“Spike?”

The crypt was dark and cool, as it usually was, and it was a great relief from the swelteringly hot summer day outside.

“Are you in here?”

Willow stretched slightly, spreading her arms a little, pushing out her chest and rising to the balls of her feet. “Mmm…”

“Why, hello, little girl,” Spike purred from the shadows in the back of the crypt.

Willow rolled her eyes at him but strolled slowly over. “You’re such a guy, Spike,” she said. “All I have to do to get your attention is stick out my chest.”

“And a lovely chest it is, too,” Spike told her, pulling her down to straddle his lap. He leaned forward and kissed her between her breasts.

“Is that *all* you think about?” Willow asked amusedly.

“Not all,” Spike said seriously. “I think about this…” He kissed her neck, and pulled the collar of her shirt down slightly so he could give the small scars left over from his bite a long, slow lick.

“I think about this…” He peppered a trail of kisses up the long, smooth column of her neck to her ear as his hands slid from Willow’s waist to her hips. Spike nipped gently at her earlobe and continued.

“I think about this…” His hands pushed the soft material of her skirt up to bunch at her waist as he ran the palms of his hands along her legs. Willow bent her head a little so he could meet her lips properly, which he obligingly did.

Since his lips were now otherwise occupied, Spike couldn’t continue his argument, but shrugged it off as unimportant and turned his mind to the more interesting things at hand.

Willow spread her legs further so that she could rest her weight on Spike’s lap. Once she was sure that her position wasn’t too precarious, she let her hands wander from the arms of the chair that Spike sat in to the arms of Spike himself, which she had taken a particular liking to.

She loved running her fingers long his muscles. Biceps, triceps, anything impressive-sounding that she could think of—Spike had them, and they all twitched just slightly at her touch (that gave her a most smug, satisfied feeling).

Spike’s lips, too—those were nice. Soft and cool and moist. She ran her tongue along them and slipped it inside his mouth when they parted. One of Spike’s hands left her thigh to hold her at the small of her back, and the other tickled up her spine to tangle in her hair that was still damp from the shower Willow had taken to try to relieve herself from the heat of the day.

Willow braced one hand on Spike’s shoulder and let the other fall between them. In a show of unusual daring (<I wonder if we can do it in this position?>), Willow tugged at the waistband of the soft sweatpants Spike wore.

Spike drew back from her lips with a chuckle and raised his hips (and with them, Willow) slightly so that the pants could be drawn away.

Willow raised an eyebrow. “Going commando, Spike? Why am I not surprised?”

“It’s a very daring and manly thing to do, I’ll have you know,” Spike informed her sternly, and slid his hands under the folds of her skirt until he found the bikini waistband of her underwear. “Do you like this underwear much, pet?”

“Don’t tell me you want to rip it off,” Willow said. The eager look in Spike’s eyes was answer enough. “Oh, fine. But you have to buy me a new pair!”

A quick nod sufficed as a promise, and the elastic and cotton gave way easily under the stresses of vampiric strength. Spike gripped Willow’s hips and lifted her slightly. She shifted until she felt the tip of him just beneath her eager wetness, and then she slid down.

Both of them gasped. Spike clenched his teeth and rolled his hips upward. Willow moaned and tipped her head back, the tips of her fingers digging into his shoulders.

“Spike…!”

They’d foregone actual sex since that first wild night a month and a half ago, and Willow had forgotten quite how large the vampire was. He stretched her almost painfully, and if he took this too fast it would be painful later.

Willow leaned her nose against Spike’s, breathing heavily, and kissed him lightly on the mouth. “Go slow?” she asked quietly. “Please?”

He nodded and sucked gently on her bottom lip, coaxing her to kiss him again. Her grip on Spike’s shoulders must have been a little painful as she rocked against him, but then, it was likely his own grip on her hips would leave marks the next day.

Spike thrust gently upward, driving himself deeper into her willing warmth. He relished the small gasp Willow let loose every time they moved together and he nipped gently at her tongue.

Willow felt they’d been clutched atop each other for forever, and she could feel Spike’s movements growing more fevered beneath her. “Harder,” she whispered against his mouth. Whatever aches and pains followed would be worth it.

Spike complied eagerly. His tender suggestive thrusts into Willow’s wet heat grew faster and a little rougher, and his grip on her hips tighter as he started to raise and lower her in time to his movements. Willow whimpered and wrapped her arms around his shoulders, letting her head fall to Spike’s shoulder as she finally came. Spike purred as he felt her walls spasm around his length, and he nuzzled her sweaty hair aside until his first set of bitemarks were cleared.

