Doubled And Redoubled (Xmas/new years)

Taking a deep breath, he looked up. "Three more." Without slowing, they climbed the switchback stairs until they reached their floor. He put his hand out, in case she tried to open the door. "Sensors."

"No worries," she said, flushed from exertion and with her hair starting to tumble down. She removed some pins, thrust others back into place after re-wrapping her hair securely, and clicked the fatter of the two hairpins, studded with brilliants, open, revealing a very tiny, very powerful scrambler. "White noise," she explained briefly, "Cycles, finds the freq, and fakes it. Metal door conducts. Nice thing," she half-smiled, licking the two interior sides and securing them to door and metal frame, pressing for a second, and letting go. After the tiny LEDs stopped blinking, she carefully eased the door open, revealing a spider-fine retractable strand of filament connecting the two halves. "Don't break the circuit," she warned, and slithered through the door.

"You'll find I'm good at delicate operations," he countered, not having needed the warning. One look behind him to make sure they weren't being followed, and he slipped through the small opening.

They hurried down the long hall, but stopped before turned into the main corridor. He used a small mirror to look around the corner and passed it to her. "Two cameras... one above the double doors to the consulate, one disguised as a light."

Buffy made a quiet humming noise of thought and examined the cameras, carefully noting angles of view as they panned over the corridor. There was a tiny, tiny slice of hallway that looked uncovered, when the timing was right. But they wouldn't be able to stay in it. The window was only a few seconds wide. "Anti-subtle," she complained in a barely-there whisper. "We either cover 'em up and move like the wind - a fast wind," she clarified, "or cut the power. Neither is optimum."

He pulled his jacket off and turned it inside out so she'd see the mirror-like, reflective material. "Can cover one up with this. If we want to cover both, I'll have to tear it half and ... if we're seen on our way back, should be alright. I'll say you tore it off me, couldn't wait to get what you wanted."

Putting his hand over hers, he moved it up so he could get another look. "What's it to be, lover?" Driven by some unknown force to bait her, he whispered the word near her ear.

Shivers chased along her neck at the whisper, close and intimate and made for dark rooms with big beds, and not for well-lit hallways breaking in to foreign consulates. She could feel herself getting warm and liquid from that alone, and it only pissed her off. "We'll cover the 'light,' she said, leaning back against his chest so he could hear her better. And that was the only reason, damnit! "And get under the door cam in its blind spot. Should work fine." Her fingers twitched a little, more than eager to tear the jacket for real, and not as part of the mission cover. To run her hands over him, claw at him in a passion, take him deep inside. Whoa. Focus. Focus would be good right about now.

A jolt of electric heat passed through him when she leaned back. Pressed against him like this, she had to f eel him swelling against her ass. When this was over... he was going to find them some place secluded where they could work off this tension between them, fuck so hard they made up for lost time.

"I've got it." Reluctantly, he moved away to put double sided duct tape onto the edges of his jacket. Then, at the right moment, they dashed into the hall. He dropped on his hands and knees, and in a fraction of a second, she was standing on his back and securing the jacket around the camera in a way that it reflected the other side of the empty hall.

"Move, move," she scolded, flipping from his back to the floor, about six feet further along toward the consulate doors, and then hitting full speed to slide into the nook of door frame and door, pressed underneath the camera's all-seeing –except for the spot right under the door— eye.

He raced behind her and pressed up against the wall next to her. "Twenty two minutes" he marked the time it had taken them. "Bit behind schedule. We'll need to catch up. How long to open it?"

"Just a—" and a soft click rewarded her efforts with the second specialized hairpin. "—Second." Crappy security there meant more difficult inside, no doubt, but maybe they had counted on the previous security? Maybe. May bees didn't fly on the cusp between December and January, either. "Come on," she said, eeling inside once more, breathless more from the heat of his body in close proximity –again!— than from the dangers of the mission.

Inside the creamy white suite of offices, with leather chairs and pictures of Russian leaders on the walls, there didn't appear to be any cameras. Spike slowly walked around, scanning to confirm he was right. Then he saw it, the tell tale almost invisible thin red lines a quarter inch from the ground in front of every door inside the suite.

He pointed to the laser alarms at the entryways to the doors leading out of the room. "Safe's in the back." Stepping over the criss crossing lights, he headed into the depths of the consulate.

"No shit," she muttered, and followed, stepping delicately as her eyes flicked over the entire room, assessing for other devices that he might have missed.

He found a large, almost empty room. There was a desk, a filing cabinet, and then the entire back wall was a vault. It looked much like a bank vault, but had a complex array of hairline thin wires plastered in groups over its surface.

