A little over a week after their first date, Lukas is out at the plantation again, Rolf in tow. They get there a little before lunch, and if Danicka thinks maybe, just maybe the timing is deliberate -- well, she's probably right. Whatever food they have at the plantation is likely light-years better than what four teenaged Cliaths can manage to cobble together. For what it's worth, though, Rolf and Lukas bring a pie. A cherry pie picked up at some supermarket along the way.
After lunch, Lukas and Rolf "help" Lizzy with her homework. Which mostly means Lizzy does her homework and Lukas tries to do the problems himself, reads the texts when he can't; answers her questions when he can, and "quizzes" her when he can't. It's actually sort of fun. Afterward Lizzy and Rolf sit on the rug in the drawing room, playing some game of symbols traced into the pile of the rug that only they really understand, while Lukas and Danicka look through the books in the library; talk about the books they both read as children.
Later, when Lukas and Rolf leave, Danicka goes with them. Lukas borrows about two dozen books from the plantation, carefully stacked in the back seat. Rolf is a gentleman; he lets Danicka ride shotgun, sitting in the back with the books. He doesn't say much. He listens to his pack-brother and Danicka talk, until Danicka feels bad and asks him if he was feeling ignored.
No, he says, smiling, I like listening to you two talk.
When they get back to the packhouse, Lukas asks if Danicka wants to come up for a look. And she does, and so - with remarkably little shame, even though she lives in a mansion and he lives in a hole - he takes her up, and shows her around. The packhouse is just one room, like he said. The curtains hung up in the corners don't match. The ground is bare concrete, the windows so fogged over with age that they mostly just leave them open. There's a tiny, dank bathroom in the corner with nothing but a toilet and a sink and a shower. No tub, no cabinets. And there's a kitchen area along the wall, which pretty much looks like whoever decided to turn this storage unit into an apartment bolted a sink and some appliances to the wall.
It could be a dismal place to live. But somehow, it's not. With four Cliaths living there it feels comfortably crowded, packed with life. They have a bright red rug that softens the floor and brightens the room. They have a bunch of paint cans in the corner, and Lukas tells Danicka that pretty soon they're going to paint the walls bright colors. They have a couch, which they've furnished with tacky throws and pillows, and a very old TV that someone put a stuffed dinosaur on top of. And the fridge has photos magnetted to it - snapshots of the Cliaths' families back home. Lukas has one of his family from last Christmas - his mom and dad looking all presentable, his sister in a USC shirt, Lukas in the middle looking a little awkward,
but happy.
There's a balcony, too. It's huge. Really, it's just the roof of the story below, but it gives them a view of the street, and if they crane their necks right they can see all the way down Canal Street to the river, and if they look the other way they can just barely see the lake.
They can always see the stars if they look up.
Eventually they leave again. They go out on the town, which isn't that far from the packhouse so they just walk, and Lukas carries an umbrella and Danicka puts her arm through his and he's so happy. They find a horse-drawn carriage, one of the big ones, and Lukas insists on paying and Danicka lets him because it's not that much money and because she knows it'll make him happy. They sit in the back. The horses aren't spooked. They don't listen to the tour. They talk quietly, they point things out to each other,
they kiss sweetly, softly, their hands entwined in their laps, as the carriage sways down Toulouse, up Burgundy. They hop off in front of Flava cafe. They have giant sandwiches, and Lukas gets all nostalgic about New York pastrami, and later on -
later on they're down at Woldenberg Park on the river, they're one of many couples strolling in the late spring dusk, and they find a bench, and his arm is warm around her shoulders, and they watch the river flow by and talk a lot about nothing in particular at all.
The next Saturday, he comes over again. Rolf isn't with him this time, and Yelizavieta is a great deal less patient and pleasant, and later on Danicka chides the girl, reminds her that not everyone is so lucky, reminds her that oftentimes those charged with fighting the war and protecting the kin give so much of their lives that they don't get a chance at a formal education, and
the Saturday after, Lukas and Rolf show up at the door and Lizzy is ecstatic to see the Theurge; is polite and well-behaved, and even a little apologetic to Lukas. He just gets a little awkward, though, and tells her not to worry about it.
He and Danicka have their third date on a Wednesday night. Which isn't really a date night, but that's sort of the point. He doesn't want the tourists, doesn't want the rowdy drunken weekend crowd. They don't go to the French Quarter either. They go to a slightly rundown, slightly shady part of town, but there's a great blues club there, and even though Lukas isn't really all that into blues he likes the ambiance, likes the locals, likes that they serve cold beers without carding. They get a table in the back and talk loudly to be heard over the music. Lukas sips a local brew, and they watch the musicians jam on stage.
Later on, he's a little drunk leaving the club, and so is she, and they lean on each other and end up ducking into another club - a dance club this time, which reminds him of her birthday, which makes him think of those ravenous kisses they shared before she pushed him away, which makes him try to think of something else because
he wants so much to be a gentleman for her.
They dance. All night. Sometime after midnight the see-and-be-seen crowd goes home and the floors empty out enough for them to really move, and they move, and they're winding around each other and stomping the floors and sweating through their shirts, the basslines pounding through their skins, and somewhere in the middle he's kissing her on the dance floor but then someone jostles them, laughs and yells sorry!, and they yell it's okay! back and
they're dancing again. The club closes at 2am, which is when they stagger out cotton-eared and tired, so instead of walking all the way back they catch a cab, walk up to the packhouse, and he asks her to just stay over, and she says okay, and
his bed is a twin-sized mattress on the floor with a stack of books next to it. They curl up together. They leave their underwear on because, well, his packmates are right there. He doesn't want the temptation, maybe. He's tempted enough as is. He holds her and it'd be a lie to say his hand doesn't stray down once or twice, but in the end they sleep side by side on their backs, her shoulder to his side, his arm around her waist - his palm warm over her abdomen, his fingers staying just barely north of her pantyline.
He wants to be a gentleman. He wants to be a little bit innocent.
In the morning they have cereal together, and Benny teases on and on until Lukas actually gets mad and tells him to knock it off, NOW. After that there's no more teasing - for the day, anyway. As they're getting ready to go Benny hangs around the door as they're putting on their shoes, and he quietly apologizes to Danicka. Hana's coming in from patrol right as they're leaving, and she gives Danicka a hug as Danicka and Lukas step out. He drives her home. He walks her to the door, and he kisses her goodbye.
Saturday rolls around again. Benny's car shows up again, and this time, all four doors open. All four young wolves pile out, Rolf tipping his head back and smiling close-eyed at the sky until Hana gives him a push from behind. Lukas and Benny tromp up the front stairs together, and Benny knocks on the door.
"I haven't been here in forever," he says.
DanickaThe night Lukas goes to a movie and goes to dinner and goes parking with Danicka, he drives her home and drops her off and she stays up another hour talking to Giselle, changing into pajamas and lying on the bed with the other girl, keeping their voices down. In another life she'd never do this, never share this much, never tell anyone about what she and Lukas talked about. Giselle, who was so innocent before Danicka met her, understands finally how much Danicka never had that, holds her hand while Danicka asks her if she thinks it's stupid, and Giselle adds her voice to Lukas's: no. No, it's not stupid. It's lovely. They whisper a great many other things to each other, too, before realizing it's only hours til dawn. It's a Sunday, at least, and they don't have to wake early, but Giselle is falling asleep.
Danicka is awake for some time after Giselle goes back to her own room, curled up in her bed and looking toward the window, thinking that by now Lukas must be back at the packhouse. She wonders if his pack teases him, if he goes on patrol. She thinks about how hard he was when he was with her, how overcome, and lust stirs in her all over again. She thinks about him touching himself, thinking about her, as she touches herself, thinking about him.
About a week later he's texting or calling her, asking if it's okay if they come, and she barely lets him get the question out before she is excitedly saying yes, please come, that'd be great. So he does, and Rolf comes as well. It's mathematics that afternoon, so during and after lunch in the kitchen they are going over the problems she had from last week, preparing for the tutor's arrival at one o'clock. The man is a thin, reedy sort who seems quite startled by all the people until Danicka asks him if he would mind. He doesn't mind. And then it becomes clear why: when teaching he becomes animated, energetic, his eyes lit up, his metaphors actually pretty hilarious. Lukas doesn't get some of the jokes -- they are math jokes, after all -- and Lizzy explains, which just makes the math tutor delighted. He, unlike some, understands that teaching cements one's own education. He likes Lukas's focus, even if Lukas isn't his student.
As he's leaving he's suggesting a book to Lukas, it's one he used with Lizzy, but Lizzy says she still has it, and because Rolf took her hand earlier and helped her trace a symbol in the rug that she did not even remotely understand, Lizzy is all too happy to hand it down to Lukas. It's a math concepts book, more about understanding the underpinnings of the problems than just rote formulas. He's holding it when they wander into the library. Danicka is quiet, uneasy as they talk about their childhood books. He's holding her hand, too, when he asks her what's wrong.
That Monday afternoon is when he finds out about what her brother did to her books, the first story he's heard about this 'monster'. It's so petty. It's so cruel. It's so terrifying. It's unthinkable to him that her own brother would make a book catch fire in her hands, would turn the pages blank, would make the ink bleed until the pages turn black and ink covers her hands, staining them like she killed the words herself. He could never do something like that to Anezka, even though she's older than him. He could never do that to his kin.
Strangely, Danicka is less uneasy after talking to him about this. She's just quiet, holding tight to his hand, and he wraps her up in his arms, hers going around his midsection, the math book laying against her back. The library is one of the cooler, darker places in the plantation, to keep the books dry and free from mold or bleaching. But it's getting late. The other kin are getting ready for dinner, and Lukas asks if she still wants to come out with him. It's a Monday night, it's not really a 'date' sort of night either, but it doesn't matter, and she thinks he's silly: of course she wants to go with him.
They put the borrowed books and the gifted book in a crate and carry them out to the car. Danicka changes into a skirt and tank top and flats and grabs her bag, apologizing to the others for just running out, but Rick just asks her if she has her taser and Giselle nearly shoves her to the door to go, go, before Lizzy makes them all stay for dinner. Danicka, later, tells Rolf (not for the first time) how nice it is that he's so kind to Lizzy. She doesn't think the girl has ever had a real friend. Danicka realizes, saying it, that before coming to New Orleans she's only had one real friend in her life before, too. And now look at her.
Of course she wants to see the packhouse. She teases him for asking silly questions all day, and up in the loft she marvels at how much room they have. They should get roller skates to run around in here, she says. She peeks at the 'room' where he sleeps, smiling, but all the while she's making mental notes, she's asking herself what would be too much at once, or what she can sneak in without any of them getting offended, but
they are a pack of Shadow Lords, and she is Shadow Lord kin, and if necessary she can tell them that if it's their 'duty' to fight and protect her, then it's only fair that they set down their rigid pride and let her do her 'duty' to help take care of them. But that's in the future. For now, she looks around, her bag on the couch, saying they should paint a mural or something. She asks what the stuffed dinosaur's name is. She eyes Anezka's USC sweatshirt, she steps out onto the balcony and holds her skirt against a breeze, smiling. It is getting dark now, the stars coming out late, lazy in summer's longlasting sunshine. She kisses Lukas briefly, softly on that 'balcony', smiling.
He insists on paying for the carriage. It's expensive; she knows it's more expensive on weekends, too, so that's nice, but she worries. She paid for her own movie ticket the last time and Lukas paid for dinner and he seemed uneasy about the movie ticket and she felt bad but she feels bad about him spending money she knows he barely has just to take her out, and he insists it's okay, what else does he need it for, he wants to, all of that. She settles, the way she almost always seems to settle when he just reaches out his hand, takes hers, and tells her, truthfully:
it's okay.
