The thunder that roared overhead finally stopped. They lay together on the cot in the basement, pretending to sleep, but so completely aware of one another they could barely tolerate it.

Buffy could feel him, his entire body pressed against her, surrounding her. Solid muscle against her, cool and inviting, beckoning her hand to touch him, feel him, move against him…. Bad Buffy, she thought. Can’t do that now, he wouldn’t, he doesn’t want to…does he? His legs were curled around hers, but he held himself away, like brushing against her was against the rules. What rules, she wondered. They had never had any rules.

Spike was trying very hard not to touch the girl. Touching the girl was bad, and painful, not only for her but for him as well. Must not touch. He inhaled, and a frisson of pleasure rippled through him at her scent. No changes in her scent—pure woman tinged with Slayer musk. He could hear her heart beat, could almost feel it pumping against his chest where it rested so close to her back. Her heat warmed him, her breathing soothed him, and the heartbeat grounded him. He was complete.

Her breathing changed, moments before she rolled over to face him. “Spike, I know you’re awake. Open your eyes.”

He needed…needed…he obeyed. He opened his eyes; looked down at her where she rested in his arms. There had not been enough of those moments while they had been a couple. He could only remember one time waking up with her, surrounded by a destroyed house; a lifetime ago.

“Spike, can’t you sleep?”

“Was trying.”

“I can’t either. I never could, the night before….”

He knew what she meant. The night before an apocalypse. She had seen her share, had given her share for the world. Gave her life for the world, once.

She put her hand up to touch his cheek, tracing the hollow beneath the prominent bones. He had such exquisite bone structure, she thought. She tried to put her feelings into her eyes, and he glimpsed something, but then she covered her mouth with his. His lids fluttered closed on their own, and her tongue swept gently across his lips, begging for entrance.

He acquiesced, and opened his mouth. Her kisses were gentle and sweet, hesitant and soft as she brushed inside his lip with her tongue. Her hands fisted in his shirt, trying to pull him closer, and he resisted until she finally gave up. He lay there, still and unmoving, mentally repeating that he mustn’t hurt the girl.

She finally pulled back. He could smell her tears, heard her voice thick with them. “Spike, don’t you…want me?”

His eyes flew open and were captured and held fast by hers. She looked so vulnerable before him, the raw emotion in her eyes rasping across his nerves. He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

Then she closed her eyes, and he was free. He spoke the only thing he was able to say, “Mustn’t hurt the girl.”

Her eyes opened wide with confusion until she realized what he referred to. “Spike, baby, that was forever ago. You didn’t hurt me. No worse than we’d ever hurt one another.” She ran her hand up his arm, and caressed his smooth bicep. “I never gave us a chance. Never let you close. Never let me be me, not with anyone. I…wish I could change all that, but it’s in the past. The only place we have to go is forward, and who knows where that will be.”

He still wouldn’t move closer to her, so she snuggled against him. “Last night—last night, I saw what it could have been, if I’d only let it. I saw a man and a woman, cuddling and holding each other against all odds. I saw us, together, instead of on either side of the good/bad continuum. I saw the person I should have seen years ago, instead of the monster I always looked for. I finally saw you, Spike, and I get you. I really do.”

He listened to her words, barely breathing. The things she was saying…could they be real? Was this the First, messing with his mind again? He grabbed her hand on his arm, and her pulse throbbed under his fingertips. He relaxed slightly, “Didn’t know if you were real—thought it was the First for a second.”

“Why? Why did you think I was the First?”

“Because you’re sayin’ things that I only hoped you’d ever say. Not what my Buffy would say.”

“Spike, I am your Buffy. I will always be your Buffy.” She raised her face to his. “Will you…can we…I want to make love with you, Spike.”

He looked down at her, trying hard to hide his surprise. She reached for him, and he came to her, their legs twining together as their arms encircled one another. He buried his face in her hair, inhaling her sweet scent, and the tears welled in his eyes before he knew it.

“Buffy. My darling, sweet Buffy. My love, my soul, my heart. Love you Buffy, only you.” He whispered his deepest feelings into her ear, and felt her body move against his.

“Spike. Touch me. Make me yours again.”

Her breath stirred his hair and he felt warmth against his ear. Her mouth on his throat, coaxing. He ran his hand up her side, under the hem of her shirt, and the fire of her flesh seared his palm. Her needy groan urged him on, and he cupped her breast with his hand, filling his palm with her perfection. Her nipple nudged his hand, erect and aching for his touch, and he complied with its request, circling it with a tentative fingertip, then plucking it with gentle ease.

He took his time exploring her, time she had never allowed before. He delighted in the taste of her skin on his tongue, her flesh in his hands and her love in her eyes as she watched him relearn her body and her responses.

