Waited for him to go and then went inside. Didn’t knock; I lived there. Giles was in the kitchen, messing about with pots and pans, getting himself something to eat.

How very fucking domestic of him. I’d been going to cook something for him; nothing fancy but I can manage steak and oven chips and a tin of those mushy peas he gets from the little shop with the dusty stacks of imported food from all over the world. Now it smelled as if he was doing one of those cast of thousands meals, with a pinch of this and a dash of that; the ones that take hours to prepare and leave every surface piled high with dishes. Normally he does that when he’s in a good mood but tonight it seemed off somehow. If I’d come in to find him slumped on a chair, knocking back the whisky, I wouldn’t have raised an eyebrow, but this seemed too calm after what he’d just gone through.

I crossed over to the hatch and leaned on my elbows watching him. Busy hands chopping away, head bent slightly, nape of his neck looking tanned against the stiff white collar of his work shirt. He’d rolled up his sleeves and the contrast between crisp cotton and strong, bare skin made me want him. Just that. Such a small thing to have me aching for him.

Made me realise how many hours I’d spent watching him that I could tell how tense he was from the line and curve of his back. Did he know me as well as I did him? I thought he did – but he wasn’t turning to me, wasn’t talking and he should have known this was killing me.

I opened my mouth, ran through half a dozen sentences and couldn’t come up with one that would get those arms around me, those restless hands stilled as they clutched sheets, my hair, whatever he wanted to hang on to while I stripped the clothes from his body and the hurt from his eyes. Could have just said his name, made it a question, but that felt like cheating; it’d mean he had to come up with the first words, and for all I knew, he was having as much trouble with that as I was.

Fuck. I was lost. Usually I knew. Knew what would work, when to make him angry, when to step carefully...now I didn’t. If I went up, slipped my arms around him, kissed him – would he step back, face cold and closed? Would he push me away from him?

I stood there, while the mountain of chopped pepper grew; precise, thin strips of red, and felt the weight of the silence push back every word that made it to my mouth, make it impossible to move anywhere.

He ran out of something to slash into little pieces and laid the knife down with a careful slowness that was scary.

He didn’t look at me. “Spike. When I turn around I don’t want to see you. Go upstairs, strip, lie face down on the bed. Pick a comfortable position as you’re going to be there quite some time. Don’t move, don’t speak, don’t touch yourself.”

Started to say something and he cut me off. “You’ve said quite enough for one evening, Spike. Go.”

I went, did everything he’d told me to do and was hard before I’d finished undressing. I hoped he didn’t keep me waiting for long, but I wasn’t counting on it, not when he’d had that edge to his voice. With nothing to do but think as Giles cooked, ate, cleaned up, I still couldn’t work out what had got him this pissed off. In the end I drifted off to sleep, I suppose, because I didn’t hear him come in.

I don’t know how long he spent watching me before he raised his arm and brought the crop down with a force he’d never used before.

“Wake up, Spike.”

I was awake. I think the hiss as it swept through the air woke me. If not that, the blow itself, meeting my skin with a flat emphasis, an uncompromising stroke that bit and burrowed deep enough to crack open my skin, splitting it and leaving scarlet behind when the crop rose back into the air to hover for a moment, as though waiting to see if I’d got the message. I felt the blood rise up and swell and spread, felt the pain hesitate and then explode and felt tears sting my eyes.

Because it hurt and Giles had never hurt me before. Not like that.

My fingers clawed at the sheets and I felt my body stiffen in shock and then I was moving, curling up, as instinctive a reaction as any animal in pain. If I’d been awake, if I’d had some warning, I could have held position but there was no fucking way I could lie still under that, not unbound.