They keep their hands like that during the whole ride, ignoring the silly tour guide. She doesn't make out with him, though she keeps thinking about it. She nuzzles him a couple times, smiling. By the end of the ride she's ravenous -- they both are -- the last time they ate being the cherry pie after lunch. Hence the huge sandwiches, the big cups of soda (Lukas) and iced tea (Danicka). You drink iced tea in the South, she tells him archly, in her best You're Doing It Wrong tone of voice. That gets him going on regional foods, and New York pastrami in particular. She begs him not to talk about it. They talk about Czech food, kolaches, and he says his favorite is candied orange. She just smiles.
I remember.
At Woldenberg Park they sit on a bench and Danicka curls up against his side under the crook of his arm, her hand on his chest tracing patterns through his shirt. It starts to rain later and that umbrella comes out and she tucks in her bare legs across his lap, and he puts his hand on her leg, thinking only that he wants to keep her warm because every other reason he has to want to touch her leg is subconscious. They kiss, slow and soft, nowhere near as heated as last time,
but that's part of why it's so nice, this time.
It's still raining when they get back to the plantation, and it's incredibly late now, late enough that Giselle didn't even stay up, but there is a Fianna kinsman upstairs who doesn't go to sleep til he hears the car depart and Danicka's bedroom door shut. People wait up for her here. Not to berate her. Not to sniff her and interrogate her. Just to make sure she gets home okay. Just to be there for her. She barely gets her shoes off before she flops into bed, curling up and falling asleep in her clothes, wishing every day could be just like this one.
Saturday there are no lessons to distract Lizzy from being annoyed that Danicka gets to see Lukas but she doesn't get to see Rolf. In her mind he belongs to her now, and she's angry but she's internally tormented. What did she do wrong? Why didn't he come? Where is he? Did he not want to see her? Of course, none of that comes out at first. She's just playing piano with Danicka, practicing while Lukas sits on the couch and listens. He makes the mistake of telling Lizzy her playing is very good, asking her what the song was called or when she started, and she snits something about how she's not playing piano for him, at which point Danicka thumps the cover closed over the keys, excuses herself and her charge, and lectures the girl in the hallway.
It's a lecture about privilege, about how much Lizzy has that Lukas never had, that Danicka never had, that no one in this household could ever dream of, that Rolf never had a chance at. It's a lecture about how no one here has been anything but kind to her, not because she is wealthy or because her family is powerful but simply to be kind to her, because Lukas and Rolf and the others certainly aren't being paid. That's probably a bit over the line, though. That's when Lizzy starts crying, and Danicka kicks herself for being so harsh. Lizzy asks her all those questions, and others beside: do Giselle and Rick and Christian and Danicka even like her, and so on.
She's at that age. Danicka wishes she had been at that age and been able to be that age, have these sorts of feelings. They are actually in the hall for some time, Danicka wrapping her arms around the girl's shoulders to comfort her. Of course they like her. She even told Lukas to bring Rolf sometimes because Lizzy is such good friends with him. She emphasizes the word 'friend' in that. She puts her hands on Lizzy's face and tells her to go up and wash up, they don't have to practice any more today, it's okay. But she should apologize to Lukas.
Lizzy's pride won't let her, just then. Danicka comes back and apologizes for her. On the couch she and Lukas talk. She tells him a little of what she said, but asks him to please tell Rolf to be careful with Lizzy. And a week later, Rolf does come, and Lizzy manages to apologize formally to Lukas for her behavior the week before. He's awkward; she just wants to grab Rolf's hand and run out to the Gentlemen.
In some places, one's third date is the society-approved time to go to bed together. You know, try the person out, make sure they're sexually compatible, not a freak, whatever the 'logic' there is beyond 'Seinfeld said so'. But Danicka and Lukas go dancing. Well, after the blues club. He drinks cold beers in frosty glasses that sweat profusely. The musicians sweat profusely. Danicka drinks wine tonight, and it goes to her head, and she wants to dance, come on, come on, let's go dance, and he's a little worried that he's going to look completely stupid, how do you even do that, how he learned as a kid is not how he's seen people dancing at clubs and he doesn't really dance at the clubs he mostly just hunts and gets out, but Danicka takes him to a nearby place.
The music is incredibly loud, and people don't stop moving. Even the see-and-be-seen crowd realizes this isn't their sort of place because there is virtually no room to just stand around. It's also New Orleans, and the club is crammed with all kinds of people. Some of the best dancers are this couple, a latino man and a mixed-race woman with a shaved head, they dance with each other and with other people and their energy is infectious, is wild, feels like the city that the locals know. Drunk enough that his flare of insecurity bleeds away in moments, Lukas finds the rhythm with Danicka and they dance til they sweat, til they're sober again, til they can't hear a thing, til he says something and she's yelling WHAT? and they go back and forth til he just kisses her, hard and deep and their bodies pressed together, hearts beating together.
It's so late now. He asks her after the cab, when they're waffling between walking up and going to Benny's car, if she just wants to stay over and there's a long enough hesitation after the word I... that he holds her hand, and he kisses her, and tells her okay, it's okay. It's okay, he can take her home. She believes him. She trusts him. But she kisses him and it's slow, and though slow it's deep, and near the end she starts nodding, doesn't say yes but nods, kissing him again. She didn't even bring a change or anything, and her clothes are sweaty and she doesn't have a toothbrush, but they go up to the packhouse and it's quiet and dark. She can hear Benny and Rolf breathing in the dark, sleeping, so she and Lukas are whispering, and she's texting the other kin to let them know she'll be back in the morning.
And he's giving her a clean t-shirt of his own and there's some mouthwash, and her clothes are in a pile on the floor, her hair loose around her shoulders as she climbs onto the mattress with him. Moonlight pours in through the high window, but not enough to light up the room. It's only a waxing crescent, after all. They are both exhausted, physically worn out and coming down from the night, but under the thin sheet they sleep in because it's summer, they face each other and kiss, their breath minty from the bathroom, her hands on his face, his hands on her waist, his cock gradually stirring, his hand sliding up her -- well, his -- shirt to cup her bare breast, which makes him stifle a moan in her mouth.
They really should stop there, but Lukas's fingers are fascinated by her nipple, feeling it harden between his fingertips. Danicka is stroking him gently through his underwear, which makes him start breathing heavily, and she's getting wet, shuddering with want, and they haven't done anything like this in nearly a month, have only just kissed each other here and there, but she's worked up and he's worked up and it's very difficult to stop this time, to slow their breathing to near-silence. She nuzzles him, holds him as they try to wind down from a brief and vivid makeout session, before eventually turning on her side, her back to his chest.
Danicka has to bite back gasping laughter as Lukas, trying to settle down and just hold her, ends up letting his hands wander a bit. She shivers, and they have to stop another couple of times before they finally manage to stop, and he has his hand under the t-shirt, but resting on her belly, holding her to him, his brow to the back of her neck.
In the morning, Danicka refuses to be shy. She wears his t-shirt and a pair of his boxers to have cereal on the couch, and Benny is mouthy as ever. She gives it right back to him, asks him what, jealous? and you're just mad I used your toothbrush, but Lukas is uncomfortable -- then angry, snapping for Benny to stop. Benny apologizes to her quietly, and she just smiles, having climbed back into her clothes, which don't smell too awesome but no matter, she'll just go home and shower during Lizzy's morning lesson. It's okay, she tells Benny, and whispers to him that Lukas will get over it, he'll get used to it. For her part, she's too happy to be shy. She hugs Hana, and Lukas drives her home, and Danicka ducks upstairs while Lizzy is learning Latin.
Saturday rolls around again. It's early June now, hot and muggy, bugs buzzing in the air, and four wolves tromp out of the car and up to the steps. It's Lizzy who answers, shortly after Benny knocks. She instantly looks for Rolf instead of anyone else, a dazzling smile lighting up her face. "Hi!" she says, which is not the sort of refined speech she's being taught to use at all, but she steps aside to let them in, grabbing Rolf around the middle in a big hug as soon as they're entering the parlor.
There's the sound of billiards from downstairs, the banter of kinsmen. "Danicka and Giselle are on the belvedere," she informs the rest of them, her arms still around Rolf's waist until she realizes she should let go. She does. Reluctantly.
LukasA couple days before the pack troops out to the plantation, there was a conversation out on the balcony between Lukas and Rolf. Rolf's side of it went something like this:
huh?
careful about what?
...what?
no... really?
no... really?
huh. ... so what do i do?
No one really had a good answer for that. In the end advice ran generally in the lines of be nice to her and DON'T ENCOURAGE HER and just hope she develops a better crush at some point. So when the pack comes up the steps and Lizzy opens the door and all but zooms over to hug Rolf, there's this incredible awkward moment where he just looks caught in the headlights. There's a panicked look around. Then Benny kicks him in the back of the heel, and he hugs Lizzy back,
very carefully and non-encouragingly,
and then lets go. Hana's wincing a little, thinking into Rolf's head about how if he acts like a stiff board all of a sudden the girl's going to think he hates her suddenly, or worse, that he suddenly really likes her, and Rolf is thinking back SO WHAT DO I DO and
Lukas tries to hide a grin. He feels bad for Lizzy. He really does. He knows this can't go anywhere, even though Rolf's a really nice guy and if they're both still around in five or seven years they might actually be happy together, since they're both so dotty. He feels bad for them, but it's just hard to actually feel bad when he's at the plantation, and Danicka is out on the belvedere, and he doesn't know wtf a belvedere is but he's sure it means really-close-by, and this is a good thing.
"Let's go in," he says, and holds the door open while his pack files past him. Rolf is last, behind Lizzy, looking stiff as ever. Lukas, letting the door swing closed behind him, claps his hands on Rolf's shoulders and kinda gives his packbrother an impromptu-affectionate roughhousing.
"So where's the belvedere?" he asks. Meanwhile Benny, ears perking at the sound of billiards, decides to head downstairs.
Lukas[doh! *adds*]
"So where's the belvedere?" he asks.
Meanwhile Benny, ears perking at the sound of billiards, decides to head downstairs. He likes pool. Plus. The Men were downstairs. And they were older. And confident. And he thinks maybe Rick knows something about girls. And maybe if he just went down there and chilled with them, Rick would start talking about girls. And he could just, like, listen and learn stuff. It never occurs to him that someone could possibly have experience about girls and not talk about it.
DanickaRight now it's hard to be Rolf. He is aware but he can't act like he's aware. He likes Lizzy but he can't like-like Lizzy, besides she's twelve years old. He has three other voices in his head telling him what to do and what not to do and it was a lot easier on him when he didn't know but, well, he's old enough to understand that it probably wasn't going to be any easier on Lizzy when he didn't have a clue.
Lizzy is blushing, sensing the pack's bond and how she's excluded from it, but she wants to show Rolf something, and he hopes to Grandfather Thunder she doesn't want to kiss him or something terrifying and wrong like that. But he gets outside with her and learns that no, that's not it. She just wants to show him the Gentlemen, and a certain knot on the wood that makes the tree groan when she touches it, and no one else hears the groan. It's always cold by the Gentlemen, until they are tended to, their grief listened to. Lizzy can't hear them. Rolf can talk to them in the spirit world. She can only hear ghosts, the dead humans that populate this state, and it is hard for her, but it was helpful for Rolf to simply explain that they are not the same thing. Ghosts and spirits that is.
