Mod Challenge for Willow_Lives: Like Magic
Merry Christmas Eve Eve! I don't know who all's online now, but here ya go!
This for willow_lives who asked:
I read your tagline on your personal journal. I don't mind Spike getting beat down a bit. lol Especially if by Willow.
(The tag line on my personal journal is "Dominatrix Kitty has a thing for vampires", FYI.) You had me at ‘beat down’.
This is my first Spillow! OMG!
Warning: Willow is not a very nice girl. Though I tried to give her pangs of remorse and stuff. She's somewhat messed up. There is some questionable consent.
Summary: Willow's high as a kite on magic. Now she needs to have some fun!
Willow swayed and hummed, hands roaming over her own body lazily as she wandered the nighttime streets of Sunnydale. The dead boring nighttime streets of Sunnydale. She was charged up and ready to go, but the Bronze had closed at 2am, and she was fast realizing this town had no nightlife to speak of. Well, unless it was un-life. She giggled at her own joke, and then stopped, pouting drunkenly at a shadowed alley. Where were the darn vampires? Magic was coursing through her like electricity, and letting some of it loose to fry the undead would be the next best thing to a party.
She just itched with the unused potential, and no one was giving her something to do!
“Oi! Red! What the hell are you doing wandering around all moon-eyed?”
Willow swung around to see Spike with his hands on his hips. He flinched a little on meeting her eyes, but continued to speak with bluster, “Come on now, get your tasty arse home before someone munches on you and I have to hear about it.” He made a shooing gesture.
“Spike!” Willow said, smile growing. She bounced over to him. He flinched again, making her laugh. She dropped her arms on his shoulders.
“Bloody hell, you’re sloshed!”
“I am not!” Willow attempted a serious expression, but a chuckle escaped. “Are you going to be boring, Spike? I thought you were a vampire.”
“Yeah,” he carefully picked up her arms and pushed her back. “A vampire who’ll catch hell if anything happens to you.” He turned, one hand firm on her wrist, and started tugging her along behind him. “Oh sure, something goes wrong, blame old Spike. Wish I had the diabolical control over all things nasty you lot seem to think I have. Pile of demon eggs? Must be Spike’s got ‘em. And they weren’t even paid for.”
Willow rolled her eyes and let a little energy spark out of her skin. Spike yelped and dropped her wrist. He stared at her, eyes wide.
“I could make sunlight,” she said, and rolled one shoulder. “Like a ball of sun, right above you, your own personal tanning light.” Spike took a step back and she wiggled her fingers at him.
“Easy there! Be a good girl, Red. No frying the friendlies, yeah?”
“Maybe I don’t want to be a good girl anymore.” Willow spread her hands, letting a little lightning fly from fingertips to fingertips, an arc of power. It was so easy! It felt like tossing a ball from hand to hand, but so much more satisfying. “Everyone telling me what to do, who to be. Good. Old. Dependable. Willow.”
Spike staggered back, hands up defensively. “Right. Never mind. Go on… doing what you’re doing. I’ll just bugger off.”
She tossed her energy after him, it tugged around him like a big rubber-band, and she gently pulled him back. “I’m not done yet,” she admonished.
Now he was really scared, and trying not to look it. He gave her a stern expression, twitching in her elastic, magical grasp. “Let me go. This isn’t a game, Willow.”
“I think it is. Maybe I’ll call it: Catch the Spike!” She flicked her hand, and the bonds fell away.
He stared at her in open confusion, and she sent a bolt at the ground at his feet. He jumped a good three feet straight up, and then ran, his leather coat billowing behind him. Willow kicked off from the ground. A brief burst of power swung her up from gravity and down lightly, like she was walking on the moon. She landed lightly in front of the fleeing vampire. “You aren’t even trying,” she scolded him as he bolted sideways.
He squirmed into a narrow broken window like a rat. Willow sighed. It was too hard to follow, and anyway, the chase game was already growing boring. She reached out after him, invisible fingers wriggling through the air until they brushed that wrong-not-earth-wrong-twist that was a vampire. She jerked him back to her.
