When Spike lets himself into Lilah’s apartment, he finds her standing in front of the bar, back to him. As she inclines her head slightly, he can make out the curve of her mischievously upturned mouth.

“You’re late,” she comments, casually reaching behind her neck to pluck at the clasp of her dress. The straps part, and the thin material flutters to the ground. The lacy bra soon follows, and it seems there were no proper knickers to begin with.

Her weight shifts from foot to foot, glinting the light off her thigh-high stockings complete with seams up the back. Seams on stockings, something even Spike’s decidedly non-fashion conscious self can recognize as remnants from another era, yet they look perfectly in place on the legs of Lilah Morgan. Odd, that.

“Rough day at the office.” He’s lying, of course. The lawfirm wankers didn’t have anything for him to do today. They’re still in the “information gathering stage,” whatever that means. Would be easier, if they asked him, to simply lure Angel with the promise of a sweet young thing in trouble, take him out with a blowtorch. They didn’t ask him, though. Not for strategies, anyway. Just information on the old grandsire.

In exchange for all this strolling down memory dark-and-piss-soaked-alley, Spike will eventually get the sodding chip taken out. And if he does a really good job jumping through their hoops, that Manners bloke promises to make sure said chip gets re-implanted into one of those army assholes, see how they like it. That’ll be a glorious fucking day.

In the meantime, Spike is paid, fed, and gets to play house with the choicest plum the firm has to offer. Not that Lilah was actually part of the deal, though he’s pretty sure she coulda been -- Wolfram and Hart doesn’t seem like they’d be against whoring out their employees if it suited them. But then he wouldn’t have had the fun of wooing her.

Now, whether spotting her in the lobby one night, tailing her home for a lark, and showing up at her apartment door with a parcel of looted diamonds and other trinkets the next night counted as wooing was up for debate, but the end result was the same, right?

She still has her back to him, stocking-clad feet sunk into the plush maroon carpeting and hips cocked ever so slightly. And she doesn’t move.

“Gonna give me a proper greeting, love?” Spike asks. She shakes her head, soft brown curls dancing across the slope of her back. His eyebrow crawls upwards. “New game?”

“Something like that,” she murmurs.

“Hmm.”

Girl loves playing with fire. And she is a girl. Sure, Lilah holds herself up as a tigress, queen of the savage pridelands. But he’d already lived two lifetimes when she was just a squalling infant. And like the relative toddler she really was, Lilah has only an abstract idea of how a fire burns.

When he crosses the room and wraps his arms around her, Lilah relaxes into the embrace, that gorgeous, bare ass pressing deliciously against him. Her hips move in sinuous half-circles, hair tickling his nose, the spicy perfume she favors flooding his senses and it’s all too much.

Not enough.

Spike claws at her stomach, fingers fumbling for her breasts, greedily trying to cover every inch of her skin with his own. One hand plucks at the buttons of his shirt, trying to remove any material barricade between them. The other hand roams across her flat tummy, soft breasts. When his hand strays up, he suddenly feels a prickling against his palm, like he’s set about fondling a bleedin’ cactus. With a hiss, Spike pulls back.

Lilah finally turns around, a smug grin lighting up her face. And between her breasts is nestled a small, gold crucifix. Tiny gold Jesus and all.

“Surprise,” she says, laughing.

“Crazy bint.” Spike grabs her wrists and pins them above her head, driving her back to the wall with a thud. Harsh movements, but he’s careful to not set off that stupid chip. “Think that trinket’s enough to spook me off?” When he presses himself against her, the cross burns his skin, sending up a tiny sliver of smoke between them as his skin sizzles.

Her head tilts back, eyelids fluttering. “God, I hope not,” she moans, arching her back.

Lilah’s tongue flits between her lips, serpentine and wicked, everything he loves about this crazy, kamikaze woman. She could drive a bloke mad, sure, but who cares when she’s twisting against him, between the sheets or against a wall.

All Spike knows is, once he helps her bosses get Angel and they take the chip out, he’s not wasting a second before turning her.

See if she likes the sizzle of the cross then.