"Nice car, pet."  Spike said, as she opened the driver's side door of the burgundy Jaguar saloon car.

"I've no complaints."  She slid into the leather bucket seat and unlocked his door.

"I stole one of these for Dru back in London and really loved it.  I always . . . what happened to it?"  He sat and looked around the interior.

"I know.  I was originally looking for a true restoration but this has some advantages."  She unlocked the club from the steering wheel.

He reached across the centre console to draw her close to nuzzle the fragrant spot on her neck.  "There were benefits to bench seats you know."

She shuddered as his cool tongue ran along her neck.  "Ones that would have prevented us from reaching the hotel."  She tried to sat back , but he held her as he sniffed down her chest.  He plucked the vial on the chain from under her top.  "Hey, now.  I think you've had enough."  She pulled the vial from his hands.  He released her to lick his fingers.  His eyes were now fully dilated and a silly grin lit his features.

Reaching over him, to grab the modern three-point harness, she was rewarded with kisses down her neck.  "You best stop that.  Are you like this when you drink?"

"No.  More weepy and morose."  He chuckled into her neck, nipping it with his human teeth before releasing her.  She secured the belt.

With his hand on her leg, she started the car and pulled away from the curb.  The heat of her body made the short drive impossibly long.  Every time he drew close to sniff her hair, her temperature rose.  The silly little smile on his face added an odd counterpoint to her stifling heat.

"God, you're funny.  You've hardly had any."  She glanced at him, his eyes were completely gold but his human face was still in place.  That coupled with the silly grin was too much.  She laughed.

He reacted so strongly to so little a dose. Dillon would have barely noticed.  Spike must be abnormally sensitive to it or there is more than vampnip at play here.  Either way, she hoped to have fun finding out.

After pulling into the hotel lot she quickly found a spot and set about locking down her car.  She locked the club to the steering wheel and threw the kill switch under the dash.  After they got out, she double checked Spike's door and then set the alarm with the remote.  She stopped to give the car a loving glance, before leading a high vampire to the hotel door.

Spike was so relaxed he had dropped William's features altogether.  "Spike, there's yummy morsels in there.  You can't let them see you."  With a shake of his head his human features were back in place.  Regardless, she figured it was better to use the stairs.  Her room was on the top floor but the building was only five stories.

They reached her door without mishap.  As she slide the card key through the lock, she could feel his cool blue-grey eyes burn like embers against her already searing skin.  She led him into her room no need of an invitation into this temporary shelter.  He removed his coat and tossed it carelessly across a chair in the sitting area.

He grabbed her arm and pulled her to him.  He forced her lips into a consuming kiss.  She kept her eyes on his watching the emotions play there.  Gone was the sweet playfulness that seemed to buoy him up at the Bronze and on the drive.  What stirred in the stone blue eye was pain and need.

She closed her eyes and kissed harder, wanting to eat away his troubles and bring back the playful love of life, of which, she had a brief glimpse.  He roughly began to remove her shirt she released him so he could pull it over her head.  Titia tugged his t-shirt from him, running her hands down his taut chest to unbuckle his belt.  Spike's attack on her pants brought his desperation to the surface.  He let out a throaty growl.  She stayed his hands and kissed his face briefly calming him.

She stepped away and removed the rest of her clothing.  He offered no resistance as she eased him out of his own.  No embarrassment reflected in his demeanour as her eyes gazed on the beauty of his alabaster body and locked momentarily on his hard proud erection.  This is not going as planned.  Well, I guess it is since I didn't plan it.    I should have taken a better look at the situation before even attempting something this stupid.  And he's not likely to leave now, not that you would send him away like this.  Could I send him away with me like this?  I want him.

