[Zlataslawa]

Crave, by NautiBitz
Chapter 8: All's Fair




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A/N: Thanks, morgantree, for your thoughts on the first draft, and for the kick-ass gift! You rule.

Also -- I know Spike's French is very formal here. I chose it over the informal alternative for its rhythm. (Thanks, petitspetons, for correcting my vocab.)


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Spike had a private jet. A private jet massive enough to boast a full bar, a swank lounge and a four-person entourage -- personal chef, trainer/masseur, bodyguard-cum-chauffeur and, what's the word for the guy who wipes your ass? one of those -- who could disappear until called.

Of course he had a private jet. Evil billionaires tended to like their privacy.

But why hadn't Buffy anticipated this?

"...find that I'm remarkably solid."

He was saying something. It was probably evil. "What?"

Flashing her a smirk, Spike loosened his tie. "If you mean to stand there all nine hours, you might want to hold onto something."

Nine hours. It had been hard enough to mentally prepare for a long weekend in Paris with The Spot Whisperer -- she hadn't even begun to consider all the time she'd be spending alone with him in this flying Kubrik movie of a bachelor pad.

Oh, god. Eighteen hours total.

"You can latch on to me and put an end to this daft charade here and now," he whisked off his tie and got comfortable on the white T-shaped couch, "or, you can have a seat and I'll go on pretending I don't want to strip you naked and carry you off to my bed, kicking and squealing. Your choice."

She was shocked by only one part of that entire sentence: "There's a bed on this plane?"

Corners of his mouth quirking slightly, his voice dipped to a dangerous, reedy low. "Oh, yes. Would you like to see it?"

She sat, ramrod straight, at the base of the T. "I think I'll take your word for it."

He chuckled at the exaggerated distance she'd imposed. "I'm not going to bite you, love. Could come a little closer."

"Wow." She smoothed the hem of her skirt down over her knees. "You just can't not sound like a snake in the grass, can you?"

"Now, now," he said. "You and I both know how much I'd love to sink my teeth into that... undeniably succulent flesh of yours, but I made a promise and I intend to keep it."

"And every time you ogle my legs, you kinda break it."

He redirected his gaze to her face. "You could have worn trousers, Buffy."

Buffy pursed her lips. She had planned to wear pants. She'd even made a conscious decision: the less he sees, the less he'll want. Which then compelled the feminist in her to defiantly prove a point... though in practice, that point felt less pointy than justify-y, and the skirt seemed to be yowling out the chorus of I Want You To Want Me. "I can't believe I agreed to this."

And we're cleared for takeoff, came a voice over the speakers.

"Well," he let out a blithe sigh, spanned his arms over the couch and crossed his legs, "no turning back now, is there?"

The plane began to move. Her heart battered her ribcage and her mouth went dry. "Shouldn't we be in seats with seatbelts?"

"Fear of flying, pet?"

"No." Just a fear of you. And maybe me...

"Oh, go without a net for once. Live a little."

"Or, possibly die," she said.

"That's the best part." With a faint smile, he locked into her gaze. "Not knowing. Wondering, will I? Won't I? Will this be my final moment? Or do I get one more reprieve?"

"Should I be concerned that you're creepily obsessed with death?"

He popped a cashew into his mouth. "I should ask the same of you."

"I'm not--!" She huffed. "For the last time, Spike, I don't want to be your bondage buddy."

He tilted his head. "Who said anything about bondage?"

"Well-- you, with the... implying." Her face flushed. She'd jumped to conclusions, and now he was smiling at her like he'd cracked her secret code. Don't make eye contact, don't make eye contact... "Look, are you through reading my tea leaves for the night? I didn't come here to be analyzed." He didn't answer, so she looked at him. "What?"

"Do you know your upper lip curls out when you get nervous?" he said, shamelessly enamored. "It's adorable."

"You--" She stared at the flatpanel on the wall. The engines fired up. "You said you were gonna behave yourself on this trip, Spike."

"Well, you asked." He raised the top of the white coffee table, retrieved a glossy wooden box, and pushed it her way. "And the trip hasn't started yet."

"What is this?"

He seemed amused by her suspicion. "Won't know 'til you open it."

It couldn't be anything too weird ...Could it?

The plane gathered speed. She held her breath and opened the box.

It unfolded into an antique chess set.

The chess lesson. Right. She exhaled, and the plane lifted off.

With a wink, he said, "Your move, Miss Summers."

* * *

"And, while you're busy stalwartly defending yourself..."