Of course, before they go, she tells Lukas that the belvedere is on the roof. Upstairs, then upstairs again. Benny says he's going downstairs, and claims it's about playing pool. The truth is that both Rick and Christian know a lot about girls -- or at least have known a lot of girls. But they don't talk much about it. They're just having a cold one and shooting pool, and Rick sits out so Benny can play Christian for awhile. They ask, however, about the city, the hunting, the stories Benny has. There are few audiences as perfect as Fianna, particularly Fianna who are both acquainted with combat.
Up a flight of stairs and then a long ladder, Lukas -- and perhaps Hana -- reach the belvedere. It's quite small, but big enough for two beach towels and two girls with blonde hair and sunglasses and bikinis, a couple of bottles of water, and a little boombox playing an old Garbage 2.0 CD. Giselle's bikini is blue. Danicka's is a dark pink with white stripes. They are tanning. When the wolves come up, Danicka grins. "Hana," she says, pretending she doesn't notice Lukas, "you should totally grab a suit and join us."
LukasWhen Lukas climbs up the ladder, he's thinking to himself, ooh, so this is a belvedere. And he's rather pleased with himself, really, for having learned something new today, and then
he realizes he's up there and both girls are in bikinis, tanning, and oh god, she's in a bikini. He gawks for a second; there's no other word for it. And then he bursts out: "What the hell, you couldn't have warned me?"
Hana snorts. "You're such a dork," she says, and flops down beside Danicka. "Yeah, sure. You got one I can borrow?"
"I'm not putting tanning lotion on you," Lukas warns. "That's just gross."
"Never asked you to. Maybe Rick will."
"NO," Lukas is putting his foot down, "did you not hear the talk we just had with Rolf?"
"Chill out, I was just kidding." She gets up again after Danicka presumably tells her where to find another bikini, disappears down the ladder. Lukas stands there awkward-like for a moment, and then sits down himself. Next to Danicka.
"Hey Giselle," he says, belated. "Um. Do you guys do this a lot?"
Danicka"Warn you about what?" Danicka says lightly. "I doubt you'll sunburn, you swarthy thing, you." She grins, her eyes hidden. She and Giselle wiggle a bit to make room for Hana to flop down, but there's really not much room up here. Enough for a few people to stand. Four teenagers, two of them lying out, and it's getting crowded. "Yeah," she tells Hana. "You might want to get one of Giselle's..." but she doesn't go on and say 'because you both have larger breasts than I do', because Lukas is standing right there, but the girls all know, and for a second he has no clue why Hana should wear one of Giselle's bikinis, they are talking in Girl Language.
Giselle tells her where her room is, and where to look, and some people would balk at sharing swimsuits, but these people don't trust the power of washing machines and soap and the like, either. Nor are they hospitable people.
"Actually, I think Christian is the one who said you were really cute," Danicka mentions to Hana, just to mess with everyone. Even Giselle jostles her, and they laugh. Lukas is awkward, then he sits, and he's still awkward, and there are still two half-naked girls lying out in the sun in front of him, and this is his life, this is stuff he does on the weekends: he goes to a plantation, a mansion, and hangs out with people, including half-naked blonde girls and his best friends and two older guys playing pool and no Real Adults anywhere, really.
"Giselle has never really tanned before," Danicka says, of the previously snow-white maiden. "We've put a lot of lotion on her."
Another mental image.
She lifts her sunglasses, squinting a bit, looking at Lukas. "Maybe when Hana gets back she can have my spot and you and I could go on a walk? It's really crowded up here."
LukasLukas is actually trying pretty hard not to look at Giselle. It feels sort of wrong, plus he's all shy suddenly, and, just, everything. Danicka is going on about lotion and tanning and Lukas is thinking maybe he should strip down too, maybe that'll make things less awkward, and in fact he's reaching for the hem of his shirt when Danicka says maybe they can go for a walk.
And he's actually a little disappointed. Because he's seventeen years old and tanning on a rooftop balcony thing -- wait, no, a belvedere -- with two beautiful blondes is not exactly the worst thing in the world. And also: it's something he's never done before. Something that feels a little like a normal teenager thing to do.
So he thinks for a moment, and then he smiles. "Can we tan while walking?"
Danicka'Special' is playing on the boombox, low enough that the girls could talk before Hana and Lukas arrived, a backdrop to the summer day. And Lukas is trying not to look at Giselle, which is a good thing because Danicka is secure enough to tan with other beautiful girls, secure enough to joke with Benny about her staying over, but she's probably not secure enough to handle her boyfriend looking at a really, really beautiful girl whose breeding is through the roof, who is also basically her best friend, who she's terrified Lukas will find out she's slept with, terrified of him finding out about threesomes and thinking that it would be okay that they might have one and it scares her that he might even want something like that but how could he not because he's a seventeen year old guy.
So it's good he doesn't look at Giselle.
She still has her sunglasses nudged up and lifts her eyebrows a little as he reaches for his shirt. No, tanning on a belvedere with a bunch of girls is not the worst thing ever, but the room situation is such that if all four of them laid out -- particularly with Lukas's bulk -- there would be no room between them at all. Disappointment flickers through Danicka's eyes, then teasing: "You just don't want me to get dressed," she says, and Giselle laughs. Danicka sits up slowly, drawing her knees up, and smiles at him, draping her legs over her knees. "Come on," she tells him, coaxingly, her hand brushing his. "Let's go. Giselle will make sure Hana doesn't run off and flirt with anyone, won't you Giselle?"
The French girl just laughs again, muttering to herself in her native tongue.
LukasHis fingers wrap around Danicka's when her hand brushes his. He gets to his feet, pulling her up with him, and lifts his hand in a little wave. "See you, Giselle," he says, politer on the exit than the entrance, handing Danicka down the ladder and then following her.
It's cooler on the second floor. It is June, and New Orleans is officially beginning to swelter. Lukas finds Danicka's hand again as they walk toward the stairs, and from there, down one more flight of stairs. They can hear Hana banging out of some room somewhere after she's changed, thumping up the ladder. They can hear Benny downstairs with the kinsmen, and it's mostly him talking, of course. When they step outside, they can see Rolf and Lizzy off in the distance, hanging out near the Gentlemen, and Rolf has his hands on the tree, his head tilted back; something about his posture and the angle of his head is so canine.
"I talked to him," Lukas mentions. "About Lizzy and stuff. I think he doesn't know how to behave right now, but I think he'll figure it out."
DanickaA grin spreads over Danicka's face when Lukas figures out girlfriend want be go be 'lone wif. dis gud. She taps her sunglasses back down and leans over, kissing Giselle on the forehead. Giselle is just smiling, shaking her head at the two of them. They have this going for them: there's not a soul on the plantation who thinks them being together is a bad idea. Not when they've heard Danicka say even a few words about Lukas, or seen her after she's been around him, or seen how passionately he protected her, how good he tries to be to them all. Lizzy likes them being together because it means access to Rolf, and Danicka is also nicer now, and so forth. But they are happier together than apart. It is good.
Danicka leaves her towel up there for Hana, who is on her way to the ladder when they are getting down. They say hi, explain they're going on a walk, and after she goes up and closes the trap door again, Danicka squeezes his hand and tells him she'll grab a couple of blankets so they can lie out somewhere. She gets them from the linen closet, thin things that look like picnic blankets, soft and light. She's barefoot and stays that way, heading downstairs with him, holding his hand. Benny is talking about some hunt of theirs; Rick lets out a boisterous laugh at something. They step out onto the porch later, listening to the pond's fountain, seeing the sun glint off the heron statue, seeing Rolf and Lizzy.
"I don't blame him," Danicka says, glancing their way, looking at how worshipful Lizzy is as she watches Rolf. "I don't envy them." Them, she says. Not just Lizzy. Because she's also seen genuine fondness from Rolf to the girl, a sort of quiet respect few people give a twelve-year old, an understanding only someone like a Theurge or another medium would have for her situation. It isn't the same thing as attraction, not even slightly. But friendship, yes. Fondness, yes. And total impossibility.
She squeezes Lukas's hand, walking closer to him as they walk down the porch. He bounds off and helps her give a little leap-step across the gravel at the base, landing safely on the grass. His hands end up on her waist to help her balance when she settles her feet on the ground, her bare and incredibly warm, suntouched waist. She starts to walk with him, carrying those rolled-up blankets still, moving a little closer. "So are you going to lose that shirt?" she asks him lightly, perhaps teasingly.
LukasOf course he helps her over the gravel. In truth he wants to sweep her up in his arms and carry her right over it, but it turns out that's not necessary, so he puts his hands on her waist and half-lifts her over the sharp stones that would hurt her feet. When he sets her down on the other side, Lukas holds on just a little longer than necessary. She's so warm, and he remembers touching her like this, holding her waist like this, as they kissed on the dance floor the last time they were out together.
He remembers holding her like this the one time she rode him, a year ago almost to the day.
She asks if he's going to lose that shirt. His eyes are a little dark right now; he wants her. It's hard not to. It's a little hard to look at her right now, she's wearing so little, and he remembers suddenly how he blurted once that he wished she was wearing more clothes. He doesn't wish that now, but -- the sentiment is similar.
But he laughs. And then he lifts his arms and gives her this grin, and when she comes over to help him he bends a little at the waist so she can yank the shirt off over his head. They're close for a moment afterward. He leans in and kisses her, quick but not light. Then he draws back, and his fingers lace through hers again. They leave his shirt in the grass. He's pretty tanned as-is, at least down to the waist. It's fairly normal, he's discovered, for people to stroll around the streets of New Orleans in various states of undress.
"Where are we going?" he wants to know.
DanickaThe time she rode him, her hair was so short and that dress of hers looked so good on her, but even that was more than this bikini. Hell. The lingerie she was wearing underneath her dress was technically more fabric than she's wearing now. Her hair has grown a lot, and keeps growing, like being short was just a dim memory, and she reaches up and lets it down from where it's bound up, shaking it out and smiling at him. She takes off her sunglasses, too, letting them dangle from her free hand.
They're walking around the corner of the house, and they are rather alone now. Lizzy and Rolf are out of sight and earshot. Hana and Giselle are upstairs. Benny and the kinsmen are down in the basement. The world falls away and grows quiet all around them, and somehow it's gotten both easier and harder to be around each other like this, barely dressed. Easier because it isn't Lukas's first time, he isn't completely unsure about what her intentions are or what she is or isn't going to do to him or how easy it would be for him to screw it all up -- he's not a cub anymore, nor a virgin. Harder because they know how the other one feels. Harder because of going parking, and because of sleeping in his bed together, and because of how he groans when she touches his cock or how she whimper when he strokes her breasts.
They let go of each other's hand briefly, when he bends at the waist and starts to take off his shirt, and he's just dropping it but she grabs it, kissing him when she comes up, not wanting to just leave clothes everywhere outside. Not wanting to leave a trail. That kiss was heated. She felt it. She tosses his shirt over his shoulder and leans up, kissing him more softly, slow but not light, either. Her hand slips back into his. "I don't know," she says. "Just for a walk."
Lukas"Okay," he says. He's smiling. He likes that idea. Just a walk. They'll go somewhere - they find themselves going around the corner of the house, off toward the less-visited lands to the side and the rear of the manor house. Greenery grows a little thicker here. He breathes in and he thinks he can smell it, the rich green scent of growing life.
"I like it here," he says, and a few steps later he steps out of his shoes and socks, too, stuffing the latter in the former and carrying them in his free hand. His shirt is still draped over one shoulder. It's plain white, very boring, but it forms such a contrast against his skin. "When we first got here we actually talked a bit about maybe just ... staying here. It's not really practical. We hunt in the city and plus this isn't our territory. But sometimes I still think about it.
"Mostly," he admits, looking at her, "I think about staying closer to you. It'd be nice to have breakfast with you every day, and stuff." The corner of his mouth goes up; it's a little half-smile. "You know it's almost solstice again? I've known you just about a year. Well, longer than that, but you know what I mean."
