thanksgiving (iii)

[Lukas] Lukas's protests against the kolache story are half-hearted at best; he doesn't really mind if people know. When Anezka teases about how proud he was to be wearing Vladik's old clothes, though, he does tense. It doesn't matter that he's stuffed, or smashed, or enjoying the company of his family-pack -- he's still protective. He's still wary, ready to shut down any discussion of Vladik that might spoil this meal, this night,

and he still relaxes when Danicka reaches over and squeezes his hand under the table.

There's no discussion of Vladik, anyway. Perhaps it's Jaroslav that notices the tension in his son, or Marjeta, but the conversation moves on so smoothly no one even really notices, and pretty soon they're talking about who's going to get the pie and kolache, and if they don't stop arguing about this soon they were going to dry out in the oven.

So Danicka goes. And Anezka. And the pies are apple and cherry, because no one actually likes pumpkin pie -- the one piece of this holiday they haven't adopted even after all these years -- and the kolaches come in a variety of flavors, but there are significantly more orange ones than strawberry or raspberry or cheese or even lemon.

If this were a dinner party at the Bellamontes' --

well, if it were one of Kate's dinner parties, there wouldn't be any argument because the maid would bring the food out on wheeled serving carts, on napkined silver (or silver-colored, anyway) trays, with tea. But this isn't the Bellamontes', and it isn't anyone else's, and Danicka's openness tonight -- her fearlessness -- is something that quietly amazes Lukas.

She serves him first. He doesn't stop her. He hasn't stopped her all night when she tried to give him more stuffing, more turkey, any of it; but then, he's been serving her right back, along with his family and, a little more grudgingly, Daniel to his right. "Mmm, orange koláče," he says, as though genuinely amazed by the presence of such a thing. Though that last serving of turkey left him sprawled out in his seat, too stuffed to move, Lukas seems to perk right up again at the prospect of sweets.

The pace of dinner and conversation is slower now. Danicka is half-leaning on Lukas, whose arm eventually drifts from the back of her seat to her back altogether, lying heavy and warm along her spine as his fingers rub slowly and gently over her neck. Across the table, even Anezka's slowed down. She tells the story quietly, smiling often, Daniel adding pensive thoughts here and there. It's about some internship she had over the previous summer. She and her mentor had provided legal counsel to some scandal-embroiled VP to whom Daniel was executive assistant. That's how they met, Lukas can infer, though that's not what the story is about. The closest Anezka comes to telling that tale is to say,

It wasn't even some Shadow Lord firm or something, though I wouldn't put that past the Lords of L.A. And then, reaching over to brush Daniel's sandy hair back from his brow -- a small gesture, thoughtless and wordless and familiar, It was just a nice little coincidence.

Lukas's eyes are a little thoughtful, then. He studies his sister's face for a while, then looks at Daniel. Then lets his eyes drift, settling eventually over the remains of dinner on the table.

After that story's done, a quiet blankets the gathering. Danicka's hand plays with his, and he catches her fingers gently between thumb and forefinger. She stirs; he looks at her.

"Yeah," he agrees, when she calls the meal wonderful. And he smiles -- one of those slow smiles that open his expression right up, rare outside of intimate circles such as this. "It really was."

He takes a deep breath, then, propagating the subtle social signal she'd sent. Dinner's over. The hour is surprisingly late. Lukas looks at his mate and sees that she's getting tired after a day of travel, an evening of conversation. Sees that as open as she's been all night, as far as she's let everyone at this table in, she might still be ready for a little more privacy. A hotel room that was hers, and Lukas's, and no one else's.

"We should probably head out soon," he adds. "We haven't checked into the hotel yet." Then, mostly to Anezka, "Let's help clean up."

-- but then that sets off another goodnatured argument, and in the end it's Daniel who insists, because -- as he puts it -- all he's otherwise contributed was one plate of pierogi. Then of course Anezka stays to help, and then Marjeta gets busy packing enormous amounts of food into a takeaway container for Lukas and Danicka.

"I forgot to give you the tour earlier," Lukas says as they're herded out of the kitchen/dining area. "Do you want to see my room before we head out?"

[Danicka] Maybe Lukas will have that private conversation with Daniel. Maybe Jaroslav has already asked the young man about his 'intentions'. Maybe it won't matter unless, or until, Daniel seeks some kind of permanence with Anezka that he knows he will have to ask someone other than Anezka for. So it is. And it's unfair, just as it's unfair that Danicka had to stomach being given from one man to another, play along with the Nation's little game of pretending to own anything at all.