He got caught in the narrow window, cursing. His shoulder was wedged behind the cross-bar and an intact pane. Willow pushed him back and then tugged harder, and the glass shattered. Spike never stopped shouting words, many of which she hadn’t heard before. He fell in a crumpled heap at her feet.
“I win!” Willow announced, and then frowned. “Tit-wank?”
Spike lifted himself with his arms and sneered. “This chip won’t be holding me back forever, witch, and when it’s gone…”
“You’ll still be just a vampire. Been there, slayed that.” She tossed him across the alleyway with a casual gesture. To her surprise, this took effort. She felt a sting burning up her arm like an over-taxed muscle. Her buzz was coming down, too. She threw another bolt of energy at Spike as he started to crawl away, and the burn crept all the way up to the back of her skull.
She slumped against the wall over the prone vampire. “God, I need a drink.”
Spike was panting, a little, and still, and Willow was starting to worry about that. Why had she done that, again? Was he going to tell someone? Her head was starting to throb. No! Too soon!
Cautiously, Spike looked up at her. “Could come back to mine. I’ve got liquor.”
“You do?” Willow smiled, calm now that a solution was in sight. Yes, she’d just go get drunk with the vampire. Something was wrong with that plan, a tiny part of her head warned, but she wasn’t sure what.
Spike seemed calmer too, though he kept looking at her as he led the way. He tried to stay a step away from her, but after her third attempt, he let her take his arm and lean heavily against it. The headache was making her tired.
“Just a little nightcap,” Spike said. “Nice and calm and friendly. And then you’ll toddle on home, or, hell, go kill things. It’s not like I bleedin’ care. Whatever gets your rocks off and out of my hair with me intact.”
“Mmm,” Willow said. She wasn’t paying attention to his words, so much as to the nice feel of his deep voice, the vibration of air in his chest, and the nice feel of that chest under her arm. She missed Tara. Missed the comfort of being held, and her soft, pillowy shape. Though Spike’s hard shape was kinda fun, too. She poked him. So hard and thin. Like Oz. He ignored her.
They made it to Spike’s crypt and he dropped her in his armchair, which smelled kinda musty and had worn smooth patches in the fabric, like oil cloth or something. He handed her a flask. “Here you are, bit of hair of the dog.”
“Yuck. Why do people say that? Like I’d want to drink dog hair.” Willow made a face, but gladly took the smooth metal flask, hoping it contained a return to better feeling, like medicine. She tossed back a big swallow…
And gasped as her lungs caught fire and shot flames up past her tonsils into her nose. “Gah!”
“Don’t be so dramatic. ‘S only jack. Here… think I got something a little smoother…”
Spike scurried around and then returned to replace the metal flask with a bottle half-full of dark liquid. “Try that.”
It was better, if drinking paint thinner was better than drinking battery acid, which Willow supposed it was. Her raw throat warmed anew, and she started feeling a little buzzy. The headache, at least, was mostly gone. She sank back into the comforting embrace of the arm-chair.
“There, all better.”
Willow snagged Spike’s coat-sleeve as he tried to walk away. “Not so fast, buster.”
He let her tug him back to the chair, but resisted when she tried to get him all the way into her lap. “You can stay long as you like, Red. Not kicking you out. Just… drink up. I’ll be…” he gestured vaguely to the back of the crypt.
Willow tilted her face up at him, blinking the big puppy-dog eyes. “Stay with me?”
He looked for a moment, like he was about to say something mean, like, “Sod that!” or “Are you barmy?” - definitely something mean and British. Instead he switched to a more pathetic face and said, “Come on, Red - got important faffing about to do.”
Willow pouted. She climbed up his shirt front with her fingers and slipped her other hand into his belt to try and pull him down. Something about the soft cotton of his shirt made the shapes more exciting.
Spike fell back, arms windmilling. “Woah! Easy girl. Don’t do anything the slayer will stake me for!”
“I’m lonely,” she said, sashaying after him, reaching out. He flicked her hands away each time she touched him, and she scowled. Darn vampire reflexes made her feel she was moving in slow motion. After several attempts and getting batted away, she just made him still. His breath stopped, but that was okay, it wasn’t like he needed it. She slipped one hand under his shirt. He felt nice. Smooth skin, hard muscle-y bumps. More muscled than Oz, and cooler, of course. There was something almost fake about how he felt, room-temperature and perfectly still. It felt safe.
