Warming Up

by Kallie Rose

Copyright © 2003

kallierose@earthlink.net

Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: I acknowledge Joss Whedon as god of gods. All the characters in this story are his creation, along with Fox, the rest of the Mutant Enemy Crew, and whomever else wants to lay claim to them. I'm merely killing time by putting them in totally unrealistic situations.
Distribution: Night Flowers http://www.geocities.com/kallierose01/
The Mystic Muse    http://mysticmuse.net
Sure, take it if you want it. Just let me know where it's going so I can visit it.
Feedback: Pretty please.
Spoilers: Season 5, but pretty much AU.
Pairing: Willow/Spike

It was the feel of his hand that finally roused her to consciousness. Her dreams had been full of pleasant things: carnivals; the beach; a sunny day. Somehow the feel of a soft cool hand gently stroking her cheek seemed out of place. Pleasant, but wrong. Because she was alone in her dream, as she usually was.

Someone was stroking her cheek, touching her, caressing her. She bolted straight from her pleasant dream state to consciousness in a fraction of a second, immediately terrified. Sandy-colored lashes tried desperately to open, but something kept them from seeing anything but darkness and nothingness. A blindfold. Her hands tried to move to her face, but they were held fast by silky bindings.

She whimpered then, imagining every terrible story her parents told her had come true.

Spike watched the bound woman as she woke, savoring the scent of her fear and uncertainty as she discovered her situation. He continued stroking her face gently, trying to calm and reassure her at least a little bit. When her movements became even more frenzied, he finally revealed himself.

"Pet," he whispered in her ear, the scent of her hair mixing with the smell of her fear and creating an intoxicating bouquet.

She stilled then, and he noticed another scent: the beginnings of the scent of her arousal.

"What are you doing here?" she hissed angrily. "Buffy could hear us at any minute. Do you have some sort of a death wish? Um, undeath wish?"

"Nah, we both know that she and her sister are out of town for the weekend with daddy dearest," he smirked, "and dear Joyce has taken advantage of opportunity and has taken off for parts unknown."

"Oh, right. I forgot," Willow admitted, the anger beginning to fade from her voice. "But why are you here?"

"Told ya I still had to punish you, didn't I?"

"Yeah, and I told *you* that that wasn't fair. You set me up!" she insisted, her voice getting higher and louder. "There's no way you can set things up so I have no choice but to lose, and then expect me to meekly accept my punishment. It's just not fair!"

She heard his chuckle, the only acknowledgement she received at all, and growled in frustration. Who the hell did he think he was? Well, okay, at the moment he was the man that had her tied spread-eagled to her bed, but that was just a temporary situation. She *would* get loose, and when she did…

"Don't worry, pet, it's still the same game. Same rules as always: I do anything you don't like, the chip goes off and the game is over. Better than having a safety word, really."

"Why the blindfold then?"

"Let's just say that maybe I want to give you a surprise."

For some reason the words he said sounded a lot more like 'all the better to eat you with' to her than the reassuring phrase that he had intended.

"Get rid of the blindfold and I'll play," she demanded.

"No." His low tone left no room for argument.

"Spike?" Nothing but silence greeted her. "Spike?" she tried again.

Same result. Silence.

She heard the rustle of her curtains, and the sound of the window opening. Was he leaving? Leaving her here, all tied up? The bastard! Leaving her here for Joyce to find a couple of days later, and how the hell was she going to explain *that*?

"Spike! Don't go!"

The blond was standing next to the window, his eye caught by the beauty of the full moon in a perfect black sky. "Hmmm?" He had no intention of leaving, but it wouldn't do to let her know that.

"Oh-okay, you win," she whispered, defeated.

"Thought you might see it my way," he told her. She could hear the smirk in his voice, and she hated him for it.

"Don't worry, pet, I'm not Angelus. I won't take things too far." He could afford to give her words of reassurance now; he would be magnanimous in his victory. "You wouldn't believe some of the things he did to me," he murmured absently, searching for his matches.

Willow heard the words, and at the thought of Angelus punishing his childe, a lightning-bolt of lust hit her, striking straight through to her core. "Like what?" she wondered. She hadn't realized that she had spoken the words aloud until Spike answered her.

