Buffy grabbed her purse off the floor and backed out of the car, closing the door quietly behind her as she blew him a kiss. She knew he'd been pretty happy with what she had been doing right before the phone rang, but the way his eyes lit up when he realized it was his son on the line left no doubt in her mind who took priority. She crossed the street and unlocked the garage door, leaving it slightly open behind her.

Being a father. He was good at that. Not that she ever doubted he would be.

It was a good thing he loved it, considering he spent nearly every waking, non-working hour with them between baseball practices, soccer games, and Sunday night dinners cooked by all four. Not to mention the Friday nights that were devoted to each kid in turn, guaranteeing that they got at least a few hours a month of one-on-one time.

All of which he had told her about in the car on the ride over to the soccer game earlier that day in response to her, um, maybe-a-little-on-the-pushy-side questions. She could see how he had managed to go eight years without dating given that schedule. If it weren't for the meeting in Toronto, it could easily be eight more years before they spent another night together. This one was gonna count.

She shed her clothes as she went up the stairs, leaving a trail behind her for Riley to find. Digging through her dresser for something enticing, she finally gave up and grabbed the halter-top she had been wearing that morning and put it on again. That would have to do. Nothing else in her drawer yelled out, Romantic Evening In.

She was still staring unhappily at her lack of options when she heard the stairs creak and the door open.

"I think you dropped this," Riley said, holding up the bra she had flung over the banister. "And these." He let the rest of her clothes fall out of his hands as he walked over to her.

"That was fast." She leaned back against her dresser and looked up at him. "I was planning to be all prettily arranged in bed before you actually made it upstairs. But I don't seem to have the right wardrobe any more."

He smiled. "Then I think we might have to call it quits. The right wardrobe is without doubt the most important thing in my book. In fact," he said, leaning down to kiss her shoulder, "if you don't have the right wardrobe, you may as well not be wearing anything." He picked her up and carried her to the bed, gently laying her down and sitting next to her.

She reached up and grabbed his shirt, pulling him down into a kiss. She moaned softly as his hand found her knee and then slowly moved up her thigh, teasingly brushing against her cotton panties before traveling up underneath her top. Her eyes closed as his fingers grazed her back; he undid the knot and loosened the ties that held the halter in place.

"Now what was it I was supposed to be doing with this again?" he said, smiling as he remembered her words on the soccer field. When she'd sat there looking innocent enough that no one watching would have guessed she was explicitly describing her rather active imagination.

He pulled the top away from her body, letting the ends of the strings dangle and dance across her stomach and chest as he reached down for her hands and pulled them up until they were resting on the pillows above her head. Threading the top and strings around her wrists and hands, he pulled the ties tightly into a knot.

"Interesting design." He nodded at the headboard as he pinned her hands down and secured them by tying the halter's strings around a slat carved into the wood.

This, of course, had been one of the things she had in mind when she bought the bed, thinking how much Spike would have enjoyed its nooks and crannies. It had been incredibly difficult to keep a straight face talking to the staid, ancient salesman who had gone on in detail about the ways the "piece" would fit in her home. That although it was bigger than most beds she would come across, proper placement would ensure its integration into any decorating scheme. The only placement she had been concerned about was the placement of her body beneath - or on top of, for that matter - whomever she decided to share her bed with.     

"I thought it had potential," she said, her voice a little husky as she looked up at him. She tugged on the strings, smiling and stretching languorously; he had tied it tightly enough to hold her in place, but not so tight that it would draw blood. That was a nice change. Spike had always liked the blood.

"Take off your shirt," she commanded.

"Yes, ma'am." He pulled his shirt over his head. "Anything else?"

She nodded. "Kiss me."

He grinned and leaned down, lightly touching his lips to hers, deepening the kiss as his hand roamed down her body and came to a rest between her legs. Moving away from her mouth and down to her throat, he was surprised for a moment by her sudden reaction to his kiss on the scar at the base of her neck - twisting and moaning, harshly thrusting her hips against his hand. His fingers slipping inside her brought about a sharp cry and another moan. For a second, he was afraid he'd done something to hurt her -- with anyone else, he would have just stopped. But Buffy wasn't anyone else; she was different.

So was he, for that matter - there probably weren't a lot of people walking around who knew that a vampire's bite didn't just leave behind a permanent scar. There was something that went far deeper - an animalistic, uncontrollable desire that went far beyond rational thought. The bruised skin always a reminder that you had been one step away from that fate worse than death; a terrifying, horrifying thought made all the more so by the fact that with one touch of that mark you ceased to care. One touch and all humanity slipped away, leaving behind a carnal being whose only wish was for pleasure. And maybe a little pain.

It scared him sometimes, how much power those bites still had. In the right circumstances, however...

"Riley..." she gasped.

He pulled away from the scar. Maybe it had been too much, he thought as he let his fingers ease out of her.

"Yeah?" he asked, looking up, startled by the dark, wild look in her eyes. Sam had never mentioned that look.

"Condom. Now."

So not too much. More like not enough.

Worked for him.