Taking a closer look, he guessed. "Heat sensors. We'll have to take them out."

She moved swiftly away from him, taking one half of the room to search. "Fire extinguisher," she commanded. "Find it." An extinguisher held upside down, rather than right side up, would produce superchilled –even frosty—air instead of the chemicals used to douse flames. "Fast," she said, knowing that they were running out of time. Her side of the room turned up nothing useful, so she rolled the luxurious office chair close to the locking mechanism of the vault, curling herself into the comfortable hollow there and using its leather back to keep her body heat from setting off the sensors as she studied the system.

He quickly searched the room, then disappeared out the door. The small kitchen they'd passed ought to have something.

Within minutes, he returned with extinguisher in hand, as well as a bag of ice he'd nipped from the freezer. Dropping it onto the chair, he waited until she gave him the signal, then sprayed. "Hope your fingers are as nimble as I remember." God... was this the time to remember how she'd clutched him? How she'd kneaded his skin, his ass... how she'd gone for his trousers... His gaze swept over her delicate features. So different from Billy... now that she wasn't using makeup contouring tricks to give herself a more masculine jaw and bone structure.

"Shut it," she hissed, furious at the distracting images he kept pulling out of her memory. Things she'd just as soon not recall with him right there, obviously interested and more than ready to to pick up where they'd left off in that prison cell. "One of us is working here," she groused, removing her mini-comp from her purse and powering it up, then choosing a previously created file suitable for the type of vault the Russians had.

She studied program and vault for a precious minute more, and made some minor adjustments before gripping the small device carefully in her teeth as the easiest holding place while both her hands were busy. Careful not to jar any internal wiring loose, she finessed the bottle of 'perfume' from her purse as well, and dribbled just enough of it on the edge of the fancy electronic combination lock to eat a hole big enough for her picks. "Spray there, please," she said around the mini-comp in her teeth. "Just around the hole. Not inside."

"Love it when you talk dirty to me," he did as she asked, taking her purse to free her up for the delicate operation. "Though inside is what's interesting."

He wondered, if she weren't as professional, would he be able to resist teasing her so? Course he would, he knew she could take it and still do the job... that was part of her allure. Always did love a strong woman.

Too far into the zone and zen of her work to respond to the nasty innuendo, Buffy recapped the tiny bottle one-handed, then delved into her purse for …two crochet hooks, hidden in the lining and feeling like nothing more than purse structure from the outside. Mini-comp still clenched in her teeth, she delicately inserted the hooks and pulled forth wiring from inside the door, carefully selecting and then snipping the casings of two. Using little clamps, almost as small as a stud earring, she attached the mini-comp to them, checked the connections with professional speed, and then activated the program.

Twenty seconds later, the vault door hissed, releasing pressure, and then swung ponderously open.

"Knew you were the right woman for the job," he said, not hiding any of his admiration of her skills. Her scathing look was well deserved, he'd never intentionally hurt her, but he'd been stupid. "I'll tell you later," he promised. He would make her listen.

"You can try," she snarled. "Get in and let's get out." Why couldn't he have said those things five years ago, when she would have cared what his opinion was? When she could have had some kind of life that included more than the job? Back when she was shiny and naive enough to imagine that lust might mean something more? "We're running out of time."

He shook his head. She'd be as hard to crack as the vault, but if he had half her skill at it, she'd listen. Slipping inside, he noticed that though the vault was large, it was filled with heavy shelves and crates stacked on top of each other.

Their bodies kept brushing as they squeezed past, rummaging the shelves and looking for that elusive red envelope with pictures of an installation that was reportedly about to test a weapon of mass destruction. It didn't belong to the Russians, but the Russians knew were it was and were in some sort of negotiations with one of their former republics. The exact nature of the negotiations were unknown. MI5 guessed either the Russians wanted a piece of the action, or were going to make some sort of deal for testing it elsewhere, away from Russia. A scientist who'd been connected with the project had defected and warned, the weapon was unstable. Controlled testing was impossible, according to him.

They needed the pictures and any other information they could get their hands on, then it would be up to the brass to neutralize the threat. "Nothing here," he moved behind her and started searching the shelves high above her head.

"This is ridiculous; don't they have a damned maid service?" Her lips twitched a little, until he moved behind her, close and warm. And aroused. Fuck. Her own body hummed in response, desire coiling like hot barbed wire in her belly, ready to rend and tear for what she wanted. Needed. "Back off—" she started, and froze for an instant before ducking around him and getting to the door. Only good thing about this stupid dress; it left enough skin bare that she could feel the breeze of the suite doors opening, sense the pressure change along her skin. It was a moment's work to shift her comp inside, and swing the massive thing shut on its well-balanced, soundless hinges.