DanickaOn the occasions that he's visited or she's gone to the city, they've gotten to go on a lot of walks. Around the French Quarter or the riverbank, around the gardens here. They stood in the old garden with the magnolia trees a week or two previous, leaning against the low wall and kissing slowly, her arms around his neck and his hands on her waist, til they heard someone calling them from the little detached kitchen to come eat dinner. They'd dawdled before going back; they didn't want to give up their time alone, and besides, Lukas had an erection to will away.
She likes that he gets so hard when they're kissing. Even if she's not wrapping her legs around his waist or thigh, even if they're not squirming and grinding together, even if they've backed off since their first date -- well, with the exception of the sleepover -- from how fervent they can be. Danicka likes that just standing there kissing soft and slow, his hands firmly on her waist so he won't start feeling her up, Lukas gets so turned on. She likes that she gives him a certain look or affects a certain tone and his eyes go dark with want. She likes it and it has nothing to do with power or control, nothing to do with manipulation. She hasn't much cared about being wanted or desired before. She likes that Lukas wants her, desires her, responds so quickly and so fiercely to her.
Also, she likes the way he looks right now. She's seen him like this over and over lately: when she slept over and he took off his shirt and threw it in the laundry pile before brushing his teeth, the muscles in his abdomen and chest flexing, moving, stretching. One Saturday here on the plantation, playing an impromptu game of kickball on one of the fields. Now, bare and tanning darker the longer summer goes on, more muscular than when she first met him and bedded him. Taller, his shoulders broader, the musculature more defined. Cut, she thinks when she sees him, and also: gorgeous.
He stops to take off his shoes, and she's grinning, laughing at the way he wiggles his toes for a second in the grass, which is still lush, this close to the river. She squeezes his hand. What he says surprises her a little -- that they thought of staying. She feels bad for thinking it, that they couldn't have stayed, this isn't her house or even Rick and Christian's, they were guests and guests are temporary, but he mentions it himself: this isn't our territory. Which means it's territory that belongs to another, and that's close enough to the same thing.
Lukas admits the real reason though, mentioning breakfast, and she blushes, looking down and away, smiling with pleasure at the memory. "You know, I've... never done that before," she tells him, looking at him now. "Stayed over with someone like that, I mean. I know... we slept together back in New York, and we slept in my bed on my birthday, but it wasn't the same. I've never really dated someone before," which he knew, "and even people I've... y'know. Been with or whatever," she whispers, her voice falling as she mentions the unmentionable, "I haven't stayed to sleep with them."
Danicka strokes her thumb against his hand as they walk, aimless and slow. "It felt so nice to do that with you. Go out with you and go home with you and wear your t-shirt and go to sleep with you. It made me feel like I'm really your girlfriend." She laughs at herself, smiling, pressing her lips together to try not to grin so broadly.
LukasThe unmentionable causes a quick pang to go through Lukas - more surprise than pain, really - and anyway it fades a moment later. He gives her hand a little squeeze as though to say: it's okay. I'm okay. And her thumb strokes his hand, and he looks at her as she talks, a slow smile unfolding over his face as she does. Whatever pang there was a moment ago is gone now. She's never really dated before. That was the first time she's stayed over. And it made her feel like she was really
his girlfriend.
"Am I your boyfriend?" he asks her. He sounds so pleased - not at all teasing; certainly not challenging the notion. Just: making sure. Asking for permission, almost, to use that sacred term.
DanickaIt hurts to mention it. It hurts because every time he comes here she knows he's hanging out with Rick and Christian and Giselle and she has no idea how he'd take it if he knew her history with them. She doesn't feel right about him not knowing, but she's terrified of him finding out. He'll be so hurt, so angry, so... she doesn't even know. He won't be happy about it, her living with them day in and day out. Putting lotion on Giselle, kissing her forehead, whispering to her in bed at night even though that relationship has become as much like a pair of sisters as her relationship with Rick and Christian has become that of colleagues, friends, protective older brothers. She wouldn't blame him for being upset, freaked out, whatever it is. She just doesn't know how they'll move on from it, either.
Her hand is close in his, though. They don't dwell on other people she's been with, just as Lukas doesn't bring up other girls, even if there have only been two. The pang goes through both of them, but it's soothed by this, at least: they are so singular to each other. So different from everything else they've ever known. So special.
Danicka laughs at the question, how pleased and hopeful and happy he sounds, how curious. "Yeah," she says slowly, laughing softly over the word, too, shy with her own happiness. "Of course you are. I thought you knew that."
LukasThere's a quick-spreading smile on his face. He's unmistakably happy, and he wants to duck his head to hide it out of some innate shyness - or not shyness, but predilection for privacy. It passes, though, and then he looks at her; gives her that smile. Gives her this, too: leans into her, his steps slowing as they come under the cover of the trees at the edge of the lawn, touches his forehead to hers and finds her mouth.
Their kisses can be so gentle sometimes. So sweet. When this one is over, he shakes his head a little.
"I didn't know," he says, "but now I do."
DanickaShe's holding his hand still, her fingers tangled with his. They both carry everything they need to in their other arms so they can maintain this contact, and when they kiss, she steps close to him, standing on her toes as he bends his head down to hers. He was taller than her as soon as they were about six and eight years old, respectively, and has been ever since, and always will be. She doesn't mind. She rather likes him like this.
"I wouldn't sleep over and kiss just any old person," Danicka teases in a murmur, a soft smile on her lips. They both know the truth of her tone, too: not now. Not anymore. And this time there's no ache in it, no pang. They don't have to deny the truth or refuse to acknowledge the shadows in order to be happy, to walk in the light.
"Come on," she says quietly, drawing him with her as she steps away, "let's go over to that garden. There's magnolias all over the ground."
LukasMagnolias.
Lukas has never seen magnolia trees, or at least never noticed them, before moving to Louisiana. Never seen their broad dark leaves, nor their enormous white flowers, which bloom most the year down here in the south. He remembers kissing Danicka in the shade of a magnolia once, slow and soft and lazy as the summer itself. He remembers how she looked leaning against the smooth trunk, and the way her hands rested at his waist just over his hips, and the way she tilted her face up to his.
He follows her now, their hands stretching between them until he catches up. She takes him deeper into the trees, past one of those crumbling garden walls where he leaves his shoes and shirt. Magnolias litter the ground, whipped out of the trees by some thunderstorm or other. And there are so many thunderstorms here, dark and hot and boiling out of the south; a wholly different sort of storm than the storms he was taught to worship. Storms, nonetheless, to which their blood is kin. He catches up another step or two as his bare feet tread the fallen blossoms; he wraps his arms around her neck and draws her back against him, lowering his head to kiss her neck.
"I've never had a girlfriend before either," he whispers. "I think you already know that."
DanickaIt was just a couple of weeks ago, that kiss. He remembers her golden hair against the dark skin of the tree, and how he had to duck as he came closer, standing up straight with his head between some of the low-hanging branches. Trees this old, the boughs end up stretching thirty, forty feet out, the shade underneath thick and black and usually carpeted by those dark, glossy leaves that fall all year round. Sometimes the blossoms come down, too, and they have to walk to avoid the huge white flowers. The scent is so pervasive in that garden, so deep.
Past the low, crumbling walls and the fountain that has been overgrown and no longer bubbles, the lilypads that hang atop the water, which is only ever refreshed by the rain. The ground is damp, and their feet are bare, but they walk on fallen bricks and on the surfaces of plants, vines of ivy tickling them. It is possible there could be snakes out here, but Danicka has never seen one, nor heard one, and if there are, they all vanish as soon as Lukas comes along anyway. They head towards that largest tree, the mother of the two smaller magnolias, and he is a sudden, thick heat behind her, wrapping his arms around her. She breathes in quickly but it isn't fear.
A moment later she tips her head to the side, smiling softly as he kisses her neck, closing her eyes as he murmurs in her ear. "Yeah," she whispers right back, her free hand coming up to cover his wrists over her chest. She nestles her head against the crook of his elbow, her cheek on his forearm, and it's nice to be in the shade now, so much cooler than the rest of the estate. In fact, so much of this garden is in shade that there's no way they could go tanning here. Sunlight comes only in streaming pockets through magnolia and oak blossoms or the shadow of the house itself, the taller trees past it. But they walk, for now, in the darker corridors between the pools of golden light.
"I like that you're my first," she whispers, her hand stroking his arm gently, affectionately.
LukasFirst, she says. Only, he wants to say, but he doesn't. It's not fair to ask that of her, not when his life may be measured in years instead of decades. Months instead of years. Not when she's waited so long, all her life, for freedom.
So he's just quiet for a moment, nuzzling her, his arms wrapped around her and his chest very warm against her back. "Me too," he says after a while. And kisses her, higher now along the line of her neck, up closer to where her jaw meets her ear.
DanickaHer back against his chest, his arms around her, Danicka has no idea that such a thought enters his mind. That first sometimes implies a second and third and fourth, just the beginning of a list. It's best that he sets it aside, though, good that she doesn't trip over herself trying to tell him that's not what she meant, she doesn't want -- because those are the very questions and answers and promises she ran away from months ago, terrified of his claim, of forevers, of being That Kin. Mated as early as possible, probably married to make it even harder for her to just run away, breeding before she's able to drink. Danicka doesn't want to think about the future. The future has things like her brother and Lukas's family and things like mateship and marriage and children. It has things like loss in it. Grief.
Right now, however, there's only the coolness of shade after walking in sunlight, and her first boyfriend warm at her back, bare skin touching bare skin, his mouth traveling slowly and lazily along her neck, kissing her ear, every motion more relaxed from practice and from security with her. Danicka closes her eyes, breathing with him, sighing on the exhale.
"Let's lie down," she murmurs, her throat flickering against his lips, the blankets and her shades dropping from her hands to thump in the leaves at their feet.
LukasWhen he smiles, she can feel it against her neck. "You know we can't tan here, right?" he whispers, but then he unwraps his arms from around her, kneels down to lay the blankets out flat. The shade is cool and dark here, the earth wet. Patches of light drift golden and green and hazy through the trees. Lukas lays the blankets one on top of the other, cushioning against the detritus on the earth. They don't need that much room, anyway.
He lays himself out, and he takes up a lot of that room. He holds his arm out for her, though, welcoming her against his body, close beside him. And he tucks his free hand behind his head, looks up through the dense leaves at the distant blue sky - mere pinpricks through the foliage.
"Remember how when we were in New York and I asked you to show me your favorite places, you couldn't think of any?" Truth is, she never told him she couldn't think of any. He knew anyway. He turns a little, smiles at her. "I bet you could show me lots now."
DanickaDanicka simply pretends she doesn't hear him say that. Of course they can't tan here. But he's the one that wanted to tan. She's the one who wanted to go on a walk. Apparently the walk part is over, though. She helps him spread out one of the blankets, large enough for a picnic and certainly large enough for them both to lie out on. The other one, for now, serves as a pillow. The ground is soft, the leaves thick and the roots hidden deep in the earth. No, they don't need that much room; when he lays himself out, Danicka kneels and comes close to his side, leaving large empty patches to either side of their bodies. His shoes and socks and shirt and her shades are over in a corner of the blanket, ignored now, and the breeze moves the magnolia boughs overhead, but only just.
Resting on her side, she drapes her arm over his middle, her head pillowed on his arm and his head pillowed on a rolled-up blanket. She smiles at him, her hair spread out over his arm. If he knew how to read such glances from women he'd see infatuation in her eyes: open admiration, affection, desire. Hints of the trust that is so hard for her to give. Danicka doesn't quite realize she's looking at him like that. She isn't turning into the sort of calculating liar she was already on the path to becoming. She's actually sort of safe here. Sort of free. And now there's this: him, spending a lazy summer afternoon with her, just laying around.