"Really want to know? Might be a little too intense for you. Wasn't always pretty." The words were accompanied by the sound of a match lighting. Willow tensed, the sound setting off warning bells in her head. 'Tree pretty, fire bad,' echoed through her head, and although she knew that he couldn't do anything she didn't want him to, her uneasiness returned with a vengeance.

"Relax," he ordered, seeing her tension in the lines of her soft legs and the grim set of her mouth. In a way he wished that he could see her eyes; see the fear and the anger and all the emotions she would experience tonight. But that would ruin the surprise.

"Tell me," she begged, hoping that her interest would encourage him to talk, and maybe take her mind off of whatever he had planned. She felt the bed dip a bit as he came to sit down next to her.

"Well, Angelus liked variety," he began, his voice coming from directly above her. The bed moved slightly as he shifted his weight. She sensed he was waiting for something, and suddenly she felt something hot splash against her abdomen. She whimpered wordlessly as it stung for a couple of moments, and then she felt it begin to cool.

It was wax, she realized. She could picture him now, leaning over her, the candle burning brightly. The pain had been unexpected and intense, but it had also been brief, and once the wax solidified, it was merely pleasantly warm against her skin.

"He liked to be creative. Tried new things; liked to find new uses for old favorites. He'd get lazy sometimes, and the cuffs and whips were always the stand-bys, but when he was really cheesed off, and feeling creative, it was as if he tried to make *that* punishment the most painful one ever. And it usually was."

Willow tried to concentrate on the words, and the picture he was beginning to paint of Angelus. Anything was better than trying to anticipate where the next drop would fall.

And it did fall, onto her lower hip, and she sucked in her breath at the sensation. Another quickly fell on her right shoulder, and that one stung just a bit more. She suspected that as well as varying the location of the drops, he was also changing heights, so that sometimes the wax was still extremely hot when it hit her, and sometimes it had time to cool slightly as it fell.

Another drop fell, this one on her foot. Her toes wiggled in an attempt to use the movement of the air to cool the wax more quickly.

"One night he decided to try the Chinese water torture. You've heard of it, right? Little drop of water, hitting you on the forehead," he said, his gentle hands clearing her hair from her forehead and dropping a small dot of wax onto it.

"Well Angelus thought it would be fun to try that with holy water. Not on me, mind you. Said he'd hate to ruin my pretty face," Spike told her, remembering how Angelus had managed to make the phrase 'pretty face' sound like an insult. 'Didn't stop the bastard from buggerin' him silly every chance he got, though,' he thought.

"He knew how to use a whip, too. Or a cane, or a crop, or a switch, or whatever else happened to be handy. And he could keep it up for hours. Vampire stamina and all that.

I remember one night he was particularly annoyed because of something-or-other. He beat me for over an hour before he tired of it. Drusilla said that she could hear my screams from a mile away."

Another drop fell, this one on her belly-button. It was barely even hot when it reached her, and Willow wasn't sure whether to whimper or giggle.

The next drop caught her on the side of her breast, and it was HOT. She sucked in a sudden breath, a low moan escaping her soft lips. But the sensation also sent a rush of heat to her core, and suddenly she wasn't so sure that she hated this punishment.

"He could fuck you for hours, too, if he wanted. He could make it sweet and tender, or fast and painful. Or he could take you dancing along that thin line between pleasure and pain, and leave you dangling there, sometimes for hours on end."

Erotic images of Spike and Angelus together flowed through Willow's mind, as the drops of wax seemed to fall more and more often. Her moans increased in frequency and intensity, and the heat between her legs began to spread, making her almost dizzy with her need to have him inside her.

"Another night he decided to use my back as a canvas. Used his knife as the pencil, unfortunately, and apparently made his version of the Mona Lisa. Dru told me later that it was a beautiful likeness, but at the time I wasn't really in the mood to appreciate it. I passed out a couple of times before he finished, and each time he brought me back so that I could keep him company while he worked."