Instinctively, he put his hands around her waist as she backed up into him. Blimey... it didn't take much to get him going where she was concerned. They were in danger of being caught, the air inside the vault was going to get low on oxygen real fast, and all he could think about was how long could he make the moment last?

To his credit, he only put his chin on her shoulder and spoke against her ear, even when what he was dying to do was move his hands up over her breasts as he kissed her senseless. "We have fifteen minutes. Not much time." And yet it was plenty of time, according to his body ...the urge to buck against her was getting stronger. He sucked in a breath of precious air.

"Guess we better keep looking," she tried, knowing it was ridiculous. They could barely move in the crowded vault, and couldn't see red from green in the nearly non-existent light. And God, but his hands were warm at her waist, his breath across her ear. His hard heat against the swell of her rear.... Trying to shift away only made her more conscious of it all, and there was nowhere to move to, anyway. Even knowing that she should be staying calm, conserving oxygen, her breath came quicker and her pulse faster.

He could have pulled out a small light, but it wouldn't be enough to pierce through the pitch black. "Don't think that will work," he answered, knowing she had to know that. Knowing she must know how much she was affecting him. "Buffy," he whispered raggedly, wanting her so badly he couldn't think straight anymore.

It was wrong. It was bad. He was taking advantage of the situation, of the fact she wouldn't make noise or stop him while there were people on the other side of the vault... stop him from touching her how he'd been craving all night.

He moved his hands up und down her thighs, molding the soft material of her dress to her form, then moved his palms up. Her skin was soft, so smooth... his fingers skimmed over the deep vee of her bodice, but it wasn't enough. He found himself cupping her breasts, squeezing hard as he moved his mouth over her.

A keening moan was trapped in her throat as he went from hated partner to object of desire with one ragged gasp of her name, one long caress from thigh to breast, and Buffy arched back against him, grinding herself against his cock with mindless need, every argument she'd been making in her head against doing just this crumbling into dust around her as lust flashed through her like lightning. She tilted her head to the side, shuddering as his teeth grazed her neck, gasping "Fuck, yes—"

"Yeah baby," he echoed, feeling her body come alive under his hands, against him. Hearing her ragged breaths mix with his.

Free at last to give his body free rein to act out his lusty thoughts, he pulled the skirt of her dress up her thigh, caressing her as he pulsed against her ass, his need building even as the air grew thin. He skimmed his hand over her warm stomach and brought it down over her panties, one finger riding inside the material, moving closer and closer to his goal.

Moving his other hand across her chest, he cupped her other breast, rythmically pulling her up against him. "Fuck yes."

Her lips parted as his fingers slid across her clit, and she almost let him kiss her, almost let him take her mouth as he was about to take her body, but instead, Buffy turned her face away, hips pumping for a deeper touch from his hand even as her fingers undid his pants behind her own back and slid inside, wrapping around the hot thick flesh there, jerking in her grasp.

He groaned, muffling the sound by pressing his mouth over her shoulder. When she held him like that... when she closed her fingers and stroked him, he grew so hard and heavy, so achey that he would have killed anything that stood in the way of what he wanted. Her. Around him. Him, pounding into her, taking her, hard... fast... before they ran out of air.

Anxious. Needy. A little sloppy, he pulled her thong down, and impatiently adjusted himself when she had difficulty blindly guiding him to her opening from behind.

He was hot and ready to go. She was wet and tight, and God... she was pushing back against him, demanding. Cupping her center, he dragged her up against him and pushed between his own fingers, sinking inside her in one long hard thrust.

A soul-deep groan vibrated inside Buffy's chest and throat, but she bit savagely at her own lip and kept it trapped, her hands coming forward to grip the shelving in the vault as she shoved herself against Spike, thrusting violently backward to take him deeper and harder. She raged internally against her own overwhelming lust even as she flung herself into surrendering to the momentary madness and need.

His thrusts grew increasingly frenzied as he tried to beat the clock... reach release before they ran out of breath. Alternately grinding against her and pulling back to bury himself from tip to root, he rode the waves of his desire, inflamed by the sounds she was making as she struggled to reach the same place. Fuck... he was close... so close.... He pulled her dress up higher, up around her waist because there was no way he was pulling out, no way....

Gasping, choking back her whimpers and moans, Buffy flung her head back as she started to tremble deep inside, around Spike, and the trembling grew into deep shudders and frenzied bucking against him, as she rode the edge of a near-blinding orgasm, stars bursting behind her closed eyelids as she snarled soundlessly, every muscle locked. She was about to lose the balancing act between breathing and coming, but she found it harder than hell to care, as long as Spike was filling her.