"I don't remember that at all," Danicka answers with a soft laugh. "I remember wanting to go somewhere with you where I could take off my heels and make out with you, and you taking awhile to get the hint." She grins. "You're very smart, but sometimes you are so dumb."
LukasShe's grinning, joking a little, but he smiles and thinks about it for a moment. "I just ... don't ever really expect you to want that," he says. "Want me... like that. I guess I don't really think of myself as, y'know, hot or something."
There's a little pause there, like he might say more. He thinks of people looking away from him, unable to make eye contact. He thinks of people crossing the street to avoid him late at night. In the end he says none of it, though. It seems so whiny, and anyway, he suspects she knows.
"Plus," he adds a little later, with a quiet sort of laugh, "I never really think it's possible you want me as much as I want you."
DanickaThis surprises her. He can feel it in her, when he's saying he doesn't expect her to want that. Danicka looks at him, blinking, and he's dark and there's a sadness inside for a second that she can see glimmers off like a fish below the surface of a pond. It never leaps out to the light, though, and she props herself up on her elbow, reaching up to cup her hand along his face. It's hard not to just flick his eyes down and look at her breasts where they rest in her bikini against his ribcage, hard not to feel her belly against his hip, her thighs alongside his.
"See?" she murmurs, stroking his cheek with her thumb. "You can be so dumb."
Leaning up, she half-covers him, her hair falling around their faces like a veil when she lowers her mouth to kiss him. It's a soft, small thing, grazing down his lips to his jawline. "You're gorgeous," she whispers, though she knows he's not asking her to say stuff like that, 'reassure him' or whatever that yeah, he's hot, he's wantable, she wants him. A niggling thought in her own mind wants to know if asking him to wait makes him think she doesn't want him, makes him think she couldn't possibly want him as much as he wants her, but she doesn't want to ask that question. She doesn't want to worry about it.
"And if you weren't so dumb," she's murmuring, her mouth moving down his neck, laying a careful trail for his senses to follow, "you'd think about all the times I try to get you alone, and close to me, and... preferably not wearing very much." That trail has gone down his collarbone now, traced down his chest, following the curve of his left pectoral muscle until she draws her mouth up to his nipple, brushing her lips across it, her breath humid, her hair surprisingly cool against his chest.
Danicka lifts her eyes up to his, finding his gaze. In this light, in this garden, her eyes are the same color as the magnolia leaves, the color of the greenery in shadows. And his, crystalline as ever, bright even in the darkness, pale with heat, their color so vivid she sees it in her dreams. "I've wanted you since the first time I looked at you, Lukas. So much. So much that I have to make you be the one who holds back."
LukasLukas closes his eyes to that soft kiss, closes his eyes because her body is so close to his and he could look down and see her breasts, see her pressed to him, her bare abdomen to his bare side. And his eyes stay closed as she's drifting down his neck, over his collarbone, down his chest. His chest rises sharply under her mouth when she brushes his nipple. He's hard again. Sometimes it seems he's always hard when he's around her. Sometimes he can't remember what it was like not to want her.
And she lifts her head, and he opens his eyes. His hand comes to rest gently on the back of her head, touching her hair. It's so much longer now than it was the first time he saw her, when it was razored short and chic. Now it's as loose and golden and free-flowing as summer light. Wild as the land, he thinks to himself.
"I'm not very good at holding back," he admits. The muscles of his abdomen contract, etch themselves against his skin when he raises his shoulders off the blanket. His mouth finds her. It's not quite soft, this kiss. There's such want in it, his heart beating slow and heavy in his chest. Then he falls back again, exhales slowly. "I try, though."
DanickaShe wants to tell him that all she has to do is start thinking about him and she begins getting wet, fantasizing about nights like the one in Benny's car, his hard thigh pressing against her cunt, giving her something to rub against. She wants to tell him that over the past month she's had to bury her moaning into her pillow while getting herself off with her hand or a pillow between her legs. She wants to ask him if he noticed that when she slept over with him she was moving around even before he started kissing her, trying to feel his erection against her, wanting to make so much more noise than they could allow themselves.
But more than that, she wants to kiss him like this. The flex of his body when he leans up to press his mouth to hers makes her all but groan, her breath quickening as she kisses his mouth and touches his chest and tries to be subtle about how her hips press against the outside of his thigh.
"You've been doing fine," she says gently, smiling in faint amusement despite her arousal. Danicka watches him a moment, then runs her hand down his side, caressing him from chest to waist, molding her palm over his hip. Then she whispers: "Are you trying right now?"
LukasHis hand catches hers against his hip. Holds it there like he's afraid she might reach into his pants. Or worse, afraid that he might urge her to in a second. He doesn't snark, he doesn't smirk, he doesn't even try to joke about it. Lukas is very, very serious when he says, "Yes."
DanickaDanicka's hand flickers under his grasp, resists in a way that in another five years would shock him, would shock anyone. A Kin -- and one like her, weakwilled and young -- resisting his strength, resisting a command. Right now it barely warrants mention, that there is that flicker. She just watches him, knowing he's hard because she looked at him, she felt him when she was kissing his chest, she thought about touching him then, stroking him through his clothes like she did over at the packhouse in his bed -- til he made her stop, that is. No wonder he catches her hand now, before she gets started, before he can't even dream about making her stop.
She doesn't give him a one-liner. Doesn't tell him to let go or stop. Danicka closes her eyes and leans over him, kissing him again, soft and tender. She moves her hand from his grasp and lays it on his chest, and this time she doesn't pull away from the kiss after giving it. It deepens, still slow but firmer than before, warmer. She's laying half atop him, the fabric of her bikini top sunwarmed til it's as hot as her skin, resting on his chest.
LukasThis is inherently dangerous. They're alone out here. They don't have to worry about the upholstery in Benny's car. They don't have to worry about the packmates hearing, or the other kin seeing. They don't have to worry about her monstrous brother, the man so petty and cruel that he did such things to Danicka's beloved books,
and when she told him that not so long ago Lukas was silent with shock and anger and grief, silent as he held some book forgotten in his hands, his brilliant eyes on her face, until the story was done and he was setting the book aside and wrapping her up in his arms, holding her close against his heart. He can't heal the past. He tries, though. And he tries so very hard to protect the present, protect her, protect their precious motes of freedom, of innocent, of what it is they have together.
But to think: he doesn't even know half of what Vladislav has done.
They don't have to worry about any of that. Here, the only thing that holds them back is their own selves. Their own desire for a little bit of restraint, a little extra time, a little bit of innocence, a little bit of romance. But it's so hard to remember why when she's half atop him in her bikini, when she's warm and golden and pouring over him like that.
Her hand finds muscle and bone and blood and heartbeat; finds the breadth and thickness of his chest different from what she remembers from New York, different even from what she remembers just weeks ago. He seems to grow and change every day. He's hitting his last growth spurt now, the one that will take him up most of a foot over her, and sometimes when he lies still at night he imagines he can feel his very bones creaking in his body, stretching themselves out millimeter by millimeter, hardening, resolving.
His hands run down her sides. He takes her by the hips and moves her atop him. She's wearing so little his hands touch mostly skin. The illusion of nudity is maddening. He is utterly hard against her lower abdomen, his cock an unmistakable shaft of heat and rigidity in his jeans, and when she slides over him his hips lift a little; he rubs himself against her thoughtlessly, groaning against her lips. Their mouths fall apart for a second. He's rubbing her ass, squeezing her flesh in his palms, and then his hands are coming up her back and he's kissing her again as his fingers search for the knots on the back of her bikini.
"I won't try to make love to you," he's whispers, promising her this even as he's fumbling with the strings and the ties there. "I just want to ... just let me ... "
and then he pulls the cups of her bikini top down, the strings pulling loose over her back, falling over his sides; he's taking her by the sides, his palms over her ribcage, shifting her up her body to bring her breasts to his face. His mouth is on her nipple immediately. The first instant is almost too much, so intense, he's sucking so hard at her and then he gasps an exhale, forces himself to slow down, holds her over him and opens his mouth, panting as he plays his tongue over that nipple, teases it to hardness,
closes his mouth again, sucking slow and warm now, moaning muffled against her flesh like he were the one being pleasured.
DanickaNo, they don't have to worry about any of those things. No one is going to wander after them. No one is near enough to hear or see them. They're alone, and their skins are still warm. They have this blanket laid out, another one close by if they should get cold. No secondary worries can come to their minds; just that perfect, singular, primary need they have to protect something innocent and sweet in each other. To go on dates, to park at the riverfront, to kiss and explore each other as though it's the first time, it's new. And it feels new. Every single time, somehow, Lukas's hands on her skin send the same thrill through her, like no one's ever touched her quite like that before.
Danicka is kissing him as though she wants to make him feel that, too -- and she does. To make him feel so new and so clean, like he's never done anything he's regretted, like he isn't a monster and a killer. She wants him to feel like he's just a boy, clueless as to how beautiful he is, how hot. She wants him to feel a little bit normal, a little bit like a regular teenager whose greatest concern is not the welfare of his pack and the lives of the mortals in the city and the survival of Gaia, his god and his life, but just whether or not the pretty girl he likes will like him back, and maybe not just hold his hand but let him touch her, kiss her, fondle all the soft parts of her that seem to fit so perfectly to his hand. There are worse things in life than worrying about and obsessing over stuff like this; she wants him to forget.
Her hands move over him slowly as he lets her drown herself in kissing him, marveling at how warm he is even in the shade. She's starting to find it hard not to breathe heavily, not to moan aloud, just kissing him, working herself more onto his body inch by inch, as though not to overwhelm him all at once. Lukas runs his hands over her body, too, which is much the same as it was. She's curvier than she was a month ago, on that first date, not quite so taut. Her features are a little softer, her breasts and her ass a little more satisfying somehow when he puts his hands on her. Not so skinny. Not so close to the border between 'mostly okay' and 'kind of unhealthy'.
And Lukas can feel, too, how she gasps a little when he picks up her hips and moves her onto his body, moves her against his body, rubs himself on her with a groan. Danicka feels momentarily dizzy, gasping into his mouth and giving a little grind of her hips to rub herself back on him. They're being pretty quiet, considering how much they don't need to be. They've gotten a little bit of practice at not being too loud.
Then his hands stroke up her back and she moans in anticipation, one of the headiest and most affirmative signals he could be given right now. The knots come undone easily with a little tugging, the fabric dry since she wasn't swimming anyway. One under her shoulderblades, another dangling down from her neck, and he grasps at them both, tugs them away. Danicka isn't stopping him. She isn't telling him they should slow down, maybe they shouldn't take off any more clothes, no, wait, no. She lifts herself from his chest as he's pulling the cups of her top down, reaching between them herself and just taking it away. The fabric strokes over his chest for one, two seconds, and then is gone, tossed out of their way.
Lukas makes a promise, trying to tell her what he wants, but she is pushing herself up with her hands on the blanket by his head, rustling the leaves underneath, lifting her breast to his mouth, shuddering as he finds her and suckles on her. "Ow," she whimpers, a whine that is half pleasure despite the word's indication of pain, her back arching. Her hips press down on him, rubbing the front of her cunt against his cock through far too many layers of fabric.
And he slows. He calms a little, drowsy and demented at once with the taste of her nipple, licking it, stroking it with his tongue, melting her in his mouth. Danicka gentles, too -- she wants more, but she doesn't rush for it. She closes her eyes, holding herself right there for him. After a few long seconds she draws herself back, just enough to bring her other breast to his mouth, brushing her nipple over his lips to urge him to do the same here, suckle her, taste her again.
