on the bed, swaying a little with the give of the mattress beneath her. Suddenly she was nearly a foot taller and he was eye level with her breasts.

Oh, God, he was smelling her. Eyes drifting closed, he was inhaling like he actually needed to breath. It made her feel a whole raft of confusing things. Before she could take a wobbling step back, he kissed her stomach and the underside of her breast and the inside of her arm near the crease of her elbow while his hands skimmed over her back down to her thighs.

For a moment she thought he was going to ask her to turn around for him, but he stepped back, his eyes on her, muscles in his shoulders tensing as he finished unbuttoning his jeans.

Her heart sank at the realization that she really didn't want this. She should have kept her pants on. She should have said no. This was a bad, bad idea. Kissing Tara was infinitely safer despite the gender issue. She had never wanted to kiss a girl before. Or a vampire. Or much of anyone except Xander. And Oz.

"This is a bad idea," she began, because it was the best way to begin an awkward ending.

"Wishing me snogging the Slayer was a bad idea," he told her, his arms drawing her back to him. Eye level with her breasts again. His lips pursed. It might have looked petulant, even pouty, but on him it didn’t.

"Did you think I was going to settle for having my tongue in your mouth? I'm going to get a good taste of you, Willow. Your mouth, your neck. These tits," he ran his tongue over one of her nipples and blew on the damp flesh. His fingers slid between her legs, finding her clitoris, his gaze lifted to her face as he plucked at the damp tangle of her pubic hair and slid his fingertip back and forth over her clit, blue eyes boring into hers.

Her legs were shaking as he took her nipple into his mouth. It was the same one that he had been paying attention to before. She had the odd thought that there was no reason to put on her clothes before he got around to her other breast. It was an issue of breast equity. This didn’t explain why exactly she was letting him pull her down to the mattress.

He pushed her legs apart as soon as she was sitting on the mattress. His hands on the inside of her thighs were cold enough to shock her into a semblance of common sense. She got her elbows under her and started to crab walk and wriggle away from him. His hands moved up her thighs, pushing them farther apart.

"Oh, no, you don't," he breathed. Moving slowly, as if he was stalking her or wary of startling her, or both, he moved to the bed on one knee that was inside the open space of her thighs.

"I've had my fingers in you. Such a hot, wet pussy. I wanted to taste it first. Lick and suck on your clit while I finger fucked you. I've thought about that. How you would taste," he used his thumbs to spread her open and leaned forward to place a soft kiss on her clitoris. "Hanging above me in chains," his tongue followed his lips. "Your tight little cunt squeezing my fingers while I suck on your clit."

Distracted by what he was doing, Willow was slow to catch up to the commentary. "Chains?" she shook her head frantically.

Spike grinned. "Not tonight," he conceded, dropping a kiss on her hip and the indentation of her waist. "I’m discovering that there are so many things I want to do with you."

He took her nipple between his lips, tugging on it, flicking his tongue over it. "Such pretty nipples. So ripe and sweet," his attention switched to her other breast.

Finally, she thought and moaned as she felt his fingers sliding back into her, curling to rub against the small bulge in the wall of her vagina as he withdrew them, and then sliding back in.

His tone was gloating when she fell back against the mattress, arching her back. "You'll let me," he predicted. "You won't think you will, but you'll let me talk you into doing all sorts of things."

She wasn't sure what he meant. Her ideas about 'all sorts of things' were too vague, but the few things that she thought of made her bite her lower lip to keep from asking him to be more specific.

He sat up, between her legs. The change in the angle of his hand made his fingers go a little deeper. He scooted back and she thought that he was going to stand up to take off his pants, but he leaned over, and she felt his tongue on her again. Circling her clitoris, flicking back and forth over it as his fingers pistoned in and out of her in a relentless rhythm.

"That's it," he breathed. "So wet. I smell it on you and I imagine you doing this. I think about you lying on your back with your legs spread, ankles bound to the bed posts, getting yourself ready for me. You won't care how I have you first," he paused to look up at her, smiling at her almost tenderly. "You just want to be had, don't you Willow? You want to be someone that is had and held. You want someone to get you. I can't wait to feel your legs wrapped around me while I'm inside you. I want to feel your hands on me, pulling me into you."

His lips compressed around her clit, sucking on it as his tongue moved over it roughly.

He gave her clitoris a sharp nip and reared up over her. "You're going to love this," he promised, guiding the head of his cock to the opening of her body. "Feel it?" he whispered. "Feel yourself settling? So tight and wet. Wanting to be fucked," he hissed, His fingers leaving her as his cock entered her.

"Show me," he said, kissing her mouth with the mouth and tongue that were warm and fragrant from her cunt. "Show me, baby," he rocked against her slowly, barely moving at all. She wrapped her legs around him and he buried his face in her neck as her back arched.

"Fuck me, Willow," he whispered in her ear.

He was buried inside of her and hardly moving at all, so she used his inertia, used his arms and shoulders to push against as she moved under him with increasing urgency, grinding her clit against him.

He was kissing her neck and face, whispering to her between kisses. "I knew you'd be like this. Greedy needy girl, fucking herself on my cock.” He withdrew a bare inch and she surged against him, gasping at the sensation.

"Want more?" he teased, slanting his mouth over her to kiss her, withdrawing a little more than had had the last time.

She arched up under him, her small breasts pressing against his chest and he let her pull him back into her. Her face was flushed with exertion. When her head fell back, he nibbled on her throat and slid one hand under her, supporting the small of her back, changing the angle of his penetration ever so slightly. Stilling the awkward movement of her body.

His eyes were locked with hers as he withdrew until she could feel the head of his cock just inside her. Then he was sliding back inside of her, slowly. Her fingers tightened on his arms.

"I want you in so many ways," he told her. He fed her word pictures of how he imagined her. On her back, on her knees. Her legs over his shoulders, wrapped around his waist, straining to hold him. Nothing made him vary the slow stroke of his cock, in and out of her. She might have started thinking about how of all the things that she might want, that this wasn't one of them. It was Spike and he was, above all, manipulative.

He held her hands above her head, slowing when she was close to orgasm, keeping her from coming.

"Such a sweet whore you are. All for the price of a kiss," he whispered against her lips.