"Good... so good," he tried to seek her mouth, wanting to fuck her with his tongue as he brought them home, but was frustrated when his mouth hit her cheek. He was too close to try again... gripping her tight, he bit down as he came inside her with a vengeance. Her name was a whisper on his breath as he found release, and kissed her bare shoulder. "You're going to be the death of me. Literally." He was gasping for air now.

Chest heaving with a desperate hunger for oxygen, body thrumming into shattering release, Buffy could only shake in his arms as she climaxed, throat raw from holding in her sounds of ecstasy. "Suicide pact," she quipped, more breath than voice, and not much breath at all, clinging to the shelves in front of her to keep from falling to the floor.

He didn't answer, only because he couldn't. But he smirked in the dark, and used her own underwear to clean her up. When they couldn't linger anymore, he opened the door a crack, then widened it. No one was in the room.

Now that light flooded inside, he stared at her flushed cheeks and glazed eyes as he tucked his shirt into his pants. What was it with her and tight places? One day, they'd have to do it right.

Buffy averted her eyes and tucked her soiled thong back into her purse, angry all over again at the way she'd let lust for a man who should be nothing but her enemy overwhelm her personal preferences and her professional detachment. "Better than dying," she said mildly as she could, dropping her eyes to the floor. And a corner of red, protruding from beneath the shelves. It certainly hadn't been there before their little... interlude, and she swiftly stooped and picked it up.

It had to have fallen when they were banging into the shelves. "Ahhh... see, I was working," he quipped, mistaking the expressions that flickered over her face to be reproach directed both at him and herself. He'd often mixed business and pleasure before, but this time... it had been quite foolish.

A red light started flashing through the suit, though there was no sound. He glanced at his watch. "They must have been looking for us. New plan." He put his hand out to her. "I hope you like to slide."

"And here I was looking forward to another hang-glider escape," she returned, and immediately regretted it.

"It'll be better than that, hanggliders are so... common."

He grabbed at her arm to pull her away, and she shook free long enough to remove her lipstick from her purse, rip her mini-comp free, and plunge the stick into the hole by the vault door, swiftly crossing wires and then succinctly saying “Run,” as she stuck them into the small red block of plastique. And that ended the conversation as they raced out, tripping the laser alarms they'd previously avoided.

"This way," he dragged her into the stairway as a muffled explosion sounded behind them, removing any evidence of her tampering by blowing the locking mechanism to bits, and headed down stairs, just two stories and they were on the 52 story. At the end of the hall, they reached the doors of a stock brokerage firm. Pulling a key card out of his trouser pocket, Spike opened the door. "All the way to the back, there's a smokers patio... you know the drill, put the belt on," he said.

She ran, and one look at the set-up told her that putting her spiked heels back on would be a mistake. She strapped in just as he joined her.

"Ever gone bungee jumping? It's like that... only not," he teased as he put his own belt on, then looked up at the crane system overhead. Thick cables were wired back and forth between various cranes, sitting on three buildings around them. One of the cranes was above them, the other two at various heights well below them. In three steps, they would be almost to the ground. "Maybe a bit more like canopy traveling via zip line."

Reaching up, he grabbed a cable and then heaved himself up onto the railing and held on. Good thing the French weren't as fearful of liability as the rest of the west, or there was no way they'd have this type of access to the outside from a building this high.

"Right, I want you to get up behind me and grip me with your legs around my waist." He stared right into her eyes as he spoke for all the world as if they were about to make love. Never mind that the alarms were louder, and the search was on.

"Subtle," she said dryly, not at all liking the set-up. Or depending on him for this, even if daring escapes were one of his specialities. And especially not liking the idea of her naked core being pressed against his back as they made their getaway.

He swayed, but held fast when her legs closed around him. The heat emanating from her made him wonder if she was still warm from all of the friction, or if she was just. that. hot.

"Ready? Take a deep breath, shooting down twenty stories has a way of stealing it from you."

"Yeah," she muttered, and wrapped her legs and arms around him. As soon as they hit dirt, she was gone. He'd get the information to MI5, and she'd go the hell home to DC.

He felt her legs tighten, and her chest fill up with air against his back, and he pushed off of the railing, launching them as far down the cable as he could. Gripping the cables in his hands, he pulled in the right direction, controling their descent even as they hurtled toward the ground at high speeds.

People in the building must have seen them. The rat tat tat of Kalashnikovs rang out. Window shattered as the soldiers shot at them. Fools... anyone who could figure out the distance, trajectory, and speed of their targets would know it was an impossible shot.

He tugged hard, his biceps bulging as he applied the rudimentary breaks. There was the platform, he couldn't miss it.

One... two... three...

He unclipped his belt, and landed on the platform, gripping the railing to steady him since he still bore her weight. "Just two more times, Summers," he said, already re-clipping his belt for the next leg of the journey down.

"Counting the minutes," she said sarcastically around her heart, which had somehow migrated into her throat.

"Tight," he reminded her, jumping off the platform. God... was it bad he was thinking of how tight she was? And how much more exploring he had to do. Even the cold wind rushing past his face couldn't knock those thoughts out of his head and bring him back to earth.

Buffy tightened her thigh and arm muscles, locking her ankles across his lean belly, and buried her face in his back against the sharp bite of the December winds thirty stories up. But that was worse, feeling his strong body flex between her legs and beneath her cheek, smelling him. Smelling them, and the aftermath of their encounter. Eyes tearing from the wind, she put her face back into the chilly air flow. It was better that way.

He nailed the second platform, switched to the next cable and jumped again. When they landed on the final platform, they were still about fifty feet above street level. He leaned forward and unhooked her belt, then pointed to a pole. "Down the rabbit hole and we're set. You first."

The sound of sirens filled the air, adding to the urgency. He'd recognize the tinny sound of French sirens... there were Russian made. He wondered at the diplomatic furor that would follow. Jurisdiction was always such a bitch. "Go."

"Gone," she said crisply, meaning exactly that, and stepped into space, holding on to the pole and using the flag's rope to slow her descent when needed. Ten feet above the bottom, she paused for a moment, then slid down the rest of the way, landing on the sidewalk and replacing her shoes with alacrity.

Spike waited until she'd cleared the landing, then went down. Looking down, he saw her dive into a cab and cursed. He might have dropped down, stopped her... but he saw her purse, and slowed in order to grab it before his body went over it and detached it from the pole.

When he reached it, he found she'd used the strap to secure the red envelope to the pole. At least she hadn't stolen the goods for the Americans... it wasn't as if friendly competition hadn't led to that sort of thing in the past. So she was a woman of honor.

He dropped down and entered the waiting sports car. Somehow, driving it around the corners of Paris streets suddenly seemed a lot less fun than his ideas. He would have dropped the envelope off, then taken her to the French countryside, to a little farm where no one would find them for days. A place where even satellite coverage was difficult due to the cloud coverage and mountains.

He would have made love to her in front of the fire. Slamming his hand on the steering wheel, he called himself all sorts of fool for having let her go down first.

*

Distressed traveler. It covered so many things, including a helpless American blonde in an elegant yellow dress and heels, with nothing else to her name. And the United States Consulate was more than happy to help her. Warm, dry, and scrubbed clean of every possible vestige of Spike’s scent and touch, wearing borrowed clothes and ensconced in a plain but comfortable room, Buffy sipped wine and made her report to the Boss Man via her mini-comp. Scrambled, secure, and bloodless. A perfect heist. And she’d be home in DC tomorrow, once he faxed “her” passport confirmation to the offices tonight.

“Happy New Year to me,” she muttered, angry that she couldn’t feel more pleased at the Boss Man’s praise, hating herself for giving in to Spike’s allure despite the way he’d wrecked her career five years earlier. And fucking him hadn’t cleared away the crazy lust-woven cobwebs in her allegedly professional brain, either.

She still wanted him. Craved him. So badly that it hurt.

She did not need him. No way in hell.

More wine. And work, when she got home again. She could bury herself in work, and more work, and yet more work, and everything would be fine.

Just as fine as it had been for the past five years.

*

Spike sat at one of the tables at a Paris brasserie, glass of scotch in hand. People were laughing and drinking, and waiting to ring in the New Year. But all he felt was empty, and there was no reason for it. None.

None except the green eyes that were staring back at him from inside his shot glass.

He glanced over at the bar. The woman he'd hit on was still there... still smiling... still inviting. Problem was she was sweet, and he wanted tangy, she was soft, and he wanted hard, she was easy... he wanted a challenge. And her eyes... they were the wrong color.

He tossed the glass down onto the sidewalk, left a tip and got up. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he walked away, not even registering the fireworks lighting up the Champs-Elysées.

(A/N: Coming down to the wire here... how about some comments to get us over the finishing line. *Bats eyelashes and bribes with promises to update soon*)

(A/N2: If you want to join my "notice of updates/new fics" list, join here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Bloody_Bad_Poet_Fic/ )