Chapter 15 – Intimacy
In
disbelief Spike stared at the garment that he held. The reality seeped into his
conscious a second later when the heat of her body clinging to the pink top warmed
his hand. In a dream-like state he brought it to his face to inhale the sweet
scent that he’d come to associate with Buffy. Something hit him again jarring
him from the fantasy he was losing himself to. He knew it was the bottoms which
only brought even more erotic images to the forefront of his mind.
A stronger
man might have been able to resist but Spike had never made such a claim. He
already knew he was weak and this knowledge was only reinforced as his feet
turned him toward the bed. In a desperate attempt to find more than a physical
connection between them Spike looked into her eyes. Even from across the room
he could see the desire burning deep within those emerald eyes. She bravely held his gaze for as long as she
could but finally looked away.
It freed
him to indulge the hunger consuming the very essence of his masculinity. For the first time in his life he felt the raw
primitive urge to claim a woman. No one had ever said that she was his with
such innocent sensuality. Buffy lay on the bed he’d hired for them to sleep in
clad only in the jewelry he’d bought her and the panties he requested she wear.
His breath caught at the exquisiteness that was before him…waiting for him and
him alone. He knew she’d never offered herself to anyone else in such a manner.
For that alone Spike wanted to fall to his knees and worship at her altar.
Spike
swallowed before his muddled mind began to chronicle the beauty of the woman.
Legs tanned and firm lay in the murky area between virginal closure and wanton
openness. Just enough of an invitation to let a man think he stood a chance but
closed enough so that he knew he needed to ask before bridging their gate. He
could almost imagine the dampness gathering on the tiny wisp of cotton covering
the treasure he so badly wanted to claim. Her stomach was flat but yet soft
enough to pillow a lover’s head. He watched as it rose and fell in rhythm to
her breathing that was only increasing in tempo the longer he stared. For a
moment, just a second really, his eyes closed before he moved upwards. Breasts
tinged with dusky pink nipples were even more perfect than the hundred
fantasies he’d indulged in over the last couple of months. His tongue darted
between his lips as if he could taste them from where he was.
“Are you
going to stand there all night or are you going to join me?”
Her voice
was low with unbridled need startling him from his reverie. His eyes clashed
with hers again and he felt himself nod. It took longer for his feet to get the
message to move toward her. The earth was tilting further on its axis with each
step he took. Something tickled at the back of his mind but he impatiently
pushed it aside. There was nothing else that could be as important as what was
happening between them at this moment.
His knee
came down on the bed between her ankles and his hands on either side of her
thighs. He stared into her face waiting to see doubt or confusion but if she
was feeling either it wasn’t visible to him. Her leg curled allowing her toes
to run along his leg from knee to thigh then sliding along his hips as he moved
further up the bed. The leg hooked around his back as he lowered himself onto
her body.
He wondered
who the virgin was as their bodies rested against the other. He couldn’t
remember anything about what to do or how to move as he felt her tremble
beneath him. It was like finding himself in another reality as he surrendered
to the feelings coursing through him. Was it love or merely lust? He needed
time to figure it out. He pushed back
her hair, tucking it behind her ear, before caressing her cheek with his thumb.
Go slow, mate, go slow, he told himself as his body
remembered what it was supposed to do. It demanded to be sated but it was head
and his heart that took control of the situation. Buffy may appear to be
casually offering her body but he knew it meant much more to her than what she
was showing. He looked into her eyes, seeing the love there mingled with the
passion, and it made him realize what was going on.
“Buffy, I
need to ask,” Spike whispered. “Do you want to make love or is this because
you’re afraid I’ll leave if you don’t.”
Her hands
trailed along his sides, crossing to the center of his back before she squeezed
him tight in a hug.
“No one has
ever made me feel this way,” Buffy said, each word punctuated with a small kiss
to his shoulder or neck. “And you’re the only one that I’ve ever wanted to show
me what all this could be. Yes, I want to make love with you.”
“Is that
what it is? Love?”
“Don’t,
Spike, please. Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answers for,” Buffy
pleaded. Her eyes filled with tears. He captured one that was sliding along her
cheek with his tongue. “I don’t know yet if I love you but this has nothing to
do with it.”
“It has
everything to do with it,” Spike answered. “Why are you so willing to risk
being hurt when you know I can’t return your feelings?”
