Read More Books

Spike cocked his head in the doorway to the bedroom. Something was out of place, but he just couldn't quite put his finger on it. Something was definitely not normal.

Then, he realized what it was. "Xander? Sweetheart? What are you doing?"

"What's it look like I'm doing?"

"Not sure I trust my eyes with what they're tellin' me."

"Humor me."

"Kay, then. Looks to me like you're readin' a book."

"You know I know how to read."

"Well sure, newspapers. But I can't remember the last time I ever saw you read a bloody book. Least not one that didn't have pictures."

"Ah, but there's a reason I'm reading a book, and not the newspaper."

"'S it a book about newspapers? Sex? Chocolate?" Spike ran down his mental list of Things Xander Loves. "Comic books?"

"Hey, that was my childhood hobby. Do not mock. And no. None of those things. Well, mostly. There's a lot of sex in the book, but it's not about the sex."

"Right. Now, why as a modern lad when you could be watching the telly, are you reading a book?"

Xander's grin only grew. "Well it started with the newspaper."

"Ah hah!"

"Yeah, yeah. The newspaper's always involved." Xander laughed and closed the book around his finger, reaching across the couch to snag the newspaper and toss it to Spike. "Keep reading until you figure it out." After saying that, Xander returned intently to his book, keeping the title hidden from Spike.

"How will I know when I've got it?"

Xander didn't lift his eye from his book. "You'll know."

Spike scanned the newspaper. "Post-election, Hollywood seen as a liability to the left? So you're readin' a book instead of watchin' a movie?"

Xander's only response was a derisive snort that would have done Spike proud if it hadn't been directed at him.

"Right." Spike muttered under his breath, riffling through the front page section. "Voter turnout. Nah. Trial. Bloody trial. More sodding trial." Spike tossed the front page section, moving on to the next. "Hmm. Mutu sidelined for seven months on a drug test."

Xander looked up briefly. "And what?"

"Football, pet."

"It's not in the sports section, Spike." Realizing that Spike was engrossed in the article and not listening, Xander returned to his book with a sigh.

Spike snorted, tossing the sports section as well. "Stupid sod." He picked up the Op-Ed section and cocked his head. "Richard Nixon was Right. Now there's something you don't see every day."

In the following silence, Xander began to realize that Spike was trying to get a glimpse of the title of his book, and laughed. "Spike! I am not reading gay erotica about Richard Nixon, so no. Keep reading."

Spike growled into the paper. "Well it's certainly not this piece about 50 new sodding cookery books." He turned the page, and stopped muttering entirely for the entire span of time it took to read the article. Then, he chuckled evilly. "Oh, pet, you're going to regret that."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Xander said innocently. Too innocently.

Smirking, Spike laid the paper aside and slid bonelessly out of his chair, prowling across the carpet to shove Xander's knees apart with rude force, leaning in snake-quick to drag his tongue hard along the length of Xander's cock through his sleep pants. "This what you were after then?"

Xander's breath hitched in his throat, and the book trembled briefly in his hands. "Wh- what makes you say that?"

"Oh," Spike said, rubbing his palms back and forth over Xander's thighs until they warmed, then hooked his fingers into the waistband teasingly. "Could be the article." Just the tips of his fingers dipped in, one tracing lazy circles around the corona of Xander's erect cock.

"What article?" Xander breathed, slouching on the couch even though it pushed his legs further apart, making his inner thighs burn.

"The article," Spike continued smoothly, dragging his sleep pants down until they hooked beneath Xander's balls, exposing him to Spike's leer, and the puff of cold breath he blew along the length, "that says 'Read A Book, Get Oral Sex' bout some stupid tosser in New York City conned into puttin' a slogan meanin' that on the city buses before he finds out what it means."

Xander groaned, closing his eye and letting the book fall on the seat beside him, tangling his other hand in Spike's hair. "That would be the one. The vampire wins."

"Well?" Spike asked, not moving any closer to Xander than the feather light brush of lips that was slowly driving him mad.

"Well?" Xander echoed dumbly, flexing his fingers uselessly in Spike's hair.

Spike's leer stretched into a genuinely evil grin, and he put the novel back into Xander's free hand. "If you want the oral sex, pet, you've got to read the book."

"Oh god."

Spike leaned forward another half inch, and flickered his tongue against the ridge of Xander's cock. Once. "Out loud."

"Spike!"

Spike opened his mouth over Xander's tip, breathing against the radiant heat of blood-flushed flesh. "Read," he said, and drew him in.

"J-Jack hissed his ecstasy as the fangs p-penetrated his throat. Blood flowed, p-pulling at his cock, his balls, f-flooding him with- with-" Xander choked on his words. "S-spike, I can't do this!"

Spike released Xander with a soft, wet pop, and looked at him through lowered lashes, the swelling in his lips already fading. "You're the one who found the article, pet. Now we're gonna play it my way. You read."

"God." Xander groaned. The pages of the book rattled together as Xander drew breath harshly, trying to find his place. "-with need. Then, Sebastian breached hi-him in one powerful thrust that felt as if he was split- oh fuck, Spike!" The book thudded against the couch as Xander thrust up into Spike's mouth, and down hard on the fingers that penetrated him, twisting cruelly within.

"Read," Spike ordered in a growl, plunging Xander's cock into his throat before the last vibrations had faded, and riding out the reflexive needy thrust of Xander's hips.

"-Splitting open," Xander read, the words coming faster now with the pull and flutter of Spike's throat around him. "until they ran slick with sweat, with come, with b-blood that Jack could feel with every pulse of Sebastian's mouth against hi-his- Jesus, Spike!" Xander stumbled over his reading as Spike withdrew swiftly, and a soft crunching sound under laid his words. He felt the first faint, soft prick of sharp demon teeth slicing into his inner thigh, and came violently to the soft suckling pulses of Spike's lips and tongue against his skin.

Spike licked languidly until Xander's shivers eased, and the blood trickled to nothing, then moved up over his belly and chest, licking him clean with soft sweeps of his tongue and possessive nips. "Thought you were gonna read me a story, pet," he said once Xander's heartbeat had evened out. Xander could hear the smirk in his voice.

"Lost my place," Xander said, panting, one hand still resting, lax in Spike's hair.

"Well then," Spike said, lifting his head to regard Xander with golden eyes, tongue curling up to lick a trace of blood and come from the corner of his lips, "we'll just have to start again from the beginning, won't we?"