Her whispered voice interrupted his silent worship. “A thousand times you told me, and I never wanted to hear it. Tell me now. Please.”

“I love you, Buffy. Love you with all of my unlife,” he murmured against her softness. He could hear the sounds of her weeping above him, and started to move to comfort her, but her hands stayed him.

“No. Keep…keep doing what you’re doing. Please don’t stop.”

He continued his explorations, down her abdomen, until he reached the barrier of her sweats. She arched her hips, and skinned them off herself. All the barriers were gone at last. He rested his head on her belly and listened to the gurgles of her stomach, all the noises of life that dwelled within her and were conspicuously absent in him. He inhaled and the tang of acrid sweat mingled deliciously with the scent of her arousal.

He brushed his hand over the flattened curls that covered her mound and she rewarded him with a gasp, then an arch of her hips to increase the pressure of his palm. Carefully he drew away; smoothing the skin of her thighs as they parted, feeling the silky texture of her flesh against him.

He scooted down until he was level with her hips, lying between her legs and looking up at her face. She watched him from half-lidded eyes without fear, longing and love painting exquisite shadows across her beauty. He sighed and rested his head on her thigh, looking at his Heaven but afraid to take the next step until he felt her hand on the back of his head, gentle but urging him to touch her intimately.

He blew gently on the curls between her legs and again she arched up. Lowering his head, he extended his tongue, swiping along the hidden crevice tentatively and listening to the groaning plea for more that escaped her mouth.

Blessed. He felt blessed by her request, blessed by her even being here with him on this night. Other nights had been spent with the gang, planning and plotting, but this night was his and his alone. His soul swelled in his chest and blotted out the presence of the demon within him, allowing him for the first time since his turning to feel like a man instead of a monster. Tears stained his cheeks with feelings of regret, and he buried his face to keep them from her all-seeing eyes as she watched him closely.

His tongue caressed her labia with exquisite slowness that was driving them both mad with desire. He was so hard he could feel the studs holding his button-fly closed along his length, but he refused to allow himself the comfort of yanking the buttons open and allowing himself to spring free. This night was not about him; it was for her, always for her.

He dipped his tongue into the sweet honey that ran so copiously from her still-hidden passage. That such a small space could produce such an amount still amazed him, even after all this time. He felt her thighs tense in anticipation as he swirled his tongue over and around her nub, denying her release. He heard her pleading groans above him, muffled by the grip of her thighs over his sensitive ears, still he teased until he knew that she was ready to explode.

With all his strength he pried her thighs apart and spread her legs wide, holding her knees to the bed on either side of his shoulders. Her sex opened for him like a flower, and he mused for a moment on the rosy color of her flushed and throbbing clit as it spasmed under his gaze, waiting for his ministrations impatiently. He spared a glance up at her face and saw her watching him closely, memorizing the sight of him poised above her so intimately. Her eyes glistened and he realized that she was on the verge of tears herself, for what reason he couldn’t fathom.

He couldn’t stand the sight of her face so lost in misery and started to speak, and she put her finger over his mouth as he started to speak. “Make me come, Spike. Make me scream your name over and over. Make me forget what we’re facing in the morning. Please.”

He complied.

Bending his head to her pulsating sex, he licked her slowly from bottom to top. She arched into his touch. He took her clit into his mouth and suckled in earnest as she began to writhe and beg for release. Her fingernails scored half-moons in the back of his scalp as he drove her closer to her peak, then she was bucking against his mouth and he was cutting his lips on his own teeth, curling them over their sharp edges as she ground her pubic bone against the soft hardness of his mouth and the firm pressure of his chin.

He smelled her blood and raised his head with some effort, then noticed the pearls of blood on her bottom lip where she had bit through in her efforts not to raise the entire housefull of Slayer wannabes. She grinned weakly down at him with tears staining her cheeks with their glittering silver trails, then reached down and dragged him on top of her. “Come here you,” her hand reached for buttons now painfully etched into the shaft of his cock. They opened easily under her hand and he was within her warm grasp then inside her heated opening, sliding effortlessly and gently home.

They lay still for a moment, their eyes connecting as intimately as their bodies, and she reached out to cup his cheek in her hand. “We always fit together so well, didn’t we, Spike?” she asked, and he knew that she didn’t expect him to answer. Instead, he bent his head to kiss her, gently at first, barely brushing her mouth with his.

His need overwhelmed him, and he thrust his tongue into her mouth to taste her. Blood, copper, salt and Slayer, exploded on his tastebuds, and he paused, expecting the guilt to follow fast on the heels of the thrill that ran down his spine and into the bundle of nerves firing in his cock. Instead, he felt an abundance of peace, of acceptance, of home, and it brought tears to his eyes once again. “Buffy, I love you.” The words were out before he could stop them, before he could call them back, and he waited for the rejection that was sure to follow their emotional outburst.