Buffy
cupped his face making him look at her. “Why are you so sure that I’m going to
be hurt because you won’t love me?”
She kissed him softly. “I’ve been waiting for your good-bye since the first
time you said hello.”
Her emphasize
on ‘won’t’ didn’t go unnoticed. Her words struck him down inside his core and
he knew he couldn’t do this. He’d been right that first night. She deserved
someone who could give her a forever love, a home and babies; someone to give
her normal. Her life should be more than waiting for a sailor to come home
every four to six weeks. More than living alone, coping alone, sleeping alone
while he ran away from what he couldn’t face; the love in her eyes.
Spike
wrapped his arms around her, burying his face in the crook of her neck, while
he flipped them. His mind hurried through ways to let her down. Ways to get her
to walk away from him. Somewhere in all the confusion he finally listened to
the niggling voice and in it, he found the answer he was looking for.
Buffy was
taking advantage of the new position to explore his chest with her lips and
hands. Licks, tickles and nips were being generously spread across his flesh.
He almost arched off the bed when she latched onto his nipple. Her fingers were
massaging his ribs while she rubbed herself against his denim covered erection.
Damn it, oh my holy God, I want her…
“Stop, Luv,
we have to stop,” Spike muttered, hating himself with each syllable.
“No, not
this time,” Buffy whispered, grinding down on him so hard he could feel his
cock buried between her nether lips. She bit down on his nipple. “I’m not
running away anymore and neither are you.”
“We have
to, Buffy, stop, jeez,” Spike said, trying to fight the urge to succumb and
damn the consequences. “No.” He grabbed her shoulders and pushed her upwards.
He couldn’t break her heart…shatter her soul with what would end up being
meaningless sex and the possibility of a hellish outcome. “I don’t have any
condoms. I left them on the ship.”
“What?”
Buffy squeaked.
Spike
closed his eyes unwilling to see the hurt in her eyes. He didn’t want to see
what his selfish need for companionship had done to this girl. He listened to
her breath as she sat frozen on his stomach. He wanted to suggest other things,
ways to please her, but he needed her to walk away from him.
“Maybe we
could…I’m on the pill.”
“No,” Spike
said. “I…I…” Why was it so hard to say the words? Why was it so hard to force
her to leave him? “I haven’t been tested…I don’t know if…there’s a possibility
that….”
“A
possibility of what?” Buffy asked her body stiffening. “Just say it.”
Opening his
eyes, Spike forced himself to say the words that would send her away. “Dru and
I did a lot of partying. I wasn’t who I am now. We hardly ever used condoms
even though I knew she was sleeping with other people at the end.”
“This
partying, did it involve drugs?”
“Sometimes,”
Spike said, trying to be honest. “I never did anything that involved needles
but we hung out with people who did. Some of them I’m pretty sure Dru shagged.”
He expected
anger, maybe a little disbelief and a lot of righteous indignation from Buffy. Definitely
there would be a scene that would end with her leaving him in a cloud of hate.
He didn’t expect the tears. She scrambled off of him, grabbing her discarded
pajamas, and slammed the door as she ran into the bathroom.
Something
wet hit his ear. It was him that had disbelief as he realized Buffy’s tears
were echoed in his own eyes. He sat up, wiping at the weakness with the back of
his hand. Why did it always end this way? He’d wanted Buffy to hate him but he had
only created more self-hatred. The sounds of her crying couldn’t be drowned out
by the faucet running. Each gulp she uttered tore at his soul.
“Buffy,
open up, lamb,” Spike called through the door. “Talk to me.”
“Isn’t this
what you wanted,” Buffy said. “I’m hurt. Are you happy now?”
The water
turned off and there was silence from the other side of the door. He waited for
her to open it but she didn’t. Finally he sank to the floor, leaning against
the barrier between them. He ran his hand over the wood somehow knowing that
she was doing the same thing. Both of them wanting to be with the other but she
was for the first time seeing the reality of their relationship. She didn’t
know him and had built and fallen for a fantasy that didn’t exist. He tried to
ignore the possibility that she really did see him and could love him in spite
of the truth of who he was.
He should
be jubilant that she was giving up on him. Only a few more words and she’d
never want to see him again. But he couldn’t say them.
“Buffy?”
“Yeah?”
