god yes. it's really interesting how through the act of sex buffy is completely bare to spike (emotionally speaking). like op said, she sleeps with spike because she feels safe with him.
but i think the reason she is so vicious outside the safety and pleasure and oneness of sex with spike is because when his adoration and love for her isn't completely filling her vision, her senses, and her mind THAT is when the rest of the world start creeping in. she remembers her past experiences and past traumas. her responsibilities come knocking on her door again. fear -- about being judged, about being wrong, about loosing heaven -- creeps back in.
and she's so harsh towards spike outside of having sex with him because 1) he is just a reflection of her, and she's desperately trying to push back on her life (because she shouldn't be here. she was complete.) but also 2) spike brings out the reckless emotional part of her. she has these life lessons learned from past traumas, she has a sister to take of and the world to save, she has to keep living in this world -- with her friends and their thoughts and judgements and input. and all these this are important to her. they are a part of who she is. but being with spike, when it's just her and him, all of that disappears.
and that's dangerous to buffy. and she's scared. and also ashamed that he consumes her so much and that she likes it (in the moment).
that connection they have, while having sex, is something equally as natural to her as her love for her friends and family & her responsibilities to the world. but i think because what she has with him makes her feel more alive than everything else about her life post-death she feels like she has to violently fight back against it.
"the only time i feel anything is when we..."
those other parts of her life (her experiences, her friends, her sister, her calling) are all staples of her "old life", but this thing with spike -- while not out of nowhere -- is something new, and extremely intense. and buffy doesn't want to be alive, she doesn't want to progress past that point of finality when she died at the end of "the gift".
and yeah, again, what buffy and spike have in those moments of complete intimacy and togetherness (when they have sex) is extremely romantic. it's only when every other factor of buffy's life, and her aversion to life itself, come back does her relationship with spike veer off from romance and love and trust and safety.
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