Willow, coming down slightly from her orgasm, helped to pull her hair away with trembling fingers. She could feel the ridges of Spike’s game face against her cheek, and she sighed as he sank razor-sharp canines into her neck. She fell into a gentler orgasm at his bite along with him, and they both fell silent in the dark of the crypt.

***

With the setting of the sun came a slight descent of temperature, so Willow and Dawn exited their excellent new house, abandoning central air conditioning and a whole lot of bubble wrap, and went for a walk.

“Stake?” Dawn said, checking, when they were on the front porch.

“Stake,” Willow confirmed, holding up the object in question. “Holy Water?”

“Here,” Dawn said, indicating the small pouch tied around her waist. “And a cross too.”

“Recorder?” Willow asked. Dawn drew back the zipper of her pouch to reveal a small interview-type tape recorder, with the symbols on the buttons clearly indented into the plastic and a blank tape securely fitted. “Peachy keen,” Willow said. “And I have my keys.”

She tucked them into a pocket while Dawn put the stake in her pouch. Then, arm-in-arm, they strolled along the quiet streets until they got to what could be called “urban” Sunnydale (if the teller of the story was in a good mood with a loose sense of humor).

As one, they headed to the ice cream parlor, and then went for a stroll through one of Sunnydale’s less active, more scenic cemeteries. It wasn’t much of a coincidence that it was the cemetery in which Spike kept house, either.

Again, there was a coincidence lacking when they stopped by a certain crypt and Dawn knocked on the door with one hand, balancing her melting chocolate-chip cookie-dough ice cream in the other. “Spike! Come for a walk!”

The girls stood outside and waited, trying to stop their ice cream from dripping on their toes, and listened, smiling, to the sounds of muffled cursing coming from within the mausoleum.

Finally Spike emerged in a black muscle tank and blue jeans, no duster to be found. This anomaly was pointed out by both Willow and Dawn, to which he scowled and said, “It’s bloody ninety-nine degrees outside and you expect me to be wearing leather?”

The subject was dropped.

Dawn took Spike’s right arm and Willow took his left; Spike not-very-subtly stole a few bites of the redhead’s mint chocolate-chip ice cream, and they all commenced walking.

Willow and Dawn kept shooting each other “You go,” “No, you go,” looks until Spike couldn’t take it anymore and said, “All right, dears, what is it? Tell uncle Spike, go on.”

The look Willow gave Dawn was tempered with a sample of resolve face so Dawn rolled her eyes and spoke. “So, Spike…” she began casually. “If you were going to, say, move out of your crypt, how would you decorate your apartment? Or house, or whatever?”

Spike looked a bit confused as to why the question that was so difficult to ask was so bloody mundane, but he furrowed his brow and thought. “Hmm… Probably do the ‘modern vampire’ bit, you know. Lots of dark red and black. With black velvet drapes to cover up windows, the whole leather couch deal. There’s this bed I saw in Bed, Bath and Beyond… I was at the mall anyway, you know, to take a look at the leathers store and I just *happened* to see it…”

He glared at the female on each of his arms to make sure they understood that the tough Master Vampire had in no way actually gone browsing through Bed, Bath and Beyond. They each nodded understandingly and he coughed and continued. “It was this great iron thing, see.” He removed his arm from Dawn’s and started gesturing with it, though his fingers stayed firmly locked with Willow’s.

“Four poster, springs, et cetera, about four feet high, very nice, and I was thinking with black sheets and a dark red duvet…”

Willow and Dawn nodded fervently, each taking notes in her mind about the details Spike included in his hand movements, while the tape recorder in Dawn’s pouch whirred quietly.

***

“Okay, what else is on the list?”

Dawn pushed the shopping cart slowly down the aisles of Bed, Bath and Beyond. Willow stepped quickly behind her, reading aloud from the shopping list they’d put together.

“Uh… Black velvet drapes.”

“Look at this!” Anya came skipping down the aisle that crossed the one Willow and Dawn were currently in, waving something that glinted. “Isn’t this lovely?”

She shoved it into Willow’s hand, wiggling her fingers. Her ring glinted. Willow blinked at it, a thought crossing her mind, but she quickly shook it away as impossible and took what Anya offered.

It was a picture frame—a thick, silver picture frame with heavy relief. “See, it’s good for putting photographs in,” Anya explained carefully.

“I know,” Willow said with a raised eyebrow. She turned it over, weighing it in her hand. “What would you guys think if we got a picture… of Buffy? And got it printed all nice and framed it and put it on his bedside table?”

“I don’t know if encouraging Deadboy Junior’s obsessions is a great idea, Wills,” Xander commented, coming up behind them. He dumped a heavy plastic-wrapped package into the cart: the red duvet. Willow put the picture frame in the cart and picked up the duvet. She slid the wrappings open gingerly and slid a finger across the fabric. “Crushed velvet, Xan. I didn’t know you cared.”