She gasped as he captured her pawn and pinned her king, leaving her without a move. "But... I was safe!"

"Buffy." He shook his head. "Safety is an illusion."

"I don't even know how you got in there!"

"Lesson the third," Spike said, topping off his scotch glass. "A single-minded defense is powerless against a masterful offense."

"That wasn't masterful; it didn't even make sense!"

"You've got a lot to learn, love."

"Okay, rewind. Show me what you did." She put the pieces back to where they were before the check. "Pawn, please?"

He tucked it in his raised fist and snickered as she tried to grab it. "I'm not sure you're ready to know."

"I'm ready. Give me--"

She sensed a change in his demeanor and followed his downcast gaze. Oh god, she was touching his knee.

She recoiled as if he were a hot stove. "I didn't-- That doesn't..." Their eyes met. "That was an accident."

Face unreadable, he stared at her for a long moment... and lunged.

She shrunk back with a squeal, realizing too late that he wasn't serious.

Finding her reaction hilarious, he said, "You really think I'm that awful?"

She didn't let her guard down. "Aren't you?"

"Oh, Buffy." He wiped a laugh-tear from his eye. "I wish you knew me when."

What did that mean? "When what?"

"It doesn't matter." Spike placed the pawn on the board, backed up three moves, spun the board around and picked up his glass. "Rewind. You're black. What would you do?"

As he crunched on his ice cube, she saw it; a subtle but fool-proof offense. "You sneaky bastard."

"Now you're getting it."

* * *


RISKY BUSINESS
By Lydia Chalmer

Spike Pratt doesn't look back. Or down.

The 26-year old North London native and entrepeneurial maverick isn't losing sleep over the fate of Wrecked Records, the label he started at age 17 and sold this year for a cool £560M to fund his burgeoning luxury hotel and airline ventures. 'Everyone thinks I'm crazy,' he says, 'but I get off on risking it all.'

He's not kidding. When he tells me this, we're 4500 feet above Thailand and he's about to skydive for the third time in his life.


"Whoa," Buffy breathed, and turned the page to a photo of him pink-cheeked and grinning in his parachute gear, a beguiling, childlike gleam in his eye -- a spark that had since been extinguished. "What happened to you?"

After a stop in the ultra-luxe bathroom, she'd peeked at the bedroom, which was disappointingly tasteful -- nary a tiger print nor disco ball in sight. Then she passed through the gym, which made her wish she could call her mother -- I'm telling you, Mom, all this plane is missing is an Olympic-size swimming pool! -- and was drawn to the conference room by a poster-sized photo of a twenty-something Spike in the cockpit of a small plane, his tongue sticking out.

She wasn't sure what was more fascinating: his former self, or his tongue. It was freakishly long and... flexible.

Once she managed to tear herself away from that image, she discovered beneath it a thick binder of press clippings and professional candids: Spike partying with various celebrities; Spike on the cover of Time; Spike interviewed by Playboy; Spike in a racecar; Spike on a rugby field; Spike windsurfing, tangoing, riding a camel, climbing a mountain... Photo after photo of a spark-eyed, roguish young adventurer so unlike the man he'd become, they almost seemed fake.

"And what have we learned today?"

Startled at the sound of his voice, Buffy shut the binder and played it light. "We learned that most of these articles were written before I knew my ABCs."

He sucked air through his teeth. "Now that would hurt," he said, leaning on the doorframe, hands in pockets, "if I didn't still have the body of a strapping twenty-two year old."

"Twenty-two," she echoed wryly.

"Just wait'll you see it." Grinning at her, he bit his lip and twitched his brow, and in his irises burned a flicker of the spark. She wouldn't have noticed had she not been looking for it, but there it was -- and it was way more disarming in person.

Clearing her throat, she opened the binder and flipped to a shot of him playing guitar onstage with Bono. "Now, when you say, 'been there, done that', you actually mean it."

With a wistful sigh, he sat on the edge of the conference table. "North Pole I have charted," he shut the binder and spoke the lyric, "but I can't get started with you."

"I bet you can sing, too."

"Love. If I could sing, you'd be sitting with a rock star. An' not just any rock star, mind you -- the bloody Jesus of rock and roll." He struck a Christ-like pose and unfurled his freakish tongue, wiggling it around.

He had to know what a tongue like that could do to a girl's thought process. "It's a shame you have such low self-esteem."

He laughed, and mercifully closed his mouth. "English publishing house wanted me to write a book," he said, knocking on the cover of the binder. "My publicist had this drawn up so I'd 'get inspired' to 'open up' or what-all."