He opened his eyes and she was staring at them, love within the depths of her own, though still unvoiced. “I know, Spike. I know.” Her legs wrapped around his waist and he felt her gripping him with her cunt, driving him deeper inside her. Their bones pressed together almost painfully, compressing the flesh between them until he thought she would surely cry out, but she smiled instead, then loosened her legs and let natural driving forces take over.

His hips took up her rhythms as she clenched and unclenched around him, his orgasm closing quickly. He didn’t want this to end; didn’t want this to be over so fast, but being buried deep inside her was almost too much for his senses to bear. She was everywhere around him, a surreal painting of sight and sound and sensation, and his enhanced senses knew that she was close as well. Her heart pounded in his ears and pummeled his cock with the rush of her blood through thin tissues and he rolled his hips and reveled in her desire and need for release as she bathed them both in sensations long suppressed but never forgotten. She needed him; needed the feeling of his body on hers, needed the sensation of his plundering cock in her folds and deep inside her. Needed to feel alive again, even if it was one last time. Needed to show him she trusted him.

Trust. Forever an issue with her; she arbitrarily decided to discard its importance as she turned her head to the side, facing the cool concrete of the basement wall and offering him her throat. He paused and turned her face back to him, and she looked him in the eye. He saw her decision reflected back at him, and as she pulled his mouth to her throat, she whispered, “It will give you an extra boost tomorrow—today. Do it.”

Terrified, he let his game face slide forward, fangs descending almost regretfully as he stared at the unscarred side of her neck. Why this side, he almost asked, then realized it was her gift to him. Her sacrifice for her champion. The other side was tainted; the Master and Angel had both bitten her there. This was new, untrodden ground, and fresh tears threatened to explode as he closed his jaw around her willing flesh.

Her blood gushed eagerly into his mouth, rushing to his head and his cock at the same instant. As he pulled the rich ambrosia of her blood into his mouth he started to come, his hips jerking against her erratically. Her nails dug into his ass as she joined him in completion, her lips sobbing his name over and over in a rising crescendo of passion as they came in a seamless, unending loop of pent-up desire.

Not wanting to weaken her, he closed the marks with his tongue, licking them until he felt her twitching under him with miniature shudders as she came down from her unnatural high. He drew back to look at her face and she was crying again. He bent his head to kiss the tearstained cheeks and lick the salt from her face, then looked toward the stairs as he heard the patter of feet heading their way.

“We need to get dressed. We have company coming,” he said, regretfully pulling himself out of her and away from her suddenly clutching arms. “Buffy, dress now.”

Mechanically, she slipped her shirt over her head as he threaded her feet into her sweatpants, her underwear abandoned and forgotten on the floor. Seconds after he finished buttoning up and slipping his shirt on, the basement door opened and Willow, Xander and Dawn came galloping down the stairs.

“Buffy, what’s wrong? We heard you screaming, something about Spike. What happened?” Willow's voice held concern, but also something else, something secretive and slumberous of her own. Spike scented the air and found the redhead was engaging in some pre-apocalypse sex of her own, and grinned. Xander had been too, from the smell of Anya that covered him. Dawn, on the other hand, looked frightened and alone.

“It was nothing, Will. Spike and I were going over the plans and I must have drifted off. I was dreaming….” Buffy started, and Willow interrupted her.

“Was it a Slayer dream?” Willow asked wide-eyed, and Buffy shook her head.

“Naw—I just dreamed that the necklace swallowed him whole. With a stone that big, it could happen.” Buffy grinned, and the group visibly relaxed—Buffy because her secret was safe, Spike because he had his one last night with his love, and the others because hey, only a dream.

As they turned to leave, Dawn noticed her sister’s panties at the foot of the cot. “Well, you guys keep…discussing. We’re going back to bed.”

Buffy looked at her sister pointedly, the picture of innocence, and Dawn gestured to the foot of the cot and the forgotten panties, then gave Buffy and Spike a definite wink and wide grin. Spike watched the Slayer flush with embarrassment and grinned back at his Nibblet. Forgiven. Loved. Home.

After they had gone, the two lay down on the cot together, spooned back to front. “Spike—do you think that she knew what we did?”

“Pretty obvious, pet, don’t you think?” He wrapped his arm around her waist. “Sleep. Tomorrow will come too fast anyway. Make the most of tonight.”

She turned to look over her shoulder at him. “I think that I already did,” she said with a grin. “Good night, Spike.”