I was making noises, soft little moans of pain and I couldn’t seem to stop them. I rolled over and squinted up through wetness to see Giles staring at me. He looked ... I don’t know. Not angry any more. Any satisfaction he might have felt at getting that reaction from me had gone by the time I focused on him, if it was ever there. His face was stiff with shock, as though what he’d done had been an accident, as if he hadn’t expected me to react like that – but he must have known, he must have. He threw the crop aside and sat down by me, pulling me close and hugging me hard. I let him, feeling the shock and the pain fade enough for me to be silent not holding him back at first until he made a sound far back in his throat and then I did, arms around him to stop him shaking. Ended up with him stripping down and coming back to lie beside me, him on his back and me sprawled across him, head tucked in under his chin with one arm wrapped around me and the other stroking my back.

I felt as if every bone in my body had splintered, sharp, jagged edges driving into my skin from within. It wasn’t the pain; one stroke, some blood, yes, it hurt, but I could endure far worse. It was Giles doing that, going beyond what I thought he was capable of. Being cruel.

Expected that from some people. Not from him. I couldn’t speak; he hadn’t said I could, and even though I’d moved without permission and he didn’t seem to mind, I wasn’t going to risk talking. So I lay there while he touched me, soothed me and stopped me shivering.

He spoke after a long while, his voice low and calm. “Are you –?”

I didn’t let him finish. “What was that for? I don’t get it.” I was over the shock now and getting angry with him, though the way he’d come straight to me when he saw I was hurt helped to keep me from screaming at him.

His arm tightened around me. “Don’t you? How did it make you feel that I’d do that?”

Thought about it. One word came to mind and as much as I tried to find an alternative, I couldn’t, not if I was going to be honest with him.

“Betrayed.” That seemed too bare, too stark. Found myself babbling. “You didn’t, you didn’t warn me. Didn’t let me get ready. Meant I moved and you’d said not to. Hurt too, but not just my arse.”

I stopped then because he was nodding, his face moving against my hair. “That’s just what I wanted you to feel.”

I tried to sit up so I could see him, but he wouldn’t let me. “Why did you want that?”

“Because it’s how I felt when I walked in and heard you telling Xander about our relationship.” Felt bewildered, tried to remember... “You said, and this might not be exact, ‘You don’t know him. You don’t know what he needs and if you did you wouldn’t want to give it to him’, then something about Anya and then I stopped you, but it was a little late.”

“That’s it?” I said, the anger building. He’d done that to me because of a few words? “He was hassling me, saying I wasn’t helping, that’s all.”

“Yes, and after we’d finished discussing Buffy – and thank you for leaving us alone; that saved you getting that stroke as soon as you came back in, and believe me, the way I felt, it would have been one of several –”

“Bloody glad I went, then,” I muttered.

He smiled slightly. “After that, I had to endure an increasingly intrusive series of questions from Xander. He wanted to know what, beyond the obvious, you could do that he couldn’t or wouldn’t. I think his imagination provided him with some rather lurid scenarios, not limited to the idea that I was letting you feed from me, as Riley did with that female vampire. I half expected him to make me strip so he could check me for bite marks.”

I snorted with laughter and couldn’t stop once I started. Guess he might have found one or two bite marks at that. Giles cuffed me across the head but not hard. “That’s quite enough of that. It got ...embarrassing.”

I gulped back the laughter with an effort. Not really all that funny; just that or burst into fucking tears and Giles had had his shoulder soaked enough for one night. Besides, Giles had his arms around me and was petting me, for want of a better word, and I couldn’t resist that. I didn’t think anyone had ever done that to me before. I was still a bit lost but I trusted him. If he’d carried on whipping me after he’d seen how hurt I was, if he’d stayed closed off and angry – well he hadn’t. Just like in the shop, when he was fucking me cold, he’d pulled back as soon as he saw he was doing serious damage. I was beginning to see that he always would.

Something occurred to me and suddenly it all made a lot more sense.

“I can see why you lost it, Giles. Only thing is, I don’t think it was what I said that set him off.”

Giles pushed me away so that he could see my face better. “What? What d’you mean?”

I poked his shoulder with an accusing finger. “Who sent Anya up here to get that book on binding spells you’d left on the bedside table? You did. Who –”

“You mean she took advantage and pried into drawers –”

He sounded shocked. Sweet but stupid sometimes.  “She probably would have but she didn’t bloody need to, did she? You’d left the cuffs attached to the bed and she brought the wooden spoon you’d used on me back down with her and put it into the kitchen. Bet Xander got an earful as soon as they got home. Look she gave me, he might have got more than that; not one to mind experimenting, is Anya. You might have put ideas in her head.”

Giles stared at me open mouthed. Rare sight that and I don’t mind saying I loved every second of it. Got me back to normal, the chance to make him wriggle a bit.  “So, got something you’d like to say to me?”

His eyes narrowed. “Spike, if I am marginally to blame for tonight’s interrogation –”

“Take it like a man, Giles. Totally to blame.”

His breath hissed out in an aggravated way and I wondered if I’d gloated a bit too much for safety. Tried the innocent smile, but couldn’t resist adding, “Tell you what; kiss my backside better and we’ll call it quits.”

His mouth thinned and then I watched the corners quirk up in a reluctant smile. Thought about that mouth on me and shivered happily. Truthfully, there wasn’t much of me he hadn’t kissed or licked. I remembered one spanking when he’d let the final slap fall, placed his palms, one cool, one scorching, on either cheek and pulled them apart, before running his tongue over every bit of reddened skin his hands didn’t mask. Then it had wandered and darted inside me, teasing little prods that had me begging and squirming until his fingers and cock took its place.

I’d come in that mouth, too, though never fucked it; standing or lying down, while Giles took me as deeply as he wanted or made me come without ever letting me inside until the last moment, using tongue and teeth and fingers while I waited, hands by my side, hips longing to thrust and snap.

All that...and it had all been his choice. The image of him doing anything to me because I’d told him to made my cock harden until it was aching and wet and he knew it.

“You want recompense? A quid pro quo?” He paused. “You can’t hit me, of course.” Not just because of the chip either, though that was what he meant, I think.

“Wouldn’t want to.”

“Really? Why is that?”

He sounded curious and I ran my hand over his arse, watching his eyes get that intent, interested look. We’d been lying here naked together for getting on for half an hour without either of us being hard. Wasn’t natural but I had a feeling we were going to be back to normal very soon. “Don’t want to hurt you, Giles. I’d like to make you beg, though.”

“Do you ever wonder why I like to do both?”

“Dunno. Did Xander?”

He bit my shoulder for that, but I could feel him laughing silently. He lifted his head after kissing the skin he’d reddened, smiling as I shivered and rubbed up against him. Giles biting me always made me ache from fangs to cock. “He did, yes, without actually saying it quite so bluntly. I managed to avoid answering - none of his bloody business after all – but I don’t mind discussing it with you.”

I shrugged. “Don’t need to. I don’t care why you do it. I just like it when you do.”

He stared at me. “Not because you like the pain as much, but because –”

Too much talking. Wanted him. “Because it’s you, Giles. That’s all.” It wasn’t, but it could keep. His cock was hard against me and I wanted him.

He studied me and nodded, accepting it. “I thought you deserved this,” he ran his hand over the welt on my backside, “and I still think you were indiscreet, but...fine. I should have spoken with you first, let you explain. I’m very sorry, Spike. I regret it more than I can say.”

I kissed him for that. No half measures with Giles, no grudging admissions of guilt. “It’s O.K.. Really.” I grinned at him. “Besides, you can make it up to me, yeah? Make yourself feel better.”

He stared at me and then nodded. “Very well. You get to choose something you want me to do to you, or you to me.” He lay back and relaxed, tucking his arms behind his head and smiling at me lazily. “You do the hard work for a change,” he said.

I propped myself up on my elbow and looked him over, running a finger from the hollow at his throat to his cock, circling around it and not touching it.

“Going to fuck you, Giles.” His gaze never wavered. Don’t think he even blinked. “Going to get inside you, going to be me who joins us, me who comes in you. Going to show you what you’ve made me feel these last few weeks.”