Another splash hit her, this one on her nipple, the most painful one yet. She twisted and writhed on the bed as much as her bonds would allow, waiting for the sharp pain to turn into the dull warm ache that she knew was coming.

"Spike," she cried, the tones of painful pleasure evident in her voice.

"Pet?"

"I-I need you," she admitted, the warmth between her legs now an inferno. She needed his long cold cock inside her to vanquish the heat. That was the only thing that could help her now.

Her admission was met with silence. What was he thinking about? Why was he hesitating? "Please," she begged with quiet urgency, angered by the feeling of helplessness and dependency that he created in her, but unable to do anything about it.

"I guess you've been a good girl," he conceded, struggling to keep the smile out of his voice. He could tell that she was ready for him. The scent of her arousal, mixed with his own and the aroma of the burning candle, delighted his heightened senses.

Willow heard the sound of a candle being blown out, and then felt the bed tip slightly as he moved down between her legs. Then, with no warning at all, he slammed into her, quickly settling into a brutal pace.

She screamed at his sudden invasion, more from surprise than from pain, but soon the sound turned to a moan, as he began to make her feel *so* good. Her hands wanted to grasp him, run through his shiny blond hair, and caress his broad shoulders and smooth chest, but they were still tied tightly. She had to settle for bringing her hips back to meet his plunges and murmuring words of thanks.

"Oh god, Spike, so good, need you so bad," she whimpered, almost out of her mind with the intensity of her lust. She was fast approaching her orgasm, so close, just needed one more push, and then it was there. Her body exploded, waves of heat and pleasure radiating outward from her core. She screamed his name as she went over the edge, never seeing the smile on his face that her words evoked.

Her channel tightened around him, holding and releasing him like a soft satin glove, and he came hard, biting into her shoulder with blunt human teeth. "Willow," he groaned, as he slammed himself inside her one last time before filling her with his seed.

They lay on their backs, side by side; Willow now untied and unblindfolded. She still panted slightly, but seemed relaxed enough, as she and Spike began to pull pieces of the hardened wax from her body. The redhead eyed him curiously, trying to decide whether to ask the question that had taken root in her mind.

"You miss him, don't you?" she asked quietly. Hell, the worst he could do was refuse to answer. He stilled for a moment before answering.

"Sometimes," he admitted. There was no point in pretending he didn't know who she was talking about.

"Not who he is now, of course. Or that insane slayer-obsessed git that you saw. I miss who he used to be. My sire, my teacher, my lover." They both fell silent, pondering his words.

"Part of it was him, but I suppose that part of it was what he represented," the blond continued. "Life was easy then, ya know? No responsibilities, no rules. You wanted something? You just took it. It was as simple as that. I was at the top of the food chain; I ate when and who I wanted, and nobody complained. Not for long, at any rate," he added with a cocky grin.

Willow watched his face as he talked about the 'good old days.' It was obviously a time of great happiness for him, and although a lot of it was probably because he was in control of his own destiny, she suspected that some of it had to do with his vampire family too. Dru, Angelus, even Darla; they had all operated exactly as a family from what she had been able to find about them in the Watchers' Diaries.

"Now I have to be a good little vampire, don't piss anyone off, follow orders, and maybe the watcher will throw a couple of bucks my way for a trip to the blood bank or to the store for some fags. It's insulting, humiliating, and a lot of other words ending in ing that I don't particularly like."

"I guess I can understand that," she answered softly, reaching out to put a small hand on his arm, a simple gesture of comfort and understanding. A part of her did feel sorry for him. He was dreadfully unhappy most of the time, she knew, and she could kind of see why.

Another part of her, the part that stemmed from her head, and not her heart, knew that if the chip disappeared tomorrow, he wouldn't hesitate to kill them all. And that was why she could never be completely sorry that he had the chip. When it came to a choice between him being happy, and her being alive, well maybe it was selfish of her, but she chose to live.

"Thanks for listening, pet," he said softly, leaning over to brush back her hair and place a gentle kiss on her forehead. "I'd better get going, gonna be light soon."

"Night Spike," she answered sleepily, stifling a yawn and wiggling back under the covers. By the time he was out the window and onto the grass, she was already halfway asleep.

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