LukasIn that moment between, when she's drawing back and shifting over him, Lukas's eyes open. They are wildly clear in this light, dazed with arousal. He cups his hand behind her neck and brings her down even as he's flexing up to her, meets her in the middle, kisses her mouth while his hand slides down to cup the breast he's just tended.
Then he's kissing her neck, kissing her collarbone - it's a far less finessed trail he leaves for her senses, but he makes it to the breast she brings to his lips; wraps his mouth around the nipple and sucking at her again. His eyes close. His brow furrows. His free hand is open over the center of her back, pressing her closer, holding her right there like he's afraid she might draw away if he didn't, and all the while his mouth is on her, his tongue strokes her, laps at her as hungrily as any animal. He sucks at her until he can't take it anymore, and then with a groan he turns over, turns her under him, it's all sudden and energetic, just a little rough.
Her back hits the blanket. He's over her, sliding between her legs, the roughness of his denims against the insides of her thighs. There's one fragile layer between her cunt and the front of his pants; entirely too many layers between that and his cock. He moves against her anyway, rubbing against her in a sort of erotic delirium, moving his hips like he's fucking her while his mouth lets her nipple go. He gasps and kisses and licks his way across her chest. Takes her other breast in his mouth again. Tugs and plays with her nipple: his fingertips, his palms. The flat of his tongue, and sometimes the very tip of it, delicately circumscribing her nipple - sucking her breast back into his mouth, suckling at her as rhythmically as he grinds himself against her.
Somewhere in the middle he breaks off just long enough to find her mouth for another kiss, like a diver coming up for water. And then he's going to her breasts again, tirelessly, endlessly fascinated, like he's addicted to her taste and the sounds she makes; the way she arches under him.
DanickaShe was hoping for this. Exactly this, though the precise thought didn't enter her mind until he started kissing her breast. When Lukas rolls her under him without pausing for permission or apology or promise not to go too far, a shiver goes through Danicka's body. They fall together so easily, the leaves under their blanket noisier than their gasping -- so far, at least. She has her hands on his sides, running up his bare back, moaning softly at the feel of him. The last time she touched him like this he was wearing his underwear in his little twin bed and they couldn't have slept with much distance between them if they'd wanted to. God, he was so hot under the covers, clenching his jaw to stay quiet when she licked his nipple and touched him over that incredibly thin layer of cotton, able to trace out the entire length and breadth of his cock through it.
And he's hot now, too, hot to the touch and the sun and trees behind him when he moves over her is mesmerizing. Danicka can feel everything he's doing to her so intensely through the sole scrap of fabric she has left on her body, and she's afraid to open her legs and wrap them around him because then he might say they should stop, he might pull away or stop grinding against her like that, so she just squirms under him til she can feel his erection right up against her cunt and tries not to scare him off. She doesn't want him to stop this: touching her breasts, licking them, but she does take his face in her hands and moans when she pulls him up to kiss him, as though she's the one saying just let me... I just want to... now, gasping out words before she lets him kiss her breasts again.
Which he does, after that long and drenching kiss, lowering his dark head back to her chest, trying to stay satisfied with this, just this, for as long as they can stand it.
Danicka strokes her hands all over him, endlessly, touching his chest, reveling in his arms, caressing his sides until she finds the hang of his jeans on his hips and pushes her hands into them at the sides, feeling the articulation of motion every time he thrusts. It reminds her instantly and powerfully of how he moved when he fucked her the first time, and she has to close her eyes for a moment against the dizziness that washes over her then. Her cunt clenches, a little whimper escaping her as he sucks the underside of her breast, discovers how she gasps when he licks her there, stroking his tongue up and around the outer side, where her skin is so very, very sensitive.
Her hands drift between them, interrupting his grinding, her fingers exploring the trail of dark hair from his navel down under the waistband of his pants and his underwear. She doesn't quite reach in yet, doesn't take him in her palms, but she kisses his temple, urges his face up from her breasts to kiss his mouth, over and over, soft kisses it's hard to pull back from enough to tell him: "I want you in my mouth," which comes in a whisper, her hand moving between the roughness of his denims and the softness of his underwear, the heat and hardness of his cock still half-hidden from her touch. "Will you let me?"
LukasThis is something Lukas doesn't really know how to do. It's something he learns half by instinct and half by attention: putting his mouth on the parts of her he can't help but taste; listening to the way she breathes, feeling the way she moves under him to learn, little by little, and mostly unconsciously, what exactly she likes. That's how he discovers how sensitive the undersides of her breasts are. And that she likes it when he licks her so slowly, when he sucks at her gently rather than hard.
And - that she wants him to roll her under him just like this. There's such intensity in her, and he can feel it even though she's holding back, she doesn't want to scare him off. She doesn't want to scare him off. There's an irony there, but it's beyond him right now because she's rubbing herself back against him, gasping as she does so, she's reaching between them and kissing his temple, kissing his cheek, kissing his mouth when he lifts his face blindly to hers.
When she reaches into his pants he gasps into her mouth. She's barely even touched him before he's moaning aloud, bucking his hips to thrust against her hand.
She tells him what she tells him. He draws back from her suddenly, and the look on his face is difficult to decipher: it's want and it's need and it's something almost like worry. He looks at her a second. Then he puts his hands on her breasts, cups them and kisses her hard enough to press her back against the blankets
before he's rolling off of her, flipping on his back and bringing her atop him again. They're literally rolling around on the ground, in the shade of magnolia trees, on a blanket over leaves and fallen flowers. He didn't think things like this happened in real life. He's panting, his chest moving under her as he kisses her again, again, draws back just enough to gasp, "I don't know how to ... how to give that back to you."
DanickaAnd this is so new to her, too: the way he explores. The way he doesn't know. Sometimes he fumbles a little, like sucking her so hard that it comes close to stinging before he gentles, before he listens, feeling her body and the different forms of tension it can take. The way he finds that good tension, the arching and sweet and aching tension that comes before a moan, instead of the bad tension when she doesn't like something. The way he has to figure out that total relaxatoin, total lack of any kind of tension, is actually worse than a little bit of pain, is actually just boredom, lack of response, something that doesn't really do anything for her.
Thankfully that's rare; just him being this close to her, his skin so naked against hers, his mouth so hot and his cock so hard, makes it next to impossible for Danicka to be unresponsive. Just him being there with her turns her on. Makes her wriggle under him, shuddering as she kisses him.
But it's so new to her, to be with someone who isn't older, who isn't experienced, who isn't just doing what he'd do to any pretty girl. Being with Lukas -- even just kissing him -- is something entirely different. He pays closer attention to her than anyone she's ever been with. When he licks her a certain way it's as though he remembers acutely and instinctively how she responds. He pares away what doesn't work, holds on to what does, til every time he touches her it's the right way, it's the best way, and it makes her a little bit dizzy when he reaches for her, wondering how he'll make her feel next.
When he pulls back, Danicka looks a little stricken, worried. Words like no, don't, it's okay, we don't have to are springing to her lips, pleading with him to just come back, don't stop. But he doesn't stop. His hands come and cup over her breasts again, massaging them gently in his palms, and she relaxes into a silent purr underneath him. Her hand went still on his cock when he pulled away suddenly, but now she begins stroking him again, warm and pleased that he's not going to stop. It surprises her when he rolls over again, and she pulls her hand out of his pants to touch his chest for balance, caught off guard and out of rhyhm. She opens her eyes again, looking down at him, blinking at what he says.
Danicka just shakes her head. "We don't have to worry about that," she tells him, leaning down to kiss him again, softly this time. Gently, as though she's pausing to take a breath, to calm down a little, slow down, breathe. "It's not a gift exchange, baby," Danicka murmurs, her hand smoothing his hair back, then moving back to his shoulder, laying over his bicep. "It's not something I'm giving to you, it's... something we're doing. Together. You don't have to worry about reciprocation." She moves her mouth to his neck, nuzzling him there, a moment of infinitely sweet tenderness in the midst of all this heat. "That isn't how it works."
That isn't, she means, how she wants it to work between them.
Danicka puts her mouth on his chest, opening her lips over his nipple and licking it slowly, tasting his sweat and his skin. "But I'll teach you sometime, if you want." She's drowsy against his chest, drinking in the taste of him, her eyes closing while she kisses his nipple like that. After awhile she opens her eyes, looking up at him. "Will you let me suck your cock now?"
LukasThere's nothing slow or drowsy about the way Lukas is reacting right now. His lower abdomen jumps every time her forearm brushes him. And when she starts to touch him, starts to stroke him through his underwear, his eyes shut, his head thumps back, he has to clench his jaw not to cry out.
There's something so loving about the way she kisses him then. And the way she touches his hair, stroking it back as she pauses to take her breath, pauses to let him calm down a little. He's all but panting, and there's a thin film of sweat at his hairline, on the flat of his breastbone between his pectorals. She explains that this isn't a gift exchange, and he laughs, a thin and breathless sound. She explains that it's not about reciprocation.
It's about -- well. She doesn't explain that, but when she kisses him again, nuzzles him, he feels it. He understands. It's about this. And he brings his hand to her hair, touches her very gently, nodding.
"Okay," he says. Okay: he wants to learn sometime. He always wants to learn. He doesn't want to be that Ahroun, the idiot that only breaks faces. He doesn't want to be that boyfriend, the asshole that only takes without giving. And then his chest rises under her cheek, his heart pounding against her ear as she licks his nipple.
Then: "Okay," he says again. And licks his lip, the lower caught between his teeth as he meets her eyes and tries to figure out how he's going to survive this.
DanickaHe's so overcome. It makes her tender, makes her want to laugh and makes her want to kiss him and tell him it's gonna be okay, but she doesn't do those things. Danicka just kisses him again, lowering her mouth to his nipple when he says okay over and over, that word he likes so much, that word that works so well for everything. She smiles to his chest, knowing that despite what she says he feels like he's being given a gift. And that's okay, too. He finds it hard to believe she could ever want him as much as he wants her. He can't make himself believe that Danicka could possibly want his cock inside of her as much as he does, but maybe he'll learn.
She has, at least, a couple of ideas on how to teach him.
Her hair sweeps down his chest, her hands down his sides, as she -- quite suddenly -- slides down his body. They are going farther now than they have since last year, and they aren't even naked yet. Danicka hasn't seen Lukas naked since they made love in New York City, in fact, has only touched or felt his cock through varying layers of his clothes, and she's dying to see it again, feel him again. Her skin is vibrating, or feels like it is, with eagerness for this.
She can't even think to kiss her way down his chest or his abdomen, going quickly to the fastenings of his jeans and unbuttoning them, carefully drawing down the zipper. "Lift up a little, baby," she murmurs, tugging down his pants. For a moment it seems like she's just going to yank them down, get them down enough that she could get to his cock, but then in an instant she decides to draw them all the way off, moving further away from him and pulling them off his legs. They get tossed as aimlessly as the top of her bikini was, just... out of the way.
Then they're gone. She crawls back up between his legs on her hands and knees, biting her lower lip a bit. She smiles up at him then, as if she's shy, and -- truthfully, she is. It's been so long, and he didn't let her do this before, and the first time was so different because it was all so new to him and he didn't know what to do and couldn't guess at what she was going to do and it wasn't anything like the pornos and she was just hoping he'd be calm enough that she could enjoy it, too, but
it's so different now. And she's so happy. It's even a little jarring to her that she can think clearly enough to be happy, to be delighted, to feel anything but lust, but she's glad, too, that she can. She doesn't want to just be mad with lust for him, to be overcome with how much she wants to just fuck. She likes knowing who he is. What this is, between them.