If nothing else, she can understand why any Kin might consciously prefer a mate like themselves, someone who can understand. But Danicka never, until a couple of years ago, thought about preferences when it came to her own eventual, inevitable mateship. Never considered love as a factor, nor even a possibility. And it wasn't some internal rebellion against being given to a terrifying monster because of her breeding. It was her. It was always her. She was the one who was broken.

Danicka watches Anezka brush that bit of hair back from Daniel's brow and stays where she is, leaning fully into the crook of Lukas's arm now. She gives a slow blink, and exhales softly, a soundless sigh.

She's sleepy. From warmth, food, alcohol, and from finally relaxing. Lukas could tell throughout dinner she was making an effort with Anezka, that she liked Daniel, that she didn't quite know what to do with Marjeta other than be polite, and that that was mutual. He could tell as soon as he walked out of the study that she felt a certain instant affinity with his father, and if he thinks back, none of this is terriby surprising: she was always close to her father. She immediately took to him in childhood, while resisting the advances of friendship from his sister, and she was always polite but distant with his mother.

Knowing what he knows now, having seen her with Katherine and Mrena, knowing that her closest friends in adolescence were also male, just knowing Danicka, it all fits. It all makes sense. And more than that: it's all okay. It doesn't mean she dislikes Marjeta, doesn't mean that she loathes Anezka. In fact, given how relaxed she's become through dinner, Lukas can tell what the others might not be able to see through Danicka's general aloofness: that she does, in fact, like them. That she does, in fact, feel all right about being a part of this family.

But he also knows how exhausting that is for her. He's seen her after arguments, after exposures of honesty even just between the two of them. He's seen her when she's given something of herself, or let people in, and how drained it makes her. The attempted coalition wounded her because she tried to reach out to others and felt rejected, accused, dismissed. Telling him the truth, early on, used to wear her out so greatly she'd end up trembling. Raw.

Danicka isn't shaking now, or looking strained at the edges. She's nowhere near that person anymore, nowhere near so easily shattered just by letting others see her as she is. But it's still something that tires her out, and he knows her well enough to want to take her somewhere, take her away, let her recharge. And knowing that Danicka can still refill her stores of energy even when he's there, that she can recover in his presence, that he isn't one of the things that wears her out --

well. If he can see that, then he can feel that, and need not put it into words.

Danicka nuzzles Lukas just before he stirs to get up, to help clean up. She insists on helping, too, as she didn't even bring a beverage, much less help cook. She rinses out wineglasses and shot glasses, washes them gently and quickly in the sink while Anezka and Daniel clear the table and Marjeta starts packing away food. But when the glasses are clean, the rest of the work still remains to be done, but Danicka is being shoo'd out anyway. She links her arm to Lukas's, thanking them, and he's mentioning the tour, and she's smiling up at him.

"Are you sure it's okay to have girls in your room?" she asks, teasingly, her eyes twinkling as a grin plays at the corners of her mouth.

[Lukas] Danicka feels all right about being a part of this family. This family, it's very obvious, is also very all right with her being a part of it. Already considers her a part of it. Her offer to help is accepted with thanks -- it's neither denied because guests are guests and guests don't work, nor accepted as due because mates are mates and mates are unpaid help.

She rinses wineglasses and shotglasses. Lukas, roped into staying too, helps cover up the various bowls and dishes and plates and trays, stealing another orange kolache or three as he does. It becomes very obvious why there are so many of them: otherwise, no one else would get to try them. Or, more likely, Lukas would end up disappointed because he was taught better than to hog them.

A little later, on their way up the stairs again, Danicka teases her mate. Lukas laughs, then affects a serious face.

"It's okay if we don't close the door all the way," he says, "and my mom might pop her head in the door now and then to make sure I'm not doing anything untoward."

Their weight makes the creaky stair groan again. The light is still on in the study, but Lukas leads Danicka the other way, briefly bumping open Anezka's door. "I think my parents use this as the main guest room when my sister isn't here. That's her desk from when she was little, but they put all her posters and things in the closet."

The bed has been taken apart, the top and bottom mattresses set a few modest inches apart. The room is very crowded between the bed and the desk and the suitcases; Daniel's suitcase is relatively neat, though all his clothes are wrinkled in it. Anezka's suitcase seems to have exploded.