It took a few short moments for Riley to strip the rest of his clothes off and get the condom on. Pulling her underwear off, he spread her legs, a little more roughly than he had intended as he was overcome by the hunger in his own blood.

Fighting to stay in control - he could feel his own scars pulsing and burning - he hovered over her, savoring her body beneath him before dipping his head down. He ran his tongue up between her legs slowly, eliciting a low, throaty groan from somewhere deep within her. Her body writhing, he held her in place, slowly planting kisses on her hip and up her side, lingering as he reached the curve of her breast.

Licking, lapping and finally tugging her nipple with his teeth, his hands held her wrists down, the knots securing her to the headboard having long since given way. A quick, deep kiss at her mouth and then back at her neck, touching his teeth to her scar as he entered her, ready for the violent response this time, meeting her thrusts with his own. Not holding back either in terms of strength or roughness, pounding against her, going deeper and deeper as her cries became more frequent and frenzied.

Her strength overpowered his as she pulled her hands out and grabbed onto his waist, rising up to meet him and pulling him flush against her body, pulling him as deep inside as it was possible to go. He snaked his hand between them - back to that sweet spot, flicking his thumb against her and his tongue at her scar, keeping the pressure there as she screamed and shuddered, taking him with her as she came.

"Guess I won't be wearing that top again," she eventually said, sounding breathless as she untangled the shreds of material from her hands. "Nice that the bed held up, though."

She rarely lost control like that - it had only ever happened with Spike. Spike, who had taken great pleasure in teaching her the darker side of sex, and who had taken full advantage of the fact that with the exception of a wooden stake, they were both pretty much indestructible. Her sex life since then had been spectacularly unsatisfying, and more than once it had occurred to her to make some kind of deal with Angel so she could, at least occasionally, be with a man that wouldn't be scared of her if she really let go. But that, of course, would have been wrong, with a capital "w."

"Did you actually growl at me?" Riley asked when he started breathing again.

She grinned sheepishly. "I honestly couldn't tell you." She looked up into his eyes. "That was..."

Her voice trailed off. It was fantastic, is what it was. Which he'd known it would be -- he'd known going for the scar would have an effect; it hadn't been something he had just stumbled upon. Buffy had the feeling she was about to find out about something she'd never really wanted to know for sure. Shifting as he rolled off of her, she could see that he was dreading what she was about to say; that he was clearly hoping she wasn't about to pursue the line of questioning she was about to pursue. The one about how he knew that the scar had a lot more going for it than just a patch of dead skin. And yet she had to ask, "How did you-"

"Is there a trash can in here?" he asked.

She pointed to the floor on the other side of the bed. There was no way she was letting him off that easily. Spike's explanation about the bite was that it had something to do with the sire thing. That even if someone hadn't been turned the bite would always be with them, in their blood. It was why it was the only scar she had, despite the infinite number of times her body had been broken. Even Slayers couldn't completely heal.

And she knew, of course, that Riley had been bitten - as if she could ever forget. But this was something different. This took it to another level. Quietly, she said, "You slept with them, didn't you?"

So much for trying to change the subject, he thought. And there was no question of who the "them" referred to. He pulled the sheet up over his waist and leaned back against the pillow, turning to her as he rested his head on his hand. Trying to gauge her expression in the murky moonlight that the windows let in.

For a brief moment he thought about lying. Probably would have if this conversation had been happening years earlier. She deserved the truth, though. Even if it meant her kicking him out of her bed and her life forever. "Yes."

She didn't answer right away. Sitting back against the headboard, she brought a pillow up to her chest and hugged it, suddenly self-conscious. The pain she felt just thinking about it all surprised her. "I guess I always thought it didn't get that far." She forced the catch out of her voice, refusing to let him see how much it still hurt her. "I mean, yeah, stupid, I guess, seeing as you were half naked when I saw you that night, but still-"

"Buffy, no," he said, sitting up and taking her hand as he realized what she was thinking. "Not in Sunnydale. God, no. I would never do that to you. I never wanted that from them. Not when I had..." His voice faltered. As though he had ever really had her. That had been the whole problem. "Not when I was with you."

"No?" she asked tentatively, her voice sounding so small.

"No. Of course not." He could tell she was close to crying, and more than anything, he wanted to take her into his arms. He wasn't sure if she'd let him, though. Decided now wasn't the time to find out. "I only ever wanted you."

"Then why...?"

Right. If he only ever wanted her how was it she had caught him in some other woman's arms. "It was so powerful. Something I couldn't-"

"No," she said, bluntly, cutting him off. "I understand the biting. I get that part." She looked away. "But then how did the... How did the other part happen? When did it happen?"

"Oh."

The "how" part was still a mystery to him. Not that he didn't understand the logistics of it - man, woman. Or rather man, female vampire.

It was how he had slipped so far down that he still didn't get. Or the part where it had happened so quickly.

Two weeks after they landed in Belize. Stuck in Belmopan while the Big Wigs ironed out some territorial dispute between Belize and Guatemala. Roaming the streets alone, unable to avoid listening to Graham's phone call to Sarah in the tiny room they'd been given to share, but unable to stomach the love pouring over the lines. Not after what happened in Sunnydale.