She pulled him back to the chair with her, walking backward. He came, limbs moving as she tugged them, like a puppet. His expression didn’t change, but she thought his eyes were tightening at the corners in resistance.
“I’m so lonely,” Willow repeated, curling herself up in Spike’s lap and arranging his arms around her. “No one talks to me anymore. It’s like I’m a problem, not a person.” She laid her head on his unresisting shoulder and cuddled into the curve at the top of his pectoral muscle. “I just want a little love? Is that wrong?”
Spike, of course, didn’t answer, but Willow felt comforted by his presence. She twisted around to retrieve the bottle of booze from the floor and took another sip. When she looked back at Spike, his left eye was definitely narrower than the right. There was also a twitch in his left hand.
She kissed him, but his unresponsive lips made her feel unwanted. She took another drink and set the bottle down. “I just want to know you’ll stay with me, okay? No one stays with me, anymore.” She paused, one hand on his chest, watching his eyelid twitch. She let him free from the top down, head, neck, shoulders, arms… she stopped at the waist. She didn’t want him to dump her on the ground or something.
He gasped, leaning forward though, and almost did knock her out of his lap as he took in big lungfuls of air. “Get off me, you bitch!” He grabbed her waist to push her off, then, and she quickly took back control of his arms, holding them herself. Her fingernails bit in to the pale underside of his wrists. “That’s not nice,” she said, kneeling up and looking down at him.
He was still panting, over-reacting to having his breath stolen. There was fear in his eyes. “Sorry. Very sorry. You’re a nice girl, you are. Just scares a bloke, is all. Can I have my hands back, please?”
He looked cute, all pleading. She kissed him again. This time his lips were slightly trembling, a little slack, but he kissed back. She deepened the kiss, and his response was desperate, hard, passionate. It sent a thrill through her. Like the whiskey it was a pale competitor to the thrill of magic and power, but it made her glow inside just the same. She widened her knees, sinking down against him. It was suddenly not enough, she needed him to move, his arms around her. She let the bonds of magic slip away.
His arms rose, just as she hoped they would, and wrapped around her firmly. He rose, lifting against her as they kissed until she had to pull away for air.
He twisted his head aside, stopping her from recapturing his lips. “I thought you played for the other team. By the way, any time you want an audience…”
His low, growl-y voice was thrilling, but the words were annoying. She slapped his cheek. “My ‘other team’ left me. Are you looking a gift-witch in the mouth?” Speaking of mouths…
He squirmed, avoiding her. “Damn it, I’ve got a girl, Red. I’m sorry. I just… there’s someone. There. No hard feelings?”
Willow stiffened. “Are you rejecting me? You? You’re… you’re indigent! You live in a graveyard and drink all day!”
Spike said, “Did you know your eyes turn all black when you’re mad?”
And then he tumbled out of the chair, which had fallen over backward, anyway, and skidded across the floor to rest against the back wall of the crypt. Little tendrils of smoke flitted up his skin to tangle with his hair. Willow found herself a few inches off the ground. She settled down and tried to speak calmly. “Sorry. I get a little angry when a guy invites me back to his place, leads me on, and then changes his mind.”
Spike scrambled to his feet, one hand reaching out as though to ward her off. “Wasn’t trying to lead you on. Just bein’ sociable.”
“Yes, your tongue in my mouth was very ‘sociable’.” Sparks made crackling noises between her fingertips as she advanced on him.
“That was friendly, yeah? So let’s just be friends and not go frying anyone.”
“Who is she?”
“No one.”
“Is she pretty? Prettier than me?”
Spike backed away from her, along the back wall of the crypt. “Oh hell, there’s no right answer to that question.” He leapt back as lightning struck the ground at his feet. “No! No. You’re prettier. Much. Gorgeous, in fact.”
“Then why are you running away from me?”
“Because you’re sodding scaring me to death!” Walking backward, as he was, he stepped, suddenly, on open air - the entrance to the lower level. He was caught on one foot just a moment, flailing, and then tumbled down, landing with a very loud smack on the stone floor below.
The sparks dissipated. She ran to the ladder and scrambled down. “Oh no, oh no…”
Spike, in a twisted pile at the foot of the ladder, looked up at her with a dazed expression as she checked him over.
He coughed, blood flecked his lips, and he licked them. “Can we just go back to the kissing part, yeah? Just… pretend I didn’t say anything.”
Willow relaxed, no longer afraid she’d somehow killed him. Wasn’t that silly? Like he could die from a fall. She helped him up onto the bed, and he picked himself up on his elbows, looking at her very seriously.
She brushed his cheek with one hand. “We can go back to the kissing part,” she said.
And so they did. He was pliant and gentle, maybe still shaken by the fall. She helped him off with his shirt and he responded in kind, pulling her sweater over her head and smoothing the frizzies out of her hair with his sure, steady fingers. Bare skin on skin felt so nice, after so long. She reached for his belt. His hands closed over hers. “I need… a little more time, yeah?”
She smiled. It was endearingly vulnerable of him to say that.
“Magic takes care of everything,” she said, and warmth spread down, like a tiny shower of sparks, like the warmth in her own belly, through her fingers and into him.
He gasped, arching against the mattress. “Bloody hell!”
She slipped the belt off of him while his hips were up, and easily undid his fly. She reached in with both hands and pulled him out, feeling the pleasant fullness and hardness. All for her. Well, partially manufactured by her, but still. The velvet-soft, thin skin was an amazing contrast to the tough, course blue jeans. She pushed the jeans open and down, revealing legs dusted with light-colored hairs.
Spike looked down his body at her, lips swollen, hair mussed, panting. “What are you doing to me?”
She slipped his jeans the rest of the way off and crawled back up him to kiss those dear, strangely innocent lips. Her fingertips spread over his chest, sending little shocks between them. He writhed and cursed. She ground against him. It was good, very good, and not enough at the same time. She sparked with power, borrowed, stolen, the sensation of dominance as he pleaded and bucked beneath her. It was so, so good. She wasn’t thinking about men or women or who she was with, just the pleasure, her own pleasure, and that was all there was in the world.
"Get down," she said, and he did. It was like magic.
***
Willow awoke feeling unshowered, with a gross taste in her mouth. Her skin was clammy with old sweat and…
She jerked upright, causing a split straight down her headache like an axe. She was in Spike’s bed. Next to Spike. Naked Spike. Oh god.
She slid off the side of the bed, the motion awoke feelings in her hips, a looseness, an openness, wetness… she had sex. With Spike. Spike sex. She tumbled to the floor in a tangle of sheets. Spike woke up then. He peered at her over the edge of the bed. Dark, long welts ran down his shoulders and chest. Had she done that? Flashes and fragments of the night before came wafting back, and Willow was trapped between self-disgust and the awareness that it had been really, really fun.
And Spike was watching her warily, not saying anything.
Slowly, in the awkward silence, Willow got to her feet. “I should go.”
Spike made a brief face and fell back on the bed. “You usually do,” he said.
“Oh god. I did this before? I don’t…”
“Women, in general.” Spike waved a hand vaguely toward the exit and then dropped his arm across his eyes.
Willow gathered her clothes. How had her blouse ended up on a ladder rung? And she dressed. But she wasn’t sure about leaving. She hovered at the edge of the bed, a thousand questions pinging off her brain. Would he tell Tara? Buffy? Oh god - Xander? Would he make fun of her tomorrow?
“Can I come back?” was the question that popped out of her mouth.
He lifted his arm, peering at her with eyes darkened all around the edges. “Can I stop you?”
Something small and dark in her crowed. Willow turned and ran. She scrambled up the ladder all knees and shins, bumping and scraping, and then she took off, leaving the crypt door wide open. It felt good to be in the sunshine, to run as fast as she could.
And she knew, now, he wouldn’t tell. She repeated that to herself, calming down, putting the night behind her, promising that it would stay behind her, from now on she would be good. So good. Tara would see how good and come back.
But deep, deep down, she knew she wanted to come back. She knew she'd found a new addiction, and a thrill better and safer than the ones Rack sold.
She would be back.
THE END
This for willow_lives who asked:
I read your tagline on your personal journal. I don't mind Spike getting beat down a bit. lol Especially if by Willow.
(The tag line on my personal journal is "Dominatrix Kitty has a thing for vampires", FYI.) You had me at ‘beat down’.
This is my first Spillow! OMG!
Warning: Willow is not a very nice girl. Though I tried to give her pangs of remorse and stuff. She's somewhat messed up. There is some questionable consent.
Summary: Willow's high as a kite on magic. Now she needs to have some fun!
Willow swayed and hummed, hands roaming over her own body lazily as she wandered the nighttime streets of Sunnydale. The dead boring nighttime streets of Sunnydale. She was charged up and ready to go, but the Bronze had closed at 2am, and she was fast realizing this town had no nightlife to speak of. Well, unless it was un-life. She giggled at her own joke, and then stopped, pouting drunkenly at a shadowed alley. Where were the darn vampires? Magic was coursing through her like electricity, and letting some of it loose to fry the undead would be the next best thing to a party.
She just itched with the unused potential, and no one was giving her something to do!
“Oi! Red! What the hell are you doing wandering around all moon-eyed?”
Willow swung around to see Spike with his hands on his hips. He flinched a little on meeting her eyes, but continued to speak with bluster, “Come on now, get your tasty arse home before someone munches on you and I have to hear about it.” He made a shooing gesture.
“Spike!” Willow said, smile growing. She bounced over to him. He flinched again, making her laugh. She dropped her arms on his shoulders.
“Bloody hell, you’re sloshed!”
“I am not!” Willow attempted a serious expression, but a chuckle escaped. “Are you going to be boring, Spike? I thought you were a vampire.”
“Yeah,” he carefully picked up her arms and pushed her back. “A vampire who’ll catch hell if anything happens to you.” He turned, one hand firm on her wrist, and started tugging her along behind him. “Oh sure, something goes wrong, blame old Spike. Wish I had the diabolical control over all things nasty you lot seem to think I have. Pile of demon eggs? Must be Spike’s got ‘em. And they weren’t even paid for.”
Willow rolled her eyes and let a little energy spark out of her skin. Spike yelped and dropped her wrist. He stared at her, eyes wide.
“I could make sunlight,” she said, and rolled one shoulder. “Like a ball of sun, right above you, your own personal tanning light.” Spike took a step back and she wiggled her fingers at him.
“Easy there! Be a good girl, Red. No frying the friendlies, yeah?”
“Maybe I don’t want to be a good girl anymore.” Willow spread her hands, letting a little lightning fly from fingertips to fingertips, an arc of power. It was so easy! It felt like tossing a ball from hand to hand, but so much more satisfying. “Everyone telling me what to do, who to be. Good. Old. Dependable. Willow.”
Spike staggered back, hands up defensively. “Right. Never mind. Go on… doing what you’re doing. I’ll just bugger off.”
She tossed her energy after him, it tugged around him like a big rubber-band, and she gently pulled him back. “I’m not done yet,” she admonished.
Now he was really scared, and trying not to look it. He gave her a stern expression, twitching in her elastic, magical grasp. “Let me go. This isn’t a game, Willow.”
“I think it is. Maybe I’ll call it: Catch the Spike!” She flicked her hand, and the bonds fell away.
He stared at her in open confusion, and she sent a bolt at the ground at his feet. He jumped a good three feet straight up, and then ran, his leather coat billowing behind him. Willow kicked off from the ground. A brief burst of power swung her up from gravity and down lightly, like she was walking on the moon. She landed lightly in front of the fleeing vampire. “You aren’t even trying,” she scolded him as he bolted sideways.
He squirmed into a narrow broken window like a rat. Willow sighed. It was too hard to follow, and anyway, the chase game was already growing boring. She reached out after him, invisible fingers wriggling through the air until they brushed that wrong-not-earth-wrong-twist that was a vampire. She jerked him back to her.
He got caught in the narrow window, cursing. His shoulder was wedged behind the cross-bar and an intact pane. Willow pushed him back and then tugged harder, and the glass shattered. Spike never stopped shouting words, many of which she hadn’t heard before. He fell in a crumpled heap at her feet.
“I win!” Willow announced, and then frowned. “Tit-wank?”
Spike lifted himself with his arms and sneered. “This chip won’t be holding me back forever, witch, and when it’s gone…”
“You’ll still be just a vampire. Been there, slayed that.” She tossed him across the alleyway with a casual gesture. To her surprise, this took effort. She felt a sting burning up her arm like an over-taxed muscle. Her buzz was coming down, too. She threw another bolt of energy at Spike as he started to crawl away, and the burn crept all the way up to the back of her skull.
She slumped against the wall over the prone vampire. “God, I need a drink.”
Spike was panting, a little, and still, and Willow was starting to worry about that. Why had she done that, again? Was he going to tell someone? Her head was starting to throb. No! Too soon!
Cautiously, Spike looked up at her. “Could come back to mine. I’ve got liquor.”
“You do?” Willow smiled, calm now that a solution was in sight. Yes, she’d just go get drunk with the vampire. Something was wrong with that plan, a tiny part of her head warned, but she wasn’t sure what.
Spike seemed calmer too, though he kept looking at her as he led the way. He tried to stay a step away from her, but after her third attempt, he let her take his arm and lean heavily against it. The headache was making her tired.
“Just a little nightcap,” Spike said. “Nice and calm and friendly. And then you’ll toddle on home, or, hell, go kill things. It’s not like I bleedin’ care. Whatever gets your rocks off and out of my hair with me intact.”
“Mmm,” Willow said. She wasn’t paying attention to his words, so much as to the nice feel of his deep voice, the vibration of air in his chest, and the nice feel of that chest under her arm. She missed Tara. Missed the comfort of being held, and her soft, pillowy shape. Though Spike’s hard shape was kinda fun, too. She poked him. So hard and thin. Like Oz. He ignored her.
They made it to Spike’s crypt and he dropped her in his armchair, which smelled kinda musty and had worn smooth patches in the fabric, like oil cloth or something. He handed her a flask. “Here you are, bit of hair of the dog.”
“Yuck. Why do people say that? Like I’d want to drink dog hair.” Willow made a face, but gladly took the smooth metal flask, hoping it contained a return to better feeling, like medicine. She tossed back a big swallow…
And gasped as her lungs caught fire and shot flames up past her tonsils into her nose. “Gah!”
“Don’t be so dramatic. ‘S only jack. Here… think I got something a little smoother…”
Spike scurried around and then returned to replace the metal flask with a bottle half-full of dark liquid. “Try that.”
It was better, if drinking paint thinner was better than drinking battery acid, which Willow supposed it was. Her raw throat warmed anew, and she started feeling a little buzzy. The headache, at least, was mostly gone. She sank back into the comforting embrace of the arm-chair.
“There, all better.”
Willow snagged Spike’s coat-sleeve as he tried to walk away. “Not so fast, buster.”
He let her tug him back to the chair, but resisted when she tried to get him all the way into her lap. “You can stay long as you like, Red. Not kicking you out. Just… drink up. I’ll be…” he gestured vaguely to the back of the crypt.
Willow tilted her face up at him, blinking the big puppy-dog eyes. “Stay with me?”
He looked for a moment, like he was about to say something mean, like, “Sod that!” or “Are you barmy?” - definitely something mean and British. Instead he switched to a more pathetic face and said, “Come on, Red - got important faffing about to do.”
Willow pouted. She climbed up his shirt front with her fingers and slipped her other hand into his belt to try and pull him down. Something about the soft cotton of his shirt made the shapes more exciting.
Spike fell back, arms windmilling. “Woah! Easy girl. Don’t do anything the slayer will stake me for!”
“I’m lonely,” she said, sashaying after him, reaching out. He flicked her hands away each time she touched him, and she scowled. Darn vampire reflexes made her feel she was moving in slow motion. After several attempts and getting batted away, she just made him still. His breath stopped, but that was okay, it wasn’t like he needed it. She slipped one hand under his shirt. He felt nice. Smooth skin, hard muscle-y bumps. More muscled than Oz, and cooler, of course. There was something almost fake about how he felt, room-temperature and perfectly still. It felt safe.
She pulled him back to the chair with her, walking backward. He came, limbs moving as she tugged them, like a puppet. His expression didn’t change, but she thought his eyes were tightening at the corners in resistance.
“I’m so lonely,” Willow repeated, curling herself up in Spike’s lap and arranging his arms around her. “No one talks to me anymore. It’s like I’m a problem, not a person.” She laid her head on his unresisting shoulder and cuddled into the curve at the top of his pectoral muscle. “I just want a little love? Is that wrong?”
Spike, of course, didn’t answer, but Willow felt comforted by his presence. She twisted around to retrieve the bottle of booze from the floor and took another sip. When she looked back at Spike, his left eye was definitely narrower than the right. There was also a twitch in his left hand.
She kissed him, but his unresponsive lips made her feel unwanted. She took another drink and set the bottle down. “I just want to know you’ll stay with me, okay? No one stays with me, anymore.” She paused, one hand on his chest, watching his eyelid twitch. She let him free from the top down, head, neck, shoulders, arms… she stopped at the waist. She didn’t want him to dump her on the ground or something.
He gasped, leaning forward though, and almost did knock her out of his lap as he took in big lungfuls of air. “Get off me, you bitch!” He grabbed her waist to push her off, then, and she quickly took back control of his arms, holding them herself. Her fingernails bit in to the pale underside of his wrists. “That’s not nice,” she said, kneeling up and looking down at him.
He was still panting, over-reacting to having his breath stolen. There was fear in his eyes. “Sorry. Very sorry. You’re a nice girl, you are. Just scares a bloke, is all. Can I have my hands back, please?”
He looked cute, all pleading. She kissed him again. This time his lips were slightly trembling, a little slack, but he kissed back. She deepened the kiss, and his response was desperate, hard, passionate. It sent a thrill through her. Like the whiskey it was a pale competitor to the thrill of magic and power, but it made her glow inside just the same. She widened her knees, sinking down against him. It was suddenly not enough, she needed him to move, his arms around her. She let the bonds of magic slip away.
His arms rose, just as she hoped they would, and wrapped around her firmly. He rose, lifting against her as they kissed until she had to pull away for air.
He twisted his head aside, stopping her from recapturing his lips. “I thought you played for the other team. By the way, any time you want an audience…”
His low, growl-y voice was thrilling, but the words were annoying. She slapped his cheek. “My ‘other team’ left me. Are you looking a gift-witch in the mouth?” Speaking of mouths…
He squirmed, avoiding her. “Damn it, I’ve got a girl, Red. I’m sorry. I just… there’s someone. There. No hard feelings?”
Willow stiffened. “Are you rejecting me? You? You’re… you’re indigent! You live in a graveyard and drink all day!”
Spike said, “Did you know your eyes turn all black when you’re mad?”
And then he tumbled out of the chair, which had fallen over backward, anyway, and skidded across the floor to rest against the back wall of the crypt. Little tendrils of smoke flitted up his skin to tangle with his hair. Willow found herself a few inches off the ground. She settled down and tried to speak calmly. “Sorry. I get a little angry when a guy invites me back to his place, leads me on, and then changes his mind.”
Spike scrambled to his feet, one hand reaching out as though to ward her off. “Wasn’t trying to lead you on. Just bein’ sociable.”
“Yes, your tongue in my mouth was very ‘sociable’.” Sparks made crackling noises between her fingertips as she advanced on him.
“That was friendly, yeah? So let’s just be friends and not go frying anyone.”
“Who is she?”
“No one.”
“Is she pretty? Prettier than me?”
Spike backed away from her, along the back wall of the crypt. “Oh hell, there’s no right answer to that question.” He leapt back as lightning struck the ground at his feet. “No! No. You’re prettier. Much. Gorgeous, in fact.”
“Then why are you running away from me?”
“Because you’re sodding scaring me to death!” Walking backward, as he was, he stepped, suddenly, on open air - the entrance to the lower level. He was caught on one foot just a moment, flailing, and then tumbled down, landing with a very loud smack on the stone floor below.
The sparks dissipated. She ran to the ladder and scrambled down. “Oh no, oh no…”
Spike, in a twisted pile at the foot of the ladder, looked up at her with a dazed expression as she checked him over.
He coughed, blood flecked his lips, and he licked them. “Can we just go back to the kissing part, yeah? Just… pretend I didn’t say anything.”
Willow relaxed, no longer afraid she’d somehow killed him. Wasn’t that silly? Like he could die from a fall. She helped him up onto the bed, and he picked himself up on his elbows, looking at her very seriously.
She brushed his cheek with one hand. “We can go back to the kissing part,” she said.
And so they did. He was pliant and gentle, maybe still shaken by the fall. She helped him off with his shirt and he responded in kind, pulling her sweater over her head and smoothing the frizzies out of her hair with his sure, steady fingers. Bare skin on skin felt so nice, after so long. She reached for his belt. His hands closed over hers. “I need… a little more time, yeah?”
She smiled. It was endearingly vulnerable of him to say that.
“Magic takes care of everything,” she said, and warmth spread down, like a tiny shower of sparks, like the warmth in her own belly, through her fingers and into him.
He gasped, arching against the mattress. “Bloody hell!”
She slipped the belt off of him while his hips were up, and easily undid his fly. She reached in with both hands and pulled him out, feeling the pleasant fullness and hardness. All for her. Well, partially manufactured by her, but still. The velvet-soft, thin skin was an amazing contrast to the tough, course blue jeans. She pushed the jeans open and down, revealing legs dusted with light-colored hairs.
Spike looked down his body at her, lips swollen, hair mussed, panting. “What are you doing to me?”
She slipped his jeans the rest of the way off and crawled back up him to kiss those dear, strangely innocent lips. Her fingertips spread over his chest, sending little shocks between them. He writhed and cursed. She ground against him. It was good, very good, and not enough at the same time. She sparked with power, borrowed, stolen, the sensation of dominance as he pleaded and bucked beneath her. It was so, so good. She wasn’t thinking about men or women or who she was with, just the pleasure, her own pleasure, and that was all there was in the world.
"Get down," she said, and he did. It was like magic.
***
Willow awoke feeling unshowered, with a gross taste in her mouth. Her skin was clammy with old sweat and…
She jerked upright, causing a split straight down her headache like an axe. She was in Spike’s bed. Next to Spike. Naked Spike. Oh god.
She slid off the side of the bed, the motion awoke feelings in her hips, a looseness, an openness, wetness… she had sex. With Spike. Spike sex. She tumbled to the floor in a tangle of sheets. Spike woke up then. He peered at her over the edge of the bed. Dark, long welts ran down his shoulders and chest. Had she done that? Flashes and fragments of the night before came wafting back, and Willow was trapped between self-disgust and the awareness that it had been really, really fun.
And Spike was watching her warily, not saying anything.
Slowly, in the awkward silence, Willow got to her feet. “I should go.”
Spike made a brief face and fell back on the bed. “You usually do,” he said.
“Oh god. I did this before? I don’t…”
“Women, in general.” Spike waved a hand vaguely toward the exit and then dropped his arm across his eyes.
Willow gathered her clothes. How had her blouse ended up on a ladder rung? And she dressed. But she wasn’t sure about leaving. She hovered at the edge of the bed, a thousand questions pinging off her brain. Would he tell Tara? Buffy? Oh god - Xander? Would he make fun of her tomorrow?
“Can I come back?” was the question that popped out of her mouth.
He lifted his arm, peering at her with eyes darkened all around the edges. “Can I stop you?”
Something small and dark in her crowed. Willow turned and ran. She scrambled up the ladder all knees and shins, bumping and scraping, and then she took off, leaving the crypt door wide open. It felt good to be in the sunshine, to run as fast as she could.
And she knew, now, he wouldn’t tell. She repeated that to herself, calming down, putting the night behind her, promising that it would stay behind her, from now on she would be good. So good. Tara would see how good and come back.
But deep, deep down, she knew she wanted to come back. She knew she'd found a new addiction, and a thrill better and safer than the ones Rack sold.
She would be back.
THE END