It's the first time he's done this.

Before his rebirth into death -- oh, why be poetic, even though the way she's smiling up at him, dazzled and lost, just from the slow sweep of his fingers against her breasts, the less gentle, if still loving, rub of his thumb over her nipple, until it's ready for his tongue, is enough to make any man want to find a new rhyme for 'love'?

For him, poetry's never going to be how he expresses his feelings. 'Buffy' rhymes with nothing at all and he knows her well enough to be certain that she'd roll her eyes if he tried, even though she'd like the idea of it.

But before -- God, her hands, questing and strong, reminding him of what she is, and why, with her, he can forget what he is -- before he was turned he'd fucked, swived, rutted -- oh, there are a dozen earthy, guttural verbs that do a grand job of describing him slipping inside rank, unwashed flesh, warm and grubby, and he'll not let a one of them cross his mind tonight.

Not with her silver and white in his arms, in the darkness, Diana of the hunt, if she's any goddess, because she's the ultimate hunter, after all.

She captured him, didn't she?

So this, this is new. Kisses are new, gentleness is new.

He's had centuries to become used to pain goading and prodding him towards release -- not his, of course, or not often. Dru and Darla, wincing and smiling and pressing closer with every bite and cut and blow, their cool bodies rolling restlessly amongst crumpled, stained sheets -- through decades of denial, he still uses memories of them to bring himself off, unable to help it.

But she's teaching him something new here, with every whisper of his name, every moan, and God, she's so hot against his skin, so wet when he touches her, so ready to arch up against him.

When her teeth take his shoulder he laughs, exultant and proud because he's making her happy and that's all he needs to be happy himself.

When she becomes a fuck, nothing more, a few moments later, when he strokes himself to emptiness in the alley, the cooling corpse of a whore beside him, Buffy's blood still staining the flesh he's working, that's even better.

Deep as first love and wild with all regret.

Maybe there was something to be said for poetry after all.

Regret.

Rhymes with 'forget', doesn't it?




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