Xander grimaced. “C’mon. The guy’s not *that* bad. He’s kind of funny. And he appreciates Wheetabix! I just don’t know if you should cultivate obsessions, that’s all.”

“I think it’s a very sweet idea,” Anya said. “We’ll just ignore the fact that it was *my* idea, not hers.”

Willow grinned. “Thanks, Anya.” She took a look at their budget and shrugged. “Why don’t you pick up some more? We’ll get one of these for everybody, and another one for Spike. We’ll give him a picture of us.”

Anya looked thrilled to be doing something, and skipped off to get more frames. Xander looked kind of doubtful again. “Do you think he’d really want a picture of the White Hats adorning his sleeping place?”

“Why not?” Willow said defensively. “We’re his friends now, right? Sort of? His posse?”

“Willow, promise me you’ll never use the word *posse* again,” Dawn muttered.

Willow made a face. “If he doesn’t like it, he can get rid of it.”

“Good point,” Xander said with a shrug. “Fine. So… black velvet drapes?”

***

“I like, I like,” Spike said appreciatively.

Willow and Dawn had given him an enthusiastic tour of the new house they’d bought with the money from selling the old Summers and Rosenberg houses. They’d started at the top, with the circular tower room Willow had reserved for her magic, then to Willow’s bedroom (Spike had given Willow a bold wink that the redhead prayed Dawn had somehow not noticed), Dawn’s bedroom, the library, and the guest room. Then to the bottom floor: living room, dining room, laundry room and kitchen.

Dawn had begun to bounce excitedly the closer they got to the kitchen. Spike gave her a strange look when she bumped into him on their way from the dining room to the laundry room.

“Oookay, here’s the kitchen,” Willow said, her voice pitched a little too high. “See? Dishwasher, very nice.” Spike grinned indulgently, and then Dawn started bouncing again.

“A-and the basement!” Dawn squeaked, and opened the door. Spike shot a questioning look back at Willow, whose face had acquired a becoming pink tinge. She gave her best to give him a “How-Should-I-Know?” look, but it wasn’t very credible.

“All right, basement it is,” Spike said, and followed a tingly Dawn down the stairs.

Dawn flicked a switch at the bottom of the steps and wall sconces lit up softly. The trio stood in front of a black-framed Chinese screen. “What’s this, then?” Spike asked.

“Go ahead,” Dawn said, the corners of her mouth twitching.

“Take a look!” Willow said. The pitch of her voice had climbed a few notches.

“Ooookay,” Spike said doubtfully, drawing out the word. He stepped forward and folded the screen back.

Then he froze.

The whole of the basement had been converted into the space he’d described to Willow and Dawn.

The small windows at the ceiling that looked out onto the front yard had floor-length black velvet drapes drawn across them; the iron four-poster he’d been so wistfully ogling had its headboard against the wall. It was fitted with black sheets and a red duvet and lots of black-and-red throw pillows, just like he’d said. There was a set of black leather armchairs, with a black iron table in between them; on top of the glass top there was a black mug. On it in bold red letters were the words:

BIG BAD

Spike chuckled as he walked over and picked it up. “What d’you know,” he said.

“There’s more…” Dawn said. She took his hand and pulled him towards a small door on the far wall as Willow reached stealthily under the pillows and drew out the framed photographs. She gently steadied them on the glass-topped bedside table and smiled.

“So I’m got my own bathroom and everything?” Spike called as he stepped out of said bathroom, Dawn trailing behind.

“T.V. too,” Dawn said, pointing, “And a fridge for blood.”

“Well, well.” Spike grinned. “I don’t know what to…”

Willow stepped away from the photographs.

“…say…” Spike finished. His brow creased, and he stepped over to where Willow stood, the look un his face unreadable.

He gently lifted the picture of Buffy. It was one of her the summer of the year before, a huge smile gracing her face. A similar smile slowly spread across Spike’s own handsome features, and his eyes said so much more as they met Willow’s and he said, “Thank you.”

His hand slid gently across her stomach, and she turned and let him wrap his arm around her waist as he picked up the picture of the Scooby Gang. It had been taken around the time Buffy’s picture had—Willow, Xander, Anya, Giles and Dawn, with Buffy behind the camera (Tara had been somewhere… else). They all looked ridiculously happy, and they were making various faces at the camera except for Giles, who sat looking slightly disoriented in the midst of all these silly children but cheerful enough just the same.

Dawn stood by one of the posts of the bed, smiling at the cute couple Willow and Spike made. It would be *so* cool if they got together, especially since Spike would be living with them now…

Dawn grinned. She knew what her next goal was.

Okay, I’m making the usual plea: Tell me what you’re thinking right now?