They are both naked but for the bottom of her swimsuit, his boxers, and their are noises like birdsong and the breeze in the trees and the lapping of water against the sides of a fountain but the sound that matters most to her is his breathing. Panting. She kneels where she is, looking at him, her hair hanging down her shoulders. The truth is that she'll never forget how he looks like this, laid out on a blanket in an abandoned garden with her, summer all around them, so warm that it's hard to remember that winter is different, that summer doesn't last forever.
Danicka hooks her fingers under the waistband of his boxers and begins drawing them down, very gently, stretching the elastic over his erection and sliding them down and off his legs, trying to control her breathing now. And he's naked. She can't take her eyes off of him, even when she reaches to her hips and undoes the ties there, too. She removes the bottom of her bikini as well, bares herself as much as him, trembling slightly. Her eyes are on his eyes when she leans over him again, her hands on his thighs, his hips, her breasts brushing against his cock, and the light in her eyes flickers with some deep, unspoken feeling. Her hand wraps around him, her palm stroking up his shaft, down again, gasping at how hard he is, how fucking hot his skin is.
"My god," she breathes, stroking him like she can't stop, jerking him off the way he's done to himself hundreds of times, shuddering at how he responds. "God," she gasps again, and lowers her head, licking a swelling drop of precum from the tip with a long, flat stroke of her tongue. "Oh, my god," this time a heady groan, just before her mouth wraps around his head, her tongue swirling around him within her mouth.
LukasLukas lets out a huff of a laugh as Danicka strips his jeans off. He doesn't miss them. Truth be told they're entirely too thick for this weather, this clime; heavy denims that last him through a Catskills winter, but wholly inappropriate for a New Orleans summer. She tosses them aside and they slump heavily to the blankets, settling slowly. She's back on him then, crawling up over him, and he's breathing so hard and fast she can see his entire chest moving with every inhale, every exhale. He swallows as she reaches for the waistband of his boxers, which are rather plain indeed: simple Hanes, comfortable and loose and rumpled, not the least bit designed to look good.
She's so careful, taking them off. He'd thank her if he could still think, but he can't. He lifts his hips and she stretches the elastic over and down, and for a second his hand is on his cock, somewhere between arousal and some instinct for modesty. A second later he lets go, sinking back down on the blanket, staring at her. Staring at her face; staring at her hands moving down to undo her bikini bottom, flicking to the side as she tosses that away, too. This is dangerous, the two of them getting so very bare like this, but he's in no mood to complain or warn. He's just trying to remember to breathe.
And then she makes him forget. She puts her hand on him, rubs her palm over the shaft of his cock, and his skin is velvety soft there but his flesh is so hard, and when her fingers wrap around him it's like she pulls some trigger buried in his very nerves, drops his head back, makes his eyes close, makes him gasp in time with the strokes she gives him.
A rasp of a shout when her tongue catches that drop of precum. Despite everything she said, every sign she's given him, he doesn't expect her mouth to touch him like that. He can barely stand it; his whole body jumps, the muscles of his stomach flexing sharply in. His cock jumps against her tongue like it has a life of its own. She has her hand around the base of his cock, though. There's nowhere to go, and then her mouth is opening and he raises his head to look at her, looks just in time to see her mouth close over him. The feel of it rolls his eyes back, sends his head back, makes his hips lift from the blanket and thrust thoughtlessly against her mouth before he gets himself back in control, forces himself back down, reaches to grab the blanket on either side of his, knuckles white.
"Oh god," it's his turn to groan this. He's not sure he's ever been so hard in his life, his cock thick and curving in her hand, beating with every beat of his heart. His heart is beating out of his chest. He thinks he might die soon, he thinks there must be no blood left in his body for anything but his erection, and then her tongue makes that swirl around the head of his cock and Lukas makes a sound like pleasure is tearing itself out of his very skin, grabs fistfuls of the blanket, thumps his head back against the ground so he doesn't try to simply fuck her mouth.
"Stop," he gasps. "Stop, stop. Gimme a sec. Baby. God, I'm gonna -- I'm going to come if you don't -- if you don't stop."
DanickaThere's no reason for Danicka to be naked. She doesn't need to lose her bikini bottoms as well in order to do this. It could be a signal of something, some plan of hers, but it's less calculating than that. It isn't calculating at all. She simply saw him, bare and warm and dark against the blanket, and she wanted to be naked with him. They haven't been since waking up and showering that morning in New York City. It will be a year ago tomorrow -- well. Will be a year ago tonight, actually. A full year where she's been naked but he's been in boxers or they've stripped down to underwear and a t-shirt or rubbed against each other in their clothes, but not this.
Actually it's never been like this.
She wants to tell him later that they're going to get him some shorts. They're going to get him more than a few t-shirts and that one button-down he's going to wear holes in if he keeps wearing it on dates, nevermind the fact that he's still going to outgrow it, is almost too large for it now. She wants to tell him he deserves to have more than he gives himself, and she'll help. She wants to give it to him. They may argue about it, but not right now.
Right now, they are also not going to worry about thank yous for how thoughtfully he untied her bikini instead of snarling, trying to just get it off, get it down, get it away from her breasts so he could lick her. No need to stop and thank her for not letting elastic snap on his skin, she would never. No need for any of that. They just need this: to remember to breathe. To not yell too loud. To stay close. To touch. To be together. That's all they really need.
It's hard for Danicka not to just keep stroking his cock. She wants to do that, too. She wants to lie alongside her boyfriend and kiss his mouth while he touches her breasts and she works on him with her hand, making him moan and gasp until he comes. Time enough for that later, too -- she has no intention of letting the world go by without having this in her life, without feeling him like this, without making him come as often and as hard as he'll let her. It's intoxicating. It's addictive. And she hasn't had it for a year.
She's never had this. The taste of him and the texture of the head of his cock both lay on her tongue and make her moan, delirious with arousal. She is having trouble remembering that there are people within a hundred miles, that there are people on this planet at all. His cock is jerking in her mouth and that makes her want him more, too, makes her use her hand on him while she settles her tongue and begins to suck, slowly working her lips down his shaft. It's wet and it's so very warm and it's different from her pussy -- in part because every time she moans he can feel vibrations go from her lips through the surface of is skin.
When he thrusts she just moves with it, surprised only for a second and then swallowing more of his cock, groaning deeply around him as though urging him to do it again, even though he's trying so hard not to, she's not a girl in a porno after all, she's not a slut, she's Danicka, but while he's grabbing onto the blanket for dear life she's reaching between his legs and stroking his balls, cupping them warm in her palm. Her mouth slides up, down again, up, her tongue swirls around his head again and he starts begging her to stop.
Danicka nearly pulls her mouth off of him in shock. She even chuckles, low and muffled in her throat, because they've barely even gotten started. The exhale from her nostrils tickles his skin and her hand tightens just a little on his cock, squeezes him with a long, slow motion up towards her mouth. Stop, stop, he's pleading, and at first she thought maybe she should, maybe she did something to hurt him or his pack is calling him, but then he goes on, tells her he's going to come, and she thinks
oh. that's all.
and goes on like she didn't hear a word he just said.
LukasLukas wasn't kidding. His balls are tight in her hands, the muscles of his ass and thighs clenched hard under her body. He's trying to hold back but it's a hopeless battle; it's never been like this before, he's never had anything like this before, not even the one time at the rite of reawakening when that girl took him into the woods and left him more confused and bereft than ever. He's never had anything like this before, period, because it's never been Danicka before.
And she goes on like she didn't hear him or didn't believe him, but he wasn't kidding and he starts to tell her so, starts to say Danicka, I'm serious, I --
I ... I ... oh god, I'm gonna -- baby, I'm gonna --
and then it's just groaning, openthroated and mindless. Short bursts of senseless noise, his consciousness devolved down to basics: the impending orgasm clawing its way up his spine, the way his hips are bucking of their own accord. When it hits, it rolls him under like a tidal wave, sends his hips arching off the blanket, his back flexing; he's shouting his pleasure, delirious with it, coming in her mouth or all over himself, everywhere, making a mess of himself, nearly ripping the blankets in his hands.
Almost exactly one year ago, they talked about how he shouldn't wait for her. They didn't even know if they'd ever see each other again, then. She didn't want him to wait for her, and he joked that she just didn't want him to come in a minute again, and she laughed and was too merciful to mention he didn't even last that long.
It's been a year. He hasn't made much progress there. Then again, the last time he's had any sort of sex at all was pretty much the second time he ever had sex, and it was months ago, and it wasn't with her, and since then he's been on a handful of dates with her and he's made out with her and once she's slept over and reached into his pants and nearly drove him out of his mind with wanting,
except his packmates were right there so they couldn't do
well. This.
In the wake of his orgasm his hips are still bucking, thrusting in short instinctive jerks. His cock is jerking against her hand, he's heaving for breath, there's a fresh sweat breaking out all over him. His cheeks are flushed under his tan, his natural swarthiness of complexion, and when his eyes open the sky overhead is wheeling. He barely knows who he is, let alone where or how. He remembers what just happened, though, and remembering, untangles his hands from the blanket and brings them up, covers his face for a second.
"Shit." He's still panting, and he lifts his head an inch or two, looks down, sees her, sees himself bare and wet from her mouth and still twitching. He's not sure he even lasted ten seconds this time, let alone a minute, and his cheeks are starting to burn. "Oh, fuck, I'm sorry."
DanickaThe first time they were together she kept thinking of ways that might help him last longer. She offered to do this for him first, maybe get him off, get over that first hurdle of maddening arousal so that when he slid inside of her he could survive it, but he didn't want that. He wanted to be in her, and she understood that, she wasn't even bothered by it or disappointed. He wanted to make love to her, not get off in her. And then later she told him to think about something else, sandwiches or baseball but he didn't want to think about anything else, he didn't want to detach and go away in his thoughts, he wanted all of it, right there, and she understood that too. She even appreciated it. She even wanted to give that to him, all of it, because he'd never had any of it before, and in the face of that it didn't matter if he lasted more than half a minute.
She doesn't know about the girl around New Year's or whenever it was, she wouldn't really care much if she did. It isn't that she doesn't feel connected to him or -- truthfully -- a little possessive of him already. It isn't that she wouldn't shatter at the idea of him fucking around now. It's just that she meant what she said in New York about not asking him or even wanting him to wait. She wanted him to at least have someone else, not so much to compare but ...well, so he wouldn't be alone, for one thing. So he wouldn't crave her solely because she was all he'd ever known. But mostly because she couldn't bear the thought of him alone, no one touching him, no one making him feel good, and it doesn't make much sense but she wouldn't care about that girl at all, particularly because, well... Lukas doesn't.
Danicka does not think he's kidding though, or that he's just freaking out over nothing. She can feel him in her mouth and her hands, how taut he's pulled, how needful he is. Every time he lets himself thrust a little, and how he grinds his hips into the blanket trying not to. She wishes a little that he'd touch her hair, but the fact that he's grabbing the blanket is kind of hot, too. She wonders vaguely what he'll taste like when he comes, and if it would hurt his feelings if she spat it out or if he'd be turned on to see his cum on her breasts. This is what she's thinking, not oh he must be kidding. She's thinking about the smell of his sweat and the thickness of his cock, god, she remembers how it felt inside of her cunt, too, and that's mindblowing right now to think about.
Lukas is begging her to believe him, and then he's just begging her, and then he's just groaning, panting, his cock giving several final jerks and her throat relaxed, her hand on his hip to help contain his movement a little, her other hand moving on him still, milking him in a way he probably didn't know before now a girl could do, and it's not Almost too much, it just is, it's all too much, too much to bear.