She decided that slowing this down might be a good thing.  Dressed only in the chain around her neck she turned him and guided him toward the bathroom.  She started the shower letting it warm; she turned and took off the chain then turned back to adjust the water.  The facets of the crystal vial sparkled gaining Spike's attention.  He examined it then removed the cap and sniffed.  He was emitting a soft sound from his chest when Titia turned back to him.  "Ha, you're so funny.  Here, I think you've had enough of that."  She placed the crystal back on the counter and drew him into the hot water.

Keeping their heads out of the water, Titia picked up her herbal scented shower gel and squeezed out a length it.  Rubbing it into a lather, she massaged it into Spike's loosening shoulders.  She ran her hands across his chest and back, digging into his muscles until he had to steady himself against the wall.  She moved her strong hands lower across his ass cheeks and groin, slowly raising a more positive tension.  She traded places with him to rinse off his soapy surfaces, lingering to stroke his hard shaft.

She stepped away and took up the gel to cleanse herself.  He watched her as she brought her soapy hands to her breasts and stomach.  His face softened as he reached out and touched a foamy nipple.  The hunger hadn't left but the hard edge of desperation was gone.  Taking her hands, he relieved them of most of the foam and applied it to her waist, running his hands along behind her to rub gentle soapy circles on the globes of her ass.  He brought his lips to hers, as his soapy finger slid down the cleft of her ass flicking along the small pucker of her anus.  She shuddered.  He picked up the shower gel without releasing her.  His hands slide with new foaminess across her flat belly and between her legs.  She put a hand against his chest as he moved along her inner thighs to slowly massage the small mound at her groin.  She felt weak as her excited body started to burn out of control at his touch.

Stepping away from him, she allowed the water to wash the lather from her body.  She turned off the shower and handed him a towel before reaching for her own.  When she turned, he was standing there staring at the strangeness that was the towel in his hands.  She took it from him and rubbed down his body with it.    I can't have him like this.  He's completely out of it.  I would be too much like I'm taking advantage.

She made a quick attempt at drying herself, before she wrapped the white towel around Spike's waist and led him to the sitting room.  "Why don't you have a seat and I'll get you something to drink."  She went to the small bar and took a bag of Eternia's O positive from the bar fridge.  Filling up the ceramic wine cooler with water she put it in the microwave to heat.  Then, she watched the vampire as he moved restlessly about the room.

The herb hadn't dulled the simple grace of his movements.  The play of well-defined muscles displayed the power of his body.  In Angel, that preternatural grace seemed at odds with his large form but with Spike it seemed natural and inherent.

When the microwave dinged, she dropped the bag of blood into the steaming water.  Digging out the remains of the bottle of wine, she had brought back with last night's supper, she poured herself a glass.  What am I going to do?   She bought the wine to her lips, her eyes on Spike as he prowled into the bedroom, and drank down the glass.  Taking up the bottle she emptied it into her glass.  Is nothing ever simple in this town?  She withdrew the bag from the cooler and dried it with a bar towel.  She put the water back in the microwave for a minute.  While she waited, she kneaded the bag, mixing the blood to an even temperature.  Once the water was reheated, she plopped the bag back in and then want to check on her guest.

He cast her a cocky smile, as she entered the bedroom.  "Nice of you to join me, pet."

His eyes were nearly normal she noticed as she was thrown to the bed with a squeak.  His cool body quenched her hot skin as he pinned her to the bed his lips kissed along her clavicle.  Titia was delighted to see that he had come out of his stupor and responded to his attentions with equal passion.

She captured his wandering mouth with hers sliding her tongue between his cool lips.  Tantalized and aroused by the mingled taste of vampire musk and beer. She threw him onto his back reversing their positions.  Her fingers caressed the muscles of his chest, while she nipped gently along his neck.  He moaned and arched up against her.  She sucked and nipped repeatedly along his jugular, as she reached down and teased his twitching cock with light strokes.  He growled and thrust upward at her, but didn't try and wrist control.  The first time was going to be fast.  But, hell, they could stay here until Giles found the packing supplies.  It could be days.  She thought happily as she positioned herself over him.

His eyes flew open in shock, as the hot taut lips of her sex forced themselves to except him.  He's not had a mortal in a while.  Remember Dillon's face.  He'd been nearly as comical.  He moaned, as she pushed down further, slowly, drawing the sensation out for him.  Leaning down, she licked his parted lips before seeking his cool tongue.

She rode him slowly, trying to stretch out this first coupling.  Their tongues danced as they moaned into each other's mouths.  The combination of his strengthened scent and his touch overwhelmed her senses increasing her own pent up lust.    She released his lips and increased the force of her thrusts.  She snapped out and bit him hard on the neck.  "Oh, fuck, " he growled, forcing an even faster pace.  Then he clutched her to him, changing to short swift strokes.

Titia screamed her orgasm, as Spike shot out and sunk his teeth deep in her neck with a savage snarl.  After only a few mouthfuls he withdrew from her neck, licking away the small trail of blood.    They collapsed into a spent heap.

"Bloody amazing," he muttered, as he ran his finger along the puncture wound he had left on her neck.  She had to smile at the perplexed look that wrinkled his smooth brow.  She moved against him, bringing his attention to her face.  He returned her smile.  Kissing her gently, he shifted under her.  With a quick burst, he had rolled them over without losing contact.

She could feel him cool within her again, as his demon blood rehardened his already rigid shaft.  The flared ridge of his cock cleared the lips of her sex with every stroke.  Tingling ran down her neck and into her breasts as he lapped at the hot wound on her neck.  His hands roamed her body, eliciting pleasure wherever they touched.

She raised her hips to meet his every thrust, her passage clamping down on every inward stroke.  He gave a little grunt with every clench.  "Damn," he gasped, "If I'd known . . .ah, you'd have never left . . .ah,  my crypt the first night, mmm. . . ."

"Ahh," Titia moaned as his lips encompassed her hard nipple.  His frost kissed body was heavenly against her searing skin.  Everything was perfect, as though he had been designed to quench the stifling heat that she carried with her.  He in turn seemed to consume her, as though he was too cold and needed her warmth.  For him it was natural, as vampires were designed to need mortal heat, to drain it.  Stealing it to kindle their own inner fires for a short time.

But for her, her inner burning seemed only quenched by her vampire lovers.  It was unnatural, a cruel side effect of the Powers touch.  But such a wonderful remedy.  Her body arched up, forcing her breast deeper into his parted lips.  She nearly came when he bit down.  She clutched the bed sleet as he increased the pace.  His wetted balls slapped tantalizingly against her ass cheeks, driving her closer to the brink.  She closed her eyes trying to regain some control.

She thought she had won, until she opened her eyes the see the unsatiated hunger in the darkened blue-grey eyes above her.  She moaned as his tongue slid through her parted lips and was swamped by the ecstasy of her second orgasm that night.  He growled his own into their kiss, finishing with three jarring thrusts and pelting her inner walls with his cold fluid.

He sighed, stopping their kiss and nestled his face against her neck, his lips resting against her wound.  His unneeded breath catching the now faint, but still potent fragrance.  He didn't withdraw, just held her there in his arms.  The rise and fall of his chest drifted off and was replaced with a deep quiet rumble that she felt as much as heard.

"Spike," she said softly not wanting to break the moment. "Are you okay?"

He muttered something unintelligible and nuzzled her neck.

The rumble was disconcertingly like a purr.  Neither Dillon nor any of the others had ever done that.  She held him tighter.  She would ask him later.
 

He awoke moulded around soft warmth.  His body had already learned a Pavlovian response to the sensation of it.  He could feel his blood move magically to fill the near empty vessels of his silly todger, getting it ready for another go.  He pressed against her back, smelling the faint liquoricey scent that made his brain tingle.  The sight of her neck offered up a mixed response, it made his cock twitch and his undead stomach grumble.

Giving into the grumble, he disengaged himself from Titia's sleeping form and rolled out of bed.  He padded into the sitting room and over to the bar fridge.  Hoping she had have some leftovers or snacks that would turn his mind from blood.

He noticed a plastic bag sitting in a wine cooler and was very surprised to find it to be blood.  She must have been getting it ready for me.  Snickering to himself, and then I jumped her.  He took out the bag and put the cooler into the microwave.  Well, this is a treat.  I've really got to get a microwave.  He found the blood from the butcher, and the rare bag of human blood he managed to steal, so unappetizing that he usually waited until he was starving, before he choked it down.

He caught the door before the ding and plopped the blood into the hot water.  He swished the bag around, willing it to heat faster.  Dropping it back in, he sighed, knowing that the watched bag never heats.  Prowling the room he noticed their trail of clothes, but only had a hazy memory of the event.  Catching a sparkle out of the corner of his eye, he went into the bathroom and found Titia's necklace.  It tickled his memory so he carried it back to the bar.

Picking the bag out of the water, he kneaded it into an equal temperature.  It wasn't hot enough but it was warm to the touch.  He bit off the corner and squeezed the contents down his throat.  It was much better even a little warm.  He got a flash of Titia's hot blood on his tongue.  It had been exquisite.  Spicy buffalo wings would taste dull in comparison.  Again, his body was ambivalent, his mouth watering and his groin urging him to return to the bed.  He sighed and opened the fridge.  There were four other bags of blood.  He grabbed the A positive and put the cooler back into the microwave.

Digging out a fag from his duster, he sat on the love seat looking out into the park.  He lit up thankful that the smoke detector was over the bar.  Taking a long drag, he tried to decide if he really wanted this haziness in his brain to go away.  The night had been so intense he didn't want to let it go.  Dealing with the issue that this woman could feel so good and not be Buffy could wait.  A hazy memory of the two of them dancing in the Bronze played in his head.  You're a demon, Spike!  Why to the fuck should you care?  It feels good, so do it.

He tapped the long ash into his hand and took another long drag, before pinching off the end.  Enjoy it, mate.  You might get staked tomorrow.  Blowing out smoke as he went, he washed the ash off in the bar sink.  The image of the Slayer's and Titia's dancing bodies lingered, he could almost taste their mixed scent.  He dabbed the heated bag on the bar towel and consumed it.

Catching up the necklace off the counter, he unscrewed the cap as he padded back into the bedroom.  When he sniffed its contents the smell of sex in the air around him added to the potency.  He grinned at the sleeping body as he tossed the recapped vial and chain on the bedside table.

His body sought her warm one as he slid under the covers.  His hard cock heralded his return as he slid it along the cleft of her ass and between her thighs.  She sighed and pressed back against him as he put his arm around her to fondle her breasts.

The heat of her back seared him; he could almost believe that she would leave reddened imprints on his skin, marking him forever.  Her hand reached back and made a burning trail along his thigh.  Squeezing his throbbing shaft with her legs she urged him on.  She pressed her ass back impatiently and pulled his hand from her breast to suck on his fingers.  Bolts of electricity shot from her lips to his groin as her hot mouth sucked each digit.  He pulled his hand away from the lips of her mouth and moved it to caress the lips of her sex.  He could feel them grasp at him as he spread her wetness along the outer edges of her passage.  He parted her allowing himself to enter cleanly.

"So hot, pet, " he heard himself gasp, still surprised at it.  After taking a second to steady himself, he slid her leg back across his own, allowing him to sink deeper into her.  His mind revelled in the sensation leaving his body to react on instinct.  His hand rubbed along her flat stomach and up until it cupped a breast.

She hooked the foot of her back-flung leg around his thigh and pulled on his arm, hauling him after her as she turned on her stomach.  Putting both legs between hers, he parted hers further.  He was free to thrust deeply sending has balls slapping against her sex.  He couldn't keep his hands still, they roamed of their own will across the soft warm skin of her ass, her stomach, her back and her breasts.  They finally settled on either side of her hips as their pace become more frenzied.  She gave in first.  Her muscles, powered by her orgasm, locking his painfully hard cock in a grip that tugged him over the edge.

His vision blurred and his body lashed out, sinking his teeth into the soft skin of her neck.  Like cats in heat, he held her throat as her hot blood flowed over his tongue and burned its way down his throat.  His mind became a kaleidoscope of colour under the power of it.  It was so overwhelming he had only tasted a little before he had to release her.  He rested on his forearms, slipping his hands under her to fondle each breast.  Running his tongue along the ridge of her shoulder blades, he smiled as she quivered under his touch.  She made to move out from under him, so he withdrew and lay down on his back beside her.

She moved to lay her head on his chest.  "Eww," she yawned as she put her arms around him.  "You make me so hot, I've left wet spots all over the bed."  She nestled against him without another word and drifted off to sleep.

He chuckled into her hair, "Pardon me, love, if I don't think that's a bad thing."
 

It was full light when Titia woke late in the morning.  She peeled herself off Spike's inert form.  His relaxed features were so saintly, a paradox.  The patron saint of heathen sex, maybe?  She would certainly worship him.  Actually, she already did three times and she could feel another coming on.

She reached out and ran her fingers across his chest.  The muscles responded as she touched them.  It was the only sign that he was alive.  Little twitches were always reassuring.  It was the only thing that had ever bothered her about being with vampires, their death-like stillness in sleep. Well, other than they usually consider draining you dry the best way to bask in the afterglow.

Reluctantly, she left the bed to answer nature's call.  Super powers or not, sex was still hard on the bladder.  Once her basic bodily needs were met, she checked with the front desk to see if anything had arrived for her.  Then, she ordered breakfast and headed for the shower.

Titia was drying her hair when the food arrived.  After tipping the waiter, she took up the morning paper and enjoyed the smell of the vegetable and cheese omelette, as she set about nourishing her well-used body.

There was a knock on the door as she was finishing up.  It was a parcel from the LA office.    Inside, she found a handful of documents that needed her signature and four more pints of blood.  She was glad she had made that standing order on her first night here.  All because a pretty blond vamp made your hormones jump from across the room.  I can't believe I was ready to pick up a vampire in a bar.  I can't believe I picked up a vampire in a bar.

At the bottom of the box was a brown paper wrapped package with bits of straw sticking out from the folds.  It had a yellow Post-it stuck to it.  'For the Watcher, A fragment of the Blessed Cloth of Tangier.  It will help protect you from the Blade of the Forsaken.  May it quicken your steps back to us, Locust.'  That's so sweet.  Poor Locust, if you only knew how much fun I'm having, you'd be here tonight to haul me away.  She patted the package.  I'll have to tell Giles, maybe it can replace some of the other wards.   She sighed as this bit of reality made an unwelcome intrusion into her little fantasy.  "I'm not sure if I'm happy to see you," she told the package.

She placed the documents and the package on the desk beside her laptop.  Putting the four new bags of blood on a different shelf in the refrigerator, she took out an older one to warm.  With an air of resolution, she went back to her desk and flicked on her computer.  While it booted, she fetched her bottle of San Pellegrino from the table, pouring it into the glass and lemon twist provided, and took it back to the desk.

She typed in her password and then took up the papers that had been sent for her attention, until Windows NT decided it couldn't find the internal network and graced her with it's presence.  She scanned the papers in her hand, signing them as she went.  Pausing, she turned back to the computer to log into work.  She had finished off the signatures, by the time the three hundred odd messages had loaded.  The amount of mail was ludicrous.  She sighed and hit suspend.  It was foolish to think she could sit here and work.

She jumped up with renewed energy now that she had given up an trying to be good.  She left the warmed bag of blood heating, collected her journal and went back to the bedroom.

Her pencil skimmed the page as if driven by its own need to capture the sculptured beauty before her.  She only brought her hand to rest when the need to animate the chiselled features exceeded the need to archive them.  Dropping the journal to her side of the bed, she left to get the blood from the bar.

She crept quietly onto the bed beside him.  The flat of her hand rubbed lazy circles on his stomach, his body reacting long before his mind.  Smiling, she leaned down to kiss the discoloured bruise she had left on the side of his neck.  Her mouth blazed a trail down his chest to just above his belly button.  Here she met the mauve head of his rigid cock.  Its well-flared ridge was purple against the tidy folds of his foreskin.  He muttered, as she stroked lightly along its length.    She licked her lips and wrapped them the purple tip.

"Oh, god!" Spike's eyes were wide as he sat bolt upright.  He panted, as she gave him a couple shallow thrusts.

"I brought you breakfast."

His mouth twitched into a leer, "That you, kitten?"

"I thought of myself as dessert."

He turned to the bedside table, and pulled the bag from the cooler.  He dabbed it on the bar towel, before lifting his mask long enough to bite the corner from the bag.

It's funny how the demon powers are no more than a tool for the joint Spike/William entity.  Titia had never met a vampire that lived so precisely between the human mental imprint and the demon that had taken over the shell.  Poor Angel wanted so badly to be human, he neglecting the fact that he is demon.  A demon infected by a human soul, not the reverse.  He could learn so much from Spike.  He could learn balance.

She turned her attention back to giving him pleasure as he finished off the bag.  Reaching between his legs, she played with the velvety surface of his heavy sack.

"Shit," he muttered, falling back onto his pillow as her hot tongue glided along the sensitive underside of his shaft.  She wrapped her mouth around him, dragging her teeth lightly down his length. He moaned a series of stifled curses.  He reached down and draped her hair over the far side of her neck.  Even as vampires, men like to watch.  She chuckled around her mouthful; his eyes wide and his lips parted.  She continued to play him, taking her cues from his irregular breathing and sprinkled profanity.

He came quickly surprising her with a spurt of such power that she nearly choked on his salty musky fluid as it slammed into the back of her throat.  Regaining control she held down his thrusting hips as he groaned.  After licking him clean, then wiped the concentrated Spike flavour from her lips, as she kissed her way back up his chest.

He wrapped his arms tightly around her and engulfed her lips in a deep kiss.  He tasted of musk and the sweet taste of half converted blood.  It made her mouth tingle.

"You're wonderful to wake up to.  I have been woken like that since Angelus-."  He didn't continue just dropped his mouth down to the bites he had left on her neck.  Her whole body responded to the electrical charge that emanated from her neck sent through her in waves by his cool lips.  She could almost see blue sparks dancing across her skin.

He used pleasure to enthrall her.  It was a subjugation that she could spend her unnaturally long life under.  She surrendered to it.  Her world became the pleasure that Spike's mouth and hands controlled.

She was hot all over by the time his lips met the dark damp red curls of her mound.  White knuckled, she gripped the sheets as he teased the outside lips of her sex.  She stifled a scream when his frosty tongue slid lightly over her throbbing clit.  He licked and bit her swollen nib, only pausing briefly to lap at what juices escaped her and the tease the lips of her passage.

"Spike," She growled in a hoarse voice.  He chuckled as he continued his torture.

"Spike!" she screamed, as he surprised her with three quick thrusts penetrating her passage with his long pale tongue.  The orgasm was mind shattering.  Each one he gave her seemed to increased in magnitude.

"Oh, god, love,"  He moaned, as he pressed into her still clenched and quaking passage.

Her legs were weak as she hooked them around his waist, arching into the sweet friction of his initial thrust.  His face became a study in concentration, his blue-grey eyes shifting in and out of gold, as he fought the inevitable.    The gold-eyed face intent, the grey-eyed human face confused.  She didn't want to see that confusion.  She reached up and bit his lower lip.  Feeling his mask completely lift against her face, she sucked at the small drop of demon blood.  She kissed his face before laying back and exposing her neck.

His growl vibrated through her as his teeth sank deep igniting another wave of intense pleasure.  They both buckled weakly under it, exhausted.  She held him tightly, as he licked away the trail blood left on her neck.

That rumble of the night before sounded deep within him again as he rubbed the ridges of his face along her jaw.  She hooked a finger under his chin to look into his overly dilated yellow eyes.  Her lips met his ridged brow leaving a moist path across his eyelids and raised cheekbones that led to his mouth .  She felt his face soften as he slowly pulled his lips away from her giving her a brief glimpse of blue before he lowered his face to her shoulder.

He sighed, "I don't want to leave," as he nestled into her neck.

"You don't have to."  She murmured as she stroked his hair massaging his scalp and stoking the rumbled purr as they fell asleep, bodies still intertwined.
 
 

Snow was falling gently.  It had already dusted the streets into a fresh white wonderland.  The beauty of it was incongruous with the pounding anxiety in her chest.  She walked quickly, nearly running, down the familiar city street toward the haven of their favourite pub.  There'd be back-up there.  The dull throb of unbaffled mufflers were all around her.  I'll never make it.  She fled around the corner, into Spike's blood covered embrace.

The sword went through the neck cleanly, spurting glowing orange blood down her leather coat and the exposed Kevlar vest beneath.  The back stroke came down severing the arm of an unnamed demon to her right.  Her left hand sprayed her attackers with bullets.  Glancing around, she adjusted her position to better cover his back.  She stepped over the piled carcasses he left in his wake.  Protecting his back had become her reason for existing.  That, and Angel.  He was out there; she could feel him.  They'd have to move quickly once the battle climaxed.  He'd be vulnerable, and would need their protection.  The Slayer was dim in her awareness; she'd be too far away to help.

William's presence was a beacon in her mind.  She didn't need to lift her aching body from the padded Muscoka settee, where she lounged on the deck.  She could picture his white hands and head glowing in the moonlight as he walked the beach.  It was so peaceful here where only the occasional nocturnal forest creature disturbed the quiet lapping of waves.  She loved it.  She hoped when she finally succumbed, it would be here.

Tears.  Tears of grief flooded down her face, as Spike's haunted features contemplated the slim wooden stake with an ornate ivory handle.

She sucked air like someone drowning. Spike!   She sat up.  Her sweaty body was being shaken.  "What's wrong, William?"  Her mind was muzzy.  Her body ached; she was so old.

"Are you okay, pet?  You were having a nightmare."  He pulled her up onto his chest, as he reclined on the headboard, rubbing soothing circles on her back.

She looked up at his beautiful face, the strong jaw and the high cheekbones, the worried cool grey eyes.  Her dreams added unnatural depth to his face, covering him like transparent veils.  Her hand stripped them away, as she reached out to touch his cheek.  Anxiety passed through her, Where's my William?  "William, don't frighten me like this."

"Come back now."  He kissed her face, hugging her.  "What do you see, Titia?"

His deep accented voice saying her name sent a tumult of false memories through her, before leading her back to the real world.  The memories faded leaving her looking at Spike's worried countenance in confusion. "What's wrong?"

"That's what I've been trying to ask you.  You took a little walk outside reality for a momen there, lovet.  It was like having Dru back."  He guided her lower on the bed, and tucked her back under his arm.

"I'm sorry.  It must have been a nightmare.  I don't really remember anything."  She snuggled into him allowing his cool body wash away the sweaty heat left from her dream.  She lay there trying to remember something she had forgotten, something she was supposed to do.  It'll come to me.  Sighing, she hugged Spike close licking the bruised side of his neck.  Expertly bringing him into action.