"Did you?"

"I was inspired to sack her." He slung it into the trash can. "Told her I'm not writing anything 'til I'm in my sodding death bed, and when that happens it won't be some 'if I can do it, so can you' nonsense. Publicists are bloody useless; don't know why I had one."

"The burdens of the rich and famous."

"Tell me about it," he deadpanned, and stood up. "Supper's waiting. Come, see what fame and money taste like."

* * *

"Oh. My god. This is..." Buffy cut herself off before going into full-on moan mode over the scallop that was melting in her mouth. "Exquisite."

"Marco's the best there is. Stole him from Nobu."

"Stole him away from the world to keep him all to yourself," she said, and sipped her Pellegrino. "This might be a pattern with you."

"Might be." He admitted, "Lured everyone I got away from someone else."

"Why do you think you do that?"

"Mm-mm." He shook his head and swallowed his mouthful, wagging his fork at her. "You won't be analyzing me either, little Miss Psychology Major. Can't turn it off even while you're enjoying a nice meal, well -- I won't stand for it. It's uncivil's what it is."

As Buffy laughed, she caught him fixating on her mouth.

He looked down at his plate.

* * *

"Nous sommes arrivés, chaton," he whispered in her ear, and she came awake.

"We're here?" She must have fallen asleep during Le Samouraï. She'd been surprised to see it in his collection; turned out it was a favorite of his too. "It's light out."

"Nine hours later here. Welcome to Friday."

"Right," she said with a yawn and a stretch and a sudden worry that she might look hideous. She dragged her fingers under her eyes to check for errant mascara. "How do you deal with all this time warping?"

"Normally I'd sleep through this flight to adjust."

"And you didn't because..."

"You were here." He shrugged and checked his Cartier. "Anyway, this is your day off. Gonna drop you at the hotel and ring you for dinner at eight."

"Where are you gonna be?"

He smiled at her. "At my flat, then out for a couple of meetings. You look beautiful, don't worry about it."

She let her hands fall. "I wasn't--"

"I know."

"Shouldn't you stay at your hotels?"

"Gonna miss me, love? Want me close?" At her glare, he got serious. "No, I shouldn't stay there. Takes up valuable space. Plus they fawn all over me... I can't stand it."

"Gee," Buffy said. "Wish I'd fawned all over you."

Resting his cheek on his palm, he sighed at her. "But instead you slapped me."

She gave him the same dreamy look. "You're twisted."

"Don't I know it."

* * *

Buffy stood on the grand balcony of her hotel room in a tank top and silk pajama pants, OD'ing on the intoxicating scent of Paris. Diesel fuel, wine sautée, fresh-baked baguettes, unfiltered cigarette smoke... somehow a perfect combination. She wished she could bottle it.

The last time she was here, she was thirteen. Her parents were still together, still happy; they'd traversed the continent on EurailPass, beginning and ending in this city, where she met a boy who knew only three English phrases, one of them being "I love you". He was her first real kiss. She fell out of love with him, but never fell out of love with Paris.

It was ironic that Lindsey had such negative associations with the same city.

"Oh god -- Lindsey!" She returned to the room and ransacked her bag for her phone. Back home, she'd promised to text him when the plane landed, but that was over an hour ago. It had completely slipped her mind.

She powered it up. Two messages from him were waiting. Quickly, she typed out a note: Arrived just now. Need to sleep. Will call you later! Love you, B.

* * *

Lunching at an outdoor café with a cluster of art students she'd met along the way, Buffy's phone chimed.

Happy?

It was funny; she was just thinking about him and what he might be doing at that moment.

"Who's making you smile this way?" one of her new friends asked in French, looking over her shoulder. "Your husband?"

"Non," Buffy said, and typed out her reply:

Not sad.

"You have another love?"

"No, no!" She explained, "It's my father-in-law. The man I'm traveling with."

Looks were exchanged. "The one you despise?"

They'd asked her what brought her to Paris, and figuring she'd never see them again, she gave them a rough outline... Now she regretted saying anything at all. "I don't always -- I mean; Sometimes I -- He's -- There's... It's complicated."

"Seems very simple to me," said another, and they all laughed at her.

* * *

She returned to a hotel room packed with rows of designer dresses, shoes and accessories, along with a note attached to about a hundred yellow tulips that read, Choice is yours this time. Be ready by 8.

"Whoa," she said, and her hotel room phone rang.

"Buffy," Lindsey said. "Glad I finally caught you."

"Lindsey! Hey!"

"Is everything okay?"

"Oh, yeah!" Sitting on the bed, she forced her mind off of her own personal Le Bon Marché and onto her husband. "Everything's great. I miss you!"

"Me too. How was the flight?"

"Um, weird. Private jet... possibly the biggest culture shock of my life."

There was a pause. "How's he treating you?"

She stared at the dresses. "Actually, I haven't seen him all day. I start work tomorrow so, so far, all about the sightseeage. But, he was fine on the plane. He worked, didn't talk much." She shut her eyes. Why was she lying? It wasn't like they were doing anything wrong... "He taught me how to play chess."

"Oh. Okay." He seemed not to know what to do with that. "Well, I just wanted to check in, and -- Gavin, Lilah. Good to see you. I'll be right there."

Buffy straightened. "Lilah? You're working with Lilah Morgan on this?"

He lowered his voice. "You know Wolfram Hart reps the hospital. I can't choose which lawyers they send over."

"Does she know you're married now?" She heard his helpless exhale, and realized she sounded like a jealous housewife when hello, no leg to stand on. I'm leg-free, really. "I'm sorry. I'm... jetlagged and stuff. And it's Lilah, you know, you wrote a song about her and she makes you crazy and I--"

"I love you. Okay? Just you."

Of course he did. And, same here, by the way; let's not forget that... "I love you too."

Even so, the specter of Lilah loomed over her long after the phone call ended. Lindsey insisted they were past-tense and that he was perfectly able to resist her wiles, but Lilah was a piranha. A tall, gorgeous piranha in a tailored designer suit.

Sort of like Spike... only he was short for a guy.

"I'll resist mine if you resist yours," she said, and chose the gown with the most coverage.

* * *

"Right," Spike said and put down his fork. "What's on your mind?"

Buffy got defensive. "What do you mean? Nothing."

"Please. I can see it all over your face. What's the little bastard done now?"

How did he do that? "Don't call him that."

"Why not? It's technically correct. Anyway, something he said or did's got you worrying, and I won't have you worrying when you're with me."

"I'm not worrying, Spike. Forget it."

He squinted at her. "It's a girl."

Buffy gave up. "Did you sell your soul to the devil for that ability?"

"Bloody hell. Leave him!"

"No, no! You don't understand; he didn't do anything."

Spike relaxed only slightly. "Are you sure about that?"

"Yes!" She sighed. "I trust him. I just... don't trust her."

"'Her' being..."

"This evil lawyer; they have a history." She knew she shouldn't be telling him this; but she was on her second cocktail and she wanted to get it off her chest. "The first time we met she told me they had hot angry sex whenever they worked together."

"And he's working with her right now."

"Yeah." She noticed a young couple kissing as they walked down the cobblestone street. "Go ahead, say what you're dying to say."

For a long moment, Spike was silent. Finally, he picked up his wine glass, inspected it closely and said, "He wouldn't dare to lose you. You've nothing to worry about, Buffy."

Their gazes met; his begrudgingly sincere.

He made a great show of slicing his steak. "He knows what you're worth. I'll give him that."

This uncharacteristic display of altruism -- of a pink, beating heart under all the raisined black -- confused her more than ever.

To the point that she had an intense, inexplicable vision of crawling over the table and shoving her tongue into his mouth.

"...You all right?"

"Uh-huh," she said, voice cracking. "Fine. I think um, I'm tired. It's been a long--"

"Two days," he said, and waved for the bill. "I'll get you home, love."

* * *

"Thanks," Buffy said when he helped her out of the car. "For everything. I really appreciate that you're, you know, keeping up your end."

Her hand still in his, he glanced at her lips. "Bit tougher than I thought, but..." His adam's apple moved as he swallowed. "You deserve some respect, I suppose."

Buffy smirked. "Thanks, I think." He was softly, absently running his thumb over her palm, but she didn't stop him. "What time do I start tomorrow?"

"Bright and early," he said. "Noon."

She chuckled, and their hands detached. "I'll see you then."

"Don't be late."

"I won't."

When she got to the elevator, she hazarded a glance at the revolving doors and saw that the car was only then driving away.



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A NOTE ABOUT PLAGIARISM: Don't do it. Call me crazy, but I don't like finding my hard work pasted into other people's stories. If I find out you've plagiarized me or any other author, I will make sure everyone knows it. If you're not clear on what 'plagiarism' means, the definition is here.


Tags: crave, crave (teh filf), fanfiction, human au fic