I leaned in and whispered in his ear. “Do you trust me to make you scream, Giles? Just this once? Scream my name, until it’s all you can think of, the way I do yours? Do you think I can do that to you?”

He turned his head so our mouths were an inch apart. “Do it now.” Strong, commanding voice.

I shook my head. Waited.

“Please, Spike.”

Fucking nearly came right then.

I’d always thought there’d come a time when Giles got curious enough to want me in him for a change, but it wouldn’t have changed anything about the way we were together. A man who could be on his knees sucking me off and swallowing me down without ever, for a second, letting me feel as if I was in control could handle swapping positions without too much trouble. Giles tended to do things the way he wanted to. I had a vision of me behind him, cock up in him as far as it would go, two strokes away from coming and Giles telling me to stop and get him off first. I’d have done it too. He’d have seen to that. God. I shivered, wondering if I liked that idea or not.

“What are you thinking about? Your face just changed. You looked...hungry.”

I sighed, knowing he’d get it out of me, and told him. He looked taken aback. “Oh. I’d never even thought about doing that to tell you the truth.”

I nodded briskly. “Glad to hear it. Moving on –”

“It’s an excellent idea, Spike.”

I watched him file it away for a rainy afternoon and growled. “Focus, Giles.”

He gave me an indignant look and then caught himself. “Sorry.” His eyes darkened. “You were going to make me scream. I – yes, Spike. Please?”

It was so good to hear the words that it should have been enough, but it wasn’t. Giles sounded suspiciously meek and pliant and it was too soon. He wanted this – knew damn well he did, or I’d never have got the chance to ask for it – and he wanted me to get on with it. Saying ‘please’ in that calm, dignified voice wasn’t enough. I wanted him howling it, whimpering it, gasping it out as his body writhed and arched under me.

Was going to get it, too.

I lay beside him and started to kiss along his jaw line, listening to the pulse beating strongly in his throat. I went to it, pressing my lips against it and sucking hard, marking him the only way I could. I felt his hands come up to hold me and raised my mouth up just enough to tell him to lie still. Wasn’t going to do this just the way he did to me, but I was damned if he was going to take over. Not tonight. His hands dropped back after the smallest hesitation and I grinned. He wasn’t going to find this easy after so long being in charge.

“’Please’ means two things, Giles.” I quirked an eyebrow at him. “It’s a request and it’s a verb. Tonight I want you saying the first and doing the second. Pleasing me any way I tell you.” He looked a little stunned and I laughed, running my hand over his chest, enjoying the freedom of touching him as I wanted. “You thought this would be fast? I’ve got you until you fall asleep, Giles. You’re mine until then, understand? Say it. Make me believe it. Then I want your mouth on my cock.”

He met my eyes and waited long enough for his answer to be real. “I’m yours, Spike. All yours.” Sincere, but just enough arrogance and challenge lurking under that to make this fun.

I lay back against the pillows, sprawled out and relaxed. As he watched I took my cock in one hand and worked it slowly. Utterly forbidden that, usually, and I smiled at him lazily. “Told you what I wanted you to do, Giles. Watching me wank wasn’t it. Come here.”

He crawled between my legs and waited. “Do I have to draw you a bloody diagram?” I tried to sound stern but I don’t think I did a good job of it because he glanced up at me just before my cock slid into his mouth and his eyes were amused.

Let him get away with it and let him set his own pace too. I was planning what to do next. I knew what got him hot, but that was when he was in charge. This was different. Except maybe not, as I still wanted to make him happy. Just wanted to do it my way. Didn’t want revenge; tomorrow morning would come soon enough and Giles had a good memory. He wouldn’t make me pay for anything I did tonight – wouldn’t be fair – but I wasn’t keen on leaving him feeling creative when it came to restoring the balance.

I felt his tongue get rougher, long, dragging strokes against my cock, and then he bit down so that his teeth circled the base, digging in gently, and held it in place, flickering his tongue like a hummingbird’s wings but not sucking at all. Maddening, it was, and I couldn’t think, not when he was doing that....then I cottoned on to what he was doing.

“Giles. Stop arsing around and make me come. When I do is my decision right now, get it?”

True, coming after Giles had brought me to the edge and pulled me back a few times was the kind of experience that gives torture a good name, but I was willing to settle for something a bit more immediate rather than have him still trying to be the one calling the shots. Fuck. Going to have my work cut out for me here. Giles was being obedient, sucking hard, using his hands to cup my balls, letting the sensations build steadily and fast, but he was telling me, clear as day, that I was going to have to watch him.

I came, feeling Giles’ hands on me, sure and strong, holding me steady as I closed my eyes and made the sounds that try so hard to be words and never quite make it. Felt him kissing my stomach, his head resting in the hollow of my hip, his palm against my thigh.

“Come up here,” I said. I held him to me and kissed him, brushing against his lips, letting my tongue slide between them. We lay there, just kissing, his cock warm and hard against me and I was almost happy enough to just let it go at that. Almost. I think he’d have been disappointed if I had, though and I know I’d have regretted it come morning.

Gave him one last kiss, noticing that we both tasted exactly the same now, and pulled away.

“Giles. Something tells me I’m not getting your full cooperation here.”

“I don’t think that’s quite fair,” he said.

“I don’t think you get to decide, pet.” Felt his body stiffen at that. I’d called him ‘pet’ once, not even thinking about it, and he’d lectured me for five very long minutes on acceptable forms of address (‘Giles’ seemed to be about my only option as far as I could make out) and then made me bend over and touch my toes while his leather soled slipper got applied to my backside. That brought back so many memories of school I’d had a sudden yearning for crumpets and honey.

 “Go and pick up that crop you left lying on the floor. Bring it here.”

He almost argued, but he’s not stupid. Me, I’d have been reminding people about chips and trying to be distracting, but Giles just stared at me for a moment, with a question in his eyes, and then shrugged – which was going to fucking cost him – and did as I’d told him.

I held it, slapping it gently against my palm, feeling the weight of it. Then I smiled at Giles. “Lie down. On your...” I thought about it. On his back, I’d get to see his face; on his stomach, he wouldn’t know what was going to happen. Choices, choices... “On your back. Hands by your side, palms up.”

He looked fucking good lying there. Positioned by my word, vulnerable, open, cock so hard it was all I could do not to fist it until he came, with mercy so very low down on the list of motives. Instead I said, nice and soft, just the way he did to me, “Hold that position, Giles. You don’t get a second chance.”

His face seemed to shift then, as though for the first time he’d stopped playing and started behaving. Without being told, he spread his legs, just slightly, his hips lifting off the bed a bare inch in mute supplication. I gripped the crop hard enough for it to leave a mark on my palm and reminded myself of every time Giles had given me what I needed. I was beginning to see why he’d described this as hard work.

I raised the crop and brought it down, hearing it slice air and carve a path for itself. It was aimed to land across the top of Giles’ thighs, and that’s just where it hit – after I’d killed the speed at the last moment so that when it touched his skin, it was with a tap that wouldn’t have cracked open the shell on an egg. Course, Giles didn’t know that, and chip or no chip, when you’ve got something coming for your balls, you don’t think twice. His hands came up and if he’d had chance, he’d have rolled out of the way too.

I sighed sadly, shaking my head. “Going to try that again, Giles. And again, until you do as you’re told.”

He was speechless for a second and then I saw the anger rise up in his eyes and he started to struggle up. Being careful but moving fast, I pushed him back, straddling him and pinning his hands above his head. “You’re disappointing me, Giles. I expected better than this.”

“Spike, you bastard, that was ...”

“What? Not fair? Don’t even bother saying it, if that’s all you’ve got.”

Watched him struggle for control of his emotions and then he met my gaze and nodded in resignation. “Do it again.”

“Oh, I will, count on it, but not just yet. What did I tell you about second chances, Giles?”

He didn’t want to say it, but I waited and I got it from him eventually. “I don’t get them.”

“Right. Which means before we do that again, you pay for that bad behaviour.”

I moved off him and sat cross-legged beside him. “Touch yourself, Giles. Want to see how you jerk off.” He gave me a startled look. As close as we’d become, it was still something I’d never seen him do; not that I’d left him with any surplus energy. I could see him thinking that he could do it, it wasn’t so bad, and after all, he was so near to the edge that it wouldn’t take long, and he’d get to come...his hands went down, settling into place with no hesitation or fumbling, as familiar an action as cleaning his teeth. Or his bloody glasses. I let him get started and then spoke again. “And while you’re doing that, tell me what you’re thinking, Giles. Close your eyes. Tell me what you see.”

“I ... can’t.” He sounded anguished but I gripped his wrists, stilling his hands.

“Close your fucking eyes. Good. When you do this, who are you thinking about? Who’s in there with you?”

I felt the bones shift in my grip. He was getting away from self-conscious but not fast enough. I twisted around, bent down, and took the head of his cock in my mouth. One lick, one fierce, hard suck, and I pulled back. His eyes were open again and glazed, the way they get when your world’s narrowed down to the need to come and if it ends three seconds later, so fucking what.

“Giles, you need to send a thank you card to the Initiative, because if it wasn’t for this bloody chip, I’d be raising welts on your arse that’d take a week to fade. Shut your fucking eyes.”

“I’m sorry, Spike. May I – may I say something?”

“If you make it fast.” God, the sound of his voice, halting, almost hesitant...real, as nothing else he’d said had been since we started this.

“I wasn’t expecting this. Wasn’t expecting you to do more than fuck me. I wasn’t ready. Can we just start again?”

I knelt beside him and cupped his face. “Forget this punishment, you mean? Let you off it?” Shook my head. “No, and do you know why? Because you’d never forgive me. Stop fighting me, Giles. It’s not amusing me anymore. Give me what I want. Trust it to be what you need.”

He turned so that he could kiss my hand, doing it slowly enough that I could have forbidden it if I’d wanted.

Then he closed his eyes and started to talk, his hands moving slowly, not trying to rush, and I sat back, watched and listened.

“It’s not always you, you know. Not even always a man, though recently, well, when it’s you, it’s always the same; that time I came in to unchain you when you were staying here and you’d managed to get your zip down and your cock out. I shouted at you, called you every name under the sun, wouldn’t feed you for hours...and I was so hard –”

I reached out and then hesitated. He hadn’t stopped and his face was tense, a frown getting deeper. “I wanted – Spike, may I open my eyes? Please? I want to see you, I don’t need –”

I’d thought I was making it easier for him. “Open them.”

He did. Grey-green eyes. Sky and sea meeting; English sky and sea, of course...and I realised if his eyes were open he’d be able to see me, and I couldn’t look away. Being able to look made his voice smooth out, still quiet, but powerful, intense. “Wouldn’t let myself go off and do this. Scared you’d hear me and laugh, punishing myself for getting aroused by you...but when you were asleep, when I was sure, I couldn’t help it. Lay there seeing you, imagining how you’d look spread out on this bed. Everything I’ve done to you, I’ve done first in my dreams, Spike. Hating you, angry with you sometimes, despising myself, but loving it all the more. I’d come with your voice echoing in my head, begging me to hurt you, begging for release.” His hands paused and I could see he was close. “I don’t do that now, Spike.” He grinned wryly. “Don’t do this much either; you tend to take care of me too well for it to be necessary, but sometimes- ” His hand moved, as though his body was impatient and he gasped silently, driving his teeth into his lip. “Sometimes I do and it’s never about hurting you now. It’s the way you look when I’m in you. Should see yourself, Spike. Should see – oh God, yes!”

I was on him as he came, kissing him, taking in every word, feeling them feed me, fill me. His hands, sticky and wet, came up to hold me and I felt my face shift. He looked at me and begged, no other word for it, pure need and appeal. “Fuck me, Spike.”

Looked at him, seeing him as the demon did, feeling the lust rise. “Like this?” I demanded.

He ran his finger over my mouth and thrust it inside. I felt the skin tear and the drops of blood well up. I waited for him to snatch it back but he didn’t. My hand went around his wrist and I pulled, careful not to hurt him anymore. I held his hand and stared down at the gash, letting the blood trickle and drip.

“Spike?” He sounded hurt, confused and I couldn’t stand it. Bent my head and licked it clean with three eager laps of my tongue, and then turned and grabbed a handful of tissues from the box beside the bed and held them in place until it had stopped bleeding.

“I don’t understand. If I offer it, it doesn’t hurt you, does it?”

“No. Just don’t want to think of you that way, Giles. Not as food. Just as you.” I grinned down at him. “This your way of distracting me? Picked up some of my tricks?”

The worry vanished from his face. “If you think you ever succeed in your attempts to avoid well-deserved punishment, Spike, you can think again.”

I reached out and found the crop. “Fine. Neither will you.” I ran the crop across his leg, watched him shiver. “You’re out of position, Giles.”

I used that crop on him for a long time, flicking the skin, stroking it, teasing his cock and balls until he was hard again and then not going near them after that. Had him on his back, on his stomach, kneeling up with it across his throat as I knelt behind him, making him twist his head around so his lips were there for me to kiss, on all fours as I posed him, made him hold a position until his body was trembling and his eyes were wild because the crop wouldn’t let him be, wouldn’t leave him alone...

I laid the crop aside eventually and looked down at Giles. His eyes were open but he wasn’t focusing on anything. When I touched him, laying the flat of my hand against his face, about the only part of him I’d avoided, I felt his skin quiver as he unclenched his teeth.

“You did well, Giles,” I said, pitching my voice low, though the room was so quiet it sounded loud. “Never flinched, not once, never moved. Proud of you.”

His eyes closed for a moment and when they opened, he was there again. I nodded. “You can move now and talk, if you want. Take a minute, yeah?”

If he’d rolled away from me, I’d have broken right then, would have known I’d failed him. But he didn’t. He came to me, curling into me, wrapping his arms around me. He was taller, heavier but lying down it didn’t matter. Kissed him and held him, running my hand over his back, warm and damp, his skin alive, humming with sensation.

He hadn’t come and I hadn’t let him. I was done playing now. I wanted him.

“Giles? Look at me. It’s getting late. You’re tired. Going to fuck you to sleep, right?”

“Why does the thought of you in me not make me feel remotely sleepy?”

“Because thoughts and cocks are two different things altogether, Giles.”

Cracked him up. He stared at me and started to laugh, his head going back. Wouldn’t stop giggling, so I shut him up by pushing him onto his stomach and running my hand over his arse. When he felt my finger press against his opening, he went quiet.

“Tell me, Giles,” I said, reaching over for the lube and noticing with relief, that it was nearly full, “how long has it been since you did this?”

Drizzled lube over him, holding his cheeks apart with one hand. That got a flinch from him as the cool wetness hit his skin. He felt warm, fever –hot and I didn’t know whether to curse the chip because I wanted to fuck him till he saw stars, or be glad that it would make sure I didn’t hurt him. Not that a bit of pain’s always a bad thing ...and if the fucking thing couldn’t tell that anything I did, I was doing for him...oh bollocks.

“Giles? How long?” Slid one finger in. Tight and he was tensing up...

“Long time,” he said. He wasn’t relaxing enough. Fuck. I bent forward, keeping my hand where it was, and kissed him as far up his back as I could reach, long, soft kisses, running my tongue over his skin, tasting the salt, whispering to him, telling him what I was going to do, how he looked, how he felt, how he tasted.

 “Going to move in you so slowly, Giles, until I’m in you and there’s nothing outside, nothing left out. Think I could come just from that, just from sliding inside you and feeling your heat around me, feeling you squeeze me, but I won’t. I’ll pull out, and you’ll make that noise, the one I make, even though I know you’ll be back in me in a second, even though you never pull out altogether. Going to have to go fast too. Want to slam into you, Giles. You’ll need that, you want that edge, that power, just the way I do, want to feel it build and crash over you, take you under until everything’s gone but the darkness and my cock in you, always in you. So relax, Giles; that’s it. Let me fuck you. Trust me. I want you. Won’t hurt you. Don’t let me hurt you, Giles.”

That last bit - I was warning him but I didn’t need to. The chip would slap my wrist before Giles could speak, but some part of me needed to tell him and to make sure he was on guard.

Felt the tension subside and added a second finger, moving so slowly, so carefully that I was trembling. I was as turned on as he was and the demon was screaming at me to take him, tear him open, feed. At times like that, I could feel the control slipping and I wondered what would happen when I was in him. He’d kept me safe; made me safe; he wouldn’t be able to do that now.

“Spike?” He murmured it so low, I could hardly hear him. “Trust you. Always have since you saved me.”

I slid into him a moment later and felt him help me, felt him move and tilt his hips, watched his hands fist the quilt and heard the sounds he made as I moved inside him.

It couldn’t last long, not the way we both felt, but I got to go slow and I got to make him beg for me to fuck him hard, harder, please, with the last word a howl of anguished need that pierced me the way a stake will one day, sending me out of my body and somewhere new. Felt myself start to come, that tightening, that pause just before it’s all too much and your body isn’t yours to control anymore. Managed to slide my hand under him and felt his cock leap and shoot as soon as I touched it, as if he’d been waiting for me, waiting for permission.

I remember lying there with him, afterwards, cleaned up, because we needed to, just talking. There had to be something, a bridge between what we’d done and what we’d do tomorrow and that was it. Didn’t talk about our feelings, or even what we’d just done, though I don’t recall a moment when he stopped touching me with his hand or his mouth, almost as if he was scared I’d vanish. Felt the same way. Relaxed, sure; could still feel the warmth I got when I came, same as the way it felt when I fed...but a little shy maybe.

The talking stopped after a while. Started kissing instead, feeling it build up, feeling that sharp pull of need. Didn’t need words, didn’t need to bargain; Giles moved on top of me and we fucked, face to face, no orders, no constraints, just us.

Felt good. Not for always, no; too soon. Maybe someday we could be like this and it would work. Didn’t know – but right then, it felt good and that was enough.

***

He woke me the next morning, just before he left to go to the shop. I squinted up at him; shaved and fresh, shirt and tie, ironed and pressed and remembered how it’d felt when that body was naked under mine, how that cool voice had shattered as he screamed my name, just as I’d wanted him to. He’d given me everything and he’d fallen asleep with me holding him. I could still taste his blood, was lying in sheets that smelled of come and sweat. He didn’t, not now. Soap and toothpaste and coffee. Morning scents.

“I’m leaving now, Spike. You may rest a while longer, but I expect you at the shop as soon as the sunset permits.” His gaze wandered over me, speculative and amused. “Last night was interesting, but –”

“Back to normal today.”

“Quite.” He grinned suddenly. “At least I know what to give you for your birthday. When is that, by the way?”

I thought about it. “What’s the date today?”

“The seventh of July.”

Grinned back. “Must have been the sixth then.”

He frowned. “You don’t want-?”

Shook my head. “Do want to try that again, just ...not for a while. Christmas, maybe?”

He looked at me and nodded. “Save me wrapping something up, anyway,” he muttered.

I smirked. “Don’t count on that, Giles.”

His eyes narrowed and his hand went to his tie, loosening it. “You’re going to be late, Giles,” I warned, as his jacket landed on a chair.

“I’m not going anywhere until you swear you won’t attach ribbons, bows, tinsel or mistletoe to any part of my anatomy.”

Sighed regretfully. “You’ll have to make me.”

His eyebrow arched. “That’s why I love you.”

He made me. That’s why I love him. And when I thought about him saying that, telling me for the first time, I realised he’d been saying it since the start.




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