His head
hit the door jamb, eyes closing as he for the first time said the words that
had haunted his heart for so long. He knew that she had probably figured it out
a long time ago but what they both needed was for the words to be spoken out
loud.
“I’ve only
told four people in my life that I loved them,” Spike started, ignoring every
danger sign that flashed around his walls. “My Da, my mother, Cecily and Dru
and all of them has left me.”
The door
cracked just a bit.
“My Da left
when I was a little kid, Cecily only dated me in an attempt to make her ex
jealous, Dru loved me back but I wasn’t enough for
her.”
“They were
all jerks,” Buffy said. “Your father was a coward that couldn’t face up to his
responsibilities, Cecily was a bitch that deserves a beat down, Dru had to have
been insane to give you up and Spike…” She reached through the door to touch
his arm. “Your mother never would have left you if she had a choice. None of it
was because of you. It was all other circumstances.”
“Next
you’ll be telling me that I shouldn’t give up, love is out there for me if I’d
just give it a chance, I would never leave you, Spike, I love you.” Spike stood
up. “I don’t want to hear it, okay, Buffy, I don’t because in the end it’ll be
just like it was before.”
~~~~~~~~~~
Buffy
watched Spike walk away from her again.
It was an endless cycle with them. They’d get close, physically or emotionally
then one of them couldn’t take it and would run. It was like she’d said earlier
she was through with running; of hiding from life and if she was going to face
it so was Spike. Sighing, she pulled the blanket from the bed and followed him
out onto the patio.
Spike was
sprawled out on one of the
“I wasn’t
going to say that,” Buffy said. “Well, not exactly like that. Just like with
the camera earlier I think your projecting your thoughts onto me.” Blue eyes
flickered over her face before returning to his former distant appearance.
“Yeah, if you wanted to do as you put it, ‘nudie pics’ I would have been all
for it but it wasn’t just what I wanted. I thought it would be something fun
for us to play with.” Her fingers drifted along his jaw to gently turn him to
face her. “And as for the love thing I wasn’t just going to press a case for
me. You’ve pushed everyone out of your life or maybe I should say tried to
because I see the friendships that you’re making with the guys. I care about
you, Spike. I don’t just see someone I want to have sex with or someone that I
want to finagle into marrying me. I see a man who’s been hurt and deserves some
happiness for a change.”
“And you
want to be the one to give me that?”
It was half-question
and half-statement that was made with all the wariness of that kitten she’d
found. There was no room for tricks or half-truths at this point.
“Yeah, I
do.”
A silence
hung between them for a few minutes as Spike contemplated her words. Buffy gave
him the room she needed and cuddled closer to him. She tucked her head under
his chin while she waited. His fingers, soft and slow, stroked her arm lulling
her into a place of security. She just hoped it was a false one as she listened
to his heartbeat beneath her ear.
“You do
make me happy,” Spike whispered. “I don’t understand why you want me though.
I’ve never been one to fit in with other people. Something always wrong with me
and this…” His hand swept out to indicate the new life he found himself in. “Is
like a dream that I’m going to wake from any second.” He laughed. “Soon as you
all figure out who and what I am and then it’ll all be over with.”
“You’re wrong
because all I see when I look at you is a good man,” Buffy said. “Whatever you might
have done in the past is over with. I see you who are now and I believe in
him.” Knowing that her next words had the capability of making him run again,
she took his hand in hers and squeezed it. “You need to learn to believe in
him, too.” The fingers of her free hand were laid across his lips when he tried
to protest. “I know you don’t because if you did then you would have gotten
yourself tested a long time ago.” She laughed softly. “And here’s a bonus for
you until you learn to like yourself no one is ever going to fill that void
inside you.”
“How did
you learn to be such a smarty-pants?”
“I read a
lot,” Buffy said, smiling.
At least he
wasn’t running and that was worth something. His hand tangled in her hair so
that he could pull her closer to him. This kiss was more of what you would
expect a first kiss to be. It was soft and tentative as if they were tasting
each other for the first time. It didn’t grow in passion but it held more words
than anything they had said all night.
The first rays
of the sun were coming up behind them but neither was concerned that they
hadn’t slept all night. It was enough for them to stay and hold each other
until the day would force them into other things. Buffy wasn’t sure if she had
reached him or not but she knew as long as he was holding her then they still
had a chance.