There had been two of them in the bar he wandered in to, working as a team. Not a very good one - he knew he was being played - but, God, were they beautiful. Tall and tan. Long black hair piled high on top of their heads; huge, brown eyes that made it impossible to look away. Graciela and Nicola. With the exception of the captivating eyes, the complete opposite of Buffy.

He'd known they were vampires -- just hadn't cared. Come and get me, he'd been thinking. Show me what you've got.

Riley figured sex would be part of the deal. The fact that it didn't really faze him should have tipped him off to how messed up he was - sex had never been something he took lightly. At that point, though, he had decided that doing everything the way you were supposed to hadn't gotten him anywhere. Maybe there was something to being a cold, hard son of a bitch. It certainly hadn't hurt Spike.

Wait 'til Graham hears this, Riley remembered thinking as they brought him to their apartment, plying him with cheap wine and, for some odd reason, Japanese beer. It didn't take long for them to get down to the real business of the evening, one of them curling up against him and kissing him while the other knelt down. What guy hadn't had this fantasy? And who would have believed he, of all people, was actually doing it. Twins, for God's sake.

Leaning back on the couch, lost in what Graciela had been doing between his legs, he hadn't been paying quite as much attention to Nicola's wandering hands and mouth. He hadn't quite noticed that she had pinned his arms back in such a way that it was almost impossible for him to move. And he certainly hadn't noticed how strong she was until her teeth sank into his neck as he came, bucking into Graciela's mouth. He'd thought he could control them; could stop them before it got too far. He just hadn't counted on...this.

But the pain had nothing on the ecstasy. There was nothing to compare it to. Beyond intense; beyond the scope of anything he had ever even imagined. Every nerve in his body tingling with life; every cell on fire, burning from inside. Overcome by ravenous desire for more touch. Enraptured. Understanding now why people begged to be turned.

Anything - he would do almost anything - to feel this again.

The mistake they had made was that they didn't kill him right then. And that they didn't think he spoke Spanish.   

He was as close as possible to being passed out without actually being unconscious when, through his haze, he heard them trying to decide whether to turn him or to just kill him. Nicola, apparently wanted her turn - she hated it when they paid more attention to Graciela than they did to her, even if it was only because of the blow job - and she always thought it was better to make the decision while she was astride her begging victim, having already given him a hint of the power she held. Or so she said as she pushed Graciela out the door, telling her to find another plaything for the night.

Somehow, Riley found the strength to drive the stake through her chest. And by the time Graciela got back, he had recovered enough that he could actually walk to the door when he heard her coming; stake her before she knew what hit her.

That had been the first time; not the last, though. Not even close to the last.

The rules developed as he went along, the two main ones being never let them tie you up and never let them be on top. They had too much control that way. Despite a couple of close calls, he had managed to not only stay alive, but to keep his extracurricular activities secret from the rest of the squad. At worst they thought he hit the bars a little too often, that they thought his late night forays back to camp had been because of alcohol. He figured that was a small price to pay.

It took several months to catch up to him, in some run down shack in the Philippines. He had gotten cocky, heading out when he knew there were teams still finishing up their rounds. It was pure luck that it was Sam who had stumbled upon him during a routine patrol and not one of the other guys -- mostly hard-asses who would have probably put a bullet in his head and then staked him just in case he had turned. Hell, it's what he would have done. She dragged him out of the bed and threw him up against the wall, whirling around and staking the woman that flew at her before ducking her head out the door and yelling an all clear to the rest of the squad.

After cleaning the blood off his neck, she'd gotten him dressed, holding him until he could walk again. Getting him to the medics who were clearly suspicious, asking how it was that this soldier had lost so much blood. 'It's a jungle out there, Doc,' Riley remembered her saying. 'Shit happens.'

It was how he had fallen for her so quickly and so hard. She never judged him, never made him feel like he had to explain, but also never allowed him to make excuses. Just gave him an unwavering support and strength as he struggled to come to terms with everything that had happened.

"So Sam knew," Buffy said, as Riley recounted the story.

He nodded.

Buffy gave him a smile that could only be described as wicked. "And I'm guessing it didn't hurt later on that she knew how the scars worked."

Glad that in the darkness she couldn't see him blush, he said, "No. It didn't hurt."

"Yeah." She looked down. "I think that's one of the reasons I stayed with Spike so long after things went bad. It was hard to give that up."

Riley wasn't sure he was hearing her right. "You're actually o.k. with this?" he asked, amazed at how there was no anger in her voice. No disgust.

Dropping the pillow she was holding, she crawled to his side of the bed and snuggled up against him. "I won't judge you, Riley. I'm in no position to do that." She ran her fingers down past his shoulder, stopping at the white marks that stood out in contrast to the tanned skin on the inside of his arm. Bending down, she kissed him, applying more pressure as he groaned and clutched her arm.

"But it's nice to know that I'm not the only person in the world who has this weird, sick turn-on," she said, smiling as she sucked on the skin and felt his hardness against her hip.

"And, you know..." she said, climbing on top of him and straddling his waist. Her fingers grazed the scar on his neck. "When life hands you lemons..."