She never leaves him. Her hands all over him, her mouth on him. He can feel and hear her gag a little but she doesn't stop, she just breathes out and in and takes him, takes all of him, well --
so it's a little bit messy, but not very much. And she's not stroking him anymore but just sort of gently holding him, her mouth sliding off and she's swallowing, gasping a little, reaching for the edge of the blanket and wiping off her mouth a little. But her body is still between his legs and her touch is still on him and she's blinking a few times, coming back down to earth as though she's the one that just came. He's the one that's shaking, though, trembling and dizzy.
She comes closer a little bit later, her mouth wiped off and her hands moving up his sides gently, her body curling to his side, her leg draped over his thigh, her arm wrapping around his middle. She lays against his shoulder and his chest as he's covering his face and it makes her blink again in worry. Danicka is, no matter how much they try to give each other innocence, so inexperienced as to wonder if she did something wrong, it wasn't good, she made him feel bad. But she is a little confused. She's nestling herself against him and he's saying shit, swearing and apologizing and blushing and looking a little bit miserable but mostly just a lot embarrassed.
Danicka, for the second time in about ninety seconds, pretends Lukas just hasn't said anything. She closes her eyes and lays her head down on his skin, delicately keeping her mouth against his chest and not searching for a kiss anywhere. She breathes in the scent of him, sweaty and aroused and warm, and exhales.
"Miluju te, Lukáš," she whispers, holding him. Staying.
LukasHe didn't think such things existed outside his fantasies. He didn't think such things existed, period; never even fantasized about half the things she's done to him. And for him. He didn't think she'd stay with him the way she did, her mouth and her hands and all of her, all of her, he could feel how focused and close she was that whole time, never once just going away from him and getting him off to get it over with.
Now she's the one coming back down to earth, coming back down with him like she's the one that came, and he's gasping for breath and embarrassed and wishing he could last a little longer, wishing he didn't just come almost without warning, wishing he didn't make her gag a little with the force of his thrusts. None of that stops him from wrapping his arms around her instantly as she comes up to him. None of that stops him from kissing her brow, and though she doesn't search for a kiss,
he does.
Whether she lets him kiss her or not, he holds her like he can't bear to let go. And when she says what she does, she can feel the words shoot through him like electricity. He pants an exhale out. He can't think of anything to say, so he says the first stupid thing in his head, and he sounds so happy:
"Really?"
DanickaOf course in the pornos and the fantasies the girls don't really need to go on existing after you come, and certainly don't crawl up and wrap themselves around you, arms and legs and nuzzling you, whispering to you that they love you. Even the real-life girl at that rite over a year ago just kinda... got up and went away, leaving him alone and confused, ashamed and embarrassed. Danicka always stays. Even on the nights when she's had to start pulling away from him lest they just not stop and go All the Way, she moves slowly, like a sudden movement will startle him. She holds his hand even when she has to stop kissing him. She does this, after he's come in her mouth and apologized profusely, agonized by his own lack of stamina.
That all flies out the window, though. It doesn't matter what the other girl did, it doesn't matter how long he lasted, none of it matters anymore. Danicka's right there, and she does let him kiss her but she keeps her mouth closed, sort of surprised but grateful and tender. So very tender.
Her eyes are the same color as magnolia leaves as they part, and as he wraps himself around her, smiling, his eyes and his face lit up from within. Of course he asks the stupidest question, and she's getting used to this, she likes that with her he's got this soft spot, this vulnerability, this part of him she wants to protect because he spends all this other time protecting her, taking care of her, guarding for her what she never had a right to ask for
simply because she asked for it, and it would make her happy.
Danicka smiles, and just nods wordlessly a couple of times, then nuzzles her face back into the side of his chest, closing her eyes like she's just going to take a nap now.
LukasSo of course now he wants to say it back. But the words are stuck in his mouth. They feel so alien, so awkward; he's never said it to anyone before. It's not something you say to your family. Not what she said, anyway. It's not something he would ever say to some girl that doesn't matter, some girl that, really, he sort of regrets. Both of them.
She doesn't want him to have been alone this whole time. She doesn't want him to be unloved, to not feel good, all that. But he wasn't alone. He had his pack, which he would not have had if he'd never met her. And no one else has ever made him feel the way she does. In a very, very real way, she altered the very course of his life when she stepped into it. And it almost goes without saying that someone this significant, this important, this beloved, is quite simply his love.
He still wants to say it, though. But she's resting now, like she means to sleep here. He'd like that, he thinks. Sleep right here, lazing on the blankets, the sweat on their skin evaporating slowly into the humid summer afternoon. He strokes her back, and he strokes her hair, and before her breathing has evened out too much he whispers,
"Miluju te, taky. You know that, right?"
DanickaThis is the sort of thing he hasn't even heard his parents really say to each other. Maybe on an anniversary, or something, but it's so... intimate. So private it's hard to imagine hearing anyone else saying it, ever, unless they are saying it to you. The Czech people don't throw these words around. In everyday they say mám te rád, that's a little less personal, a little more like the peck on the cheek it's okay to give in public even if you would never embrace your lover quite as closely as you would in private. He's never had anyone say that to him. He's never said it to anyone.
The same can be said for Danicka, and yet the words came so easily, were so warm as she wrapped herself around him, like she'd been thinking of them for awhile now. But that's the truth of the matter: she has been. She looked at him lying there, naked and wanting, and she wanted to tell him then that she loved him, she was in love with him. Instead, she bared herself when she didn't need to, laid down naked with him under the tree, and waited until after she'd brought him satisfaction. There's some kind of logic at play in all those little decisions: the decision to wait, the decision to take off her clothes -- but Danicka couldn't quite explain them if she were asked. She just knew, somehow, that it would be better to wait. Perhaps until after he knew that she wasn't going to get up and leave him. Perhaps until after he could use his brain again.
The way he's stroking her, though, is making her lose the ability to use her brain. She's drowsy, literally feeling as though she just came. Even her arousal is banked, calmed -- satisfied. Some part of her flickers, wanting to tell him she's never said that to anyone, she's never loved anyone before, but she thinks he knows, and his hand feels so good in her hair, on her back. She shifts a little closer, breathing with him. He whispers to her and asks her a question, and she just nods against his chest, her nose brushing the side of his pectoral muscle.
She knows.
And a little time passes. She wants very much to sleep with him here, drowse away the summer afternoon til someone starts shouting their names from the porch or the kitchen. So she breathes in, and exhales, and murmurs: "Will you cover us up with the other blanket?"
LukasLukas wonders how it's possible that he feels so calm right now. So peaceful; so satisfied. Everything he's ever heard or read or seen has told him sex is a very stereotyped progression: you go from making out to oral to fucking, and then to afterglow. That doesn't seem to be how it works for them, though. Sometimes they get here without even having achieved any sort of orgasm. Right now, they're here even though he never touched her, never gave her anything back for what she gave him.
It's not a gift exchange, she said earlier, smiling. So he tries not to think of it that way; tries not to think of it as a process, something that must be played out in whole.
She asks if he'll cover them up. He turns his head, and then he reaches out, and then she feels the blanket settling into place, draping across their midsections, their thighs. It's too warm to tuck up entirely. He kisses her again, softly, her forehead and then her mouth, and then her nose. A very small, playful peck, that last one. And smiling, he lays back.
"Miluju te," he says again, softly, as though learning the words for the first time.
DanickaDanicka has felt this before; at least, part of it. This odd satisfaction of her earlier -- and intense -- arousal without ever touching herself or being touched, simply by reaching the peak of someone else's orgasm with them and then easing them back down to earth. It's rare, though, and doesn't come without a certain level of tenderness for the one being pleasured. And right now, with Lukas, it's evolved into something else entirely. She feels as though she's come, she feels as though she was the one laying back and being attended to, she feels very loved, and she feels the newest and strangest and scariest and yet most comforting thing of all: she loves, too.
If they were trying to move through their love life together like some sort of checklist, they've already gotten it completely out of order. They met and they were friends, then they were torn apart by circumstance, then they made love, then they had a crush on each other, then they broke up, then they fought and refused to speak to each other, then he snuck into her room, then she poured out her heart, then they slept naked together, then they went on their first date. It's all a muddle. There will probably never be a perfectly sane progression of events between them. Truth be told, when Danicka first saw him and glimpsed that 'happy trail' of his when he almost took his shirt off on the belvedere, she thought of bringing him out here to have sex with him. She got two blankets in case he was shy or they needed to cover up quick. She wanted to make love to him for the first time -- again -- in this garden with its willows and its protective magnolias.
But that wasn't what happened, and in a way she's so very glad that isn't what happened. She's glad this is what happened. This is what they have and where they are. She feels vaguely virginal, nevermind that she just made her boyfriend come in her mouth, and she feels something like innocent, curling up in the crook of his arm to nap the afternoon away between two picnic blankets. This is good. This is right. This is what was supposed to happen. She smiles as he settles back down with her and kisses her face over and over like that, whispers: "Stoppit, I'm sleeping," which makes him grin, and lay back down, holding her in his arms no matter how warm it is.
Lukas says he loves her again, and she nestles that much closer, til she can hear his heartbeat through his chest. She thinks he's a very good boyfriend. And she means to tell him this, but it never happens. She falls asleep first, into a light drowse.
There is a slight breeze -- they haven't hit the worst of summer yet, where the air is heavy and still and oppressive with humidity -- that rustles the leaves of the trees. Waxy, dark green ones fall down around them, onto the blanket. The blossoms droop downward, white as porcelain. Bugs land on the surface of the water in the old, silent fountain, then take flight again. The sun moves overhead, shifting the sloping planes of light that come in through the walls and the branches around the garden.
And later on, perhaps an hour and a half or two hours later, Lukas wakes first. Someone is calling them. One name then the other. Daaaanickaaaa. Luuukaaaas. It's Benny, his voice both cheeky and able to carry farther than most people would imagine. Luuukaaaas. Daaaanickaaaa. We're gonna have luuuunch sooooon. It's really mostly for her benefit: his packmates have already prodded his mind, teased him, asked if he and Danicka want to stay ~*~aLoNe~*~ awhile longer.
She's stirring against his side but refusing to 'wake', and he's nudging her after awhile. Danicka finally does open her eyes with a tender smile, looking up into his eyes. She won't kiss him, wrinkling her nose and wiggling, so he kisses her neck instead, holds her under the blankets and hollers back or tells Benny through their totem that they're coming, jeez. They almost let themselves get aroused again. They almost start to stroke each other and touch each other again, but Danicka takes a deep breath and squirms away, getting her bikini back on. Lukas helps her tie it, though she could do it herself. He's already back in his boxers, his jeans, tugging on his shirt as though the more clothes they have on the more they can pretend they weren't doing anything while they were ~*~aLoNe~*~.
Eventually they do bundle up the blankets and grab each other's hands and head back up towards the detached kitchen. Danicka finally does give him a small peck before she runs into the house to change and wash up, rather desperate to brush her teeth. Nobody gives Lukas much crap -- at least, the other kinfolk don't. Lizzy is suspicious but at least accepts that they were napping. That makes sense to her. Rick and Christian -- well. It's none of their business, and Giselle is quite satsified that her BFF will probably tell her some of it later anyway. Mostly people are busy just getting plates and chips and sandwiches ready, passing around sodas or beers from the icebox, and when Danicka comes in she's dressed in shorts and a t-shirt, still barefoot, finding a spot at the table next to Lukas and scooting close enough that their legs touch, trying not to smile too much. Trying not to glow and make everyone ~*~WoNDeR~*~ what they ~*~DiD~*~ when they were ~*~aLoNe~*~.
It doesn't quite work. She does smile. And she does glow.
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