"This is my parents' room down here," Lukas adds, against pushing the door open to let Danicka have a look. It's a little larger than the other three bedrooms, but only by a bit. Enough room for a large bed, a dresser, a vanity for his mother, and little else. Everything is neat, except for some clutter on Jaroslav's nightstand. The bed is made.

"And this," Lukas pushes open the last door, "was my room. I think my parents are mostly using it for storage now."

In some sense, the room is a little reminiscent of Room 2 at the brotherhood: small, room only for a desk and a twin-sized bed; boxes stacked in the empty space until they have to squeeze their way in. Lukas leads Danicka in, though, flopping unabashedly down on the bed as he tugs her down to sit on the edge. Or squeeze in beside him.

One poster is still up in the room: on the inside of his closet door, out of sight when the door is shut. Apparently, 13 year old Lukas liked the Offspring.

"My books used to be there," he points at the little shelf in the corner, "and I used to do my homework on that desk. The boxes are actually pretty appropriate. My room was always full of stuff. Dirty laundry pile there, clean laundry basket there. Flannel shirts were in, so they were always spilling out of my closet. -- Hey, my basketball." He points into the closet, up on the highest shelf.

"I think my parents kept most of my stuff. They're probably in these boxes. I'm pretty glad they didn't keep my room like a shrine, though. That would have creeped me out."

[Danicka] "Well, we can leave the door cracked," Danicka says agreeably as they head up the stairs, placing each heeled foot carefully on each step. She didn't drink a terrible amount, but she drank steadily along with dinner and dessert. She toasted with shots of vodka as well as wine. She walks slowly, and she holds Lukas close as she does so. "We'll just have to keep our ears open for your mom," she adds.

They drift briefly by Anezka's room, and even more briefly by his parents' room. She's already seen his father's study, and it's clear from her distantly interested eyes that she's just waiting to see Lukas's room, really. Which is where he takes her next, nudging open the door and taking her inside. Like most bedrooms in houses like this, it's small. Lukas never got a tour of her family's house, and his memory likely makes it larger than it is, but even with its yard in back, the bedrooms upstairs were never all that big. In terms of scale, walking through the Kvasnicka house is reminiscent, to Danicka, of her own.

She follows him to the bed, a smile playing on her lips as they leave the door -- as discussed -- about an inch cracked. It's been a long, long time since this was Lukas's bedroom. It's been a long, long time since he slept here, or lived here. He flops onto the bed -- which seems to have been made, just in case minds were changed about staying here overnight -- and Danicka neither sits on the edge nor squeezes beside him.

Her hands still held by his, she rests her knees against the edge of the mattress, standing between his legs, and just turns her head to follow his hand pointing around the room. Bookshelf, desk. Dirty laundry pile, clean basket over there. She huffs a faint laugh when he mentions flannel shirts: "I can't even imagine --" but she doesn't finish the sentence. Doesn't really need to. Danicka leans back a bit to peer up into the closet, where his old basketball sits.

Turning back to him, Danicka listens, even as she's lifting one leg and then placing her left knee carefully beside his right hip. Her right leg follows suit, knee resting on his other side. She doesn't sink down against him but keeps her thighs and back aligned, looking down at Lukas. "Sort of sad, too," she says, like an agreement. Her hands come feather-light to his jawline, and she bends to give him a small kiss on his right eyelid.

"Thank you for bringing me here," Danicka says quietly, her cheek close to his temple, her lips near the upper curvatures of his ear.

[Lukas] This is exactly the sort of compromising position his parents would have worried about if a teenaged Lukas brought a girl home and into his room. The slow crooked smile on his face says he's about to comment on this when Danicka climbs over him, but it shifts into something a little more felt, a little bit sad, when she answers him.

His parents would hardly worry now if 'anything untoward' happened. His mother would outright celebrate if he knocked Miloslav's girl up, and in a way that's just as sad as keeping this room untouched would have been. To some degree, at least for Marjeta, a child serves the same purpose. It's a piece of him that can be left behind long after he's gone.

Lukas doesn't say anything of this, though it flickers in his eyes. His hands rest warm and sure on his mate's hips as she leans down to him, and he closes those sky-colored eyes of his when she bends to kiss him. Afterward, they stay closed; he nuzzles against her face as she whispers in his ear.

"I'm glad you're here," he replies, just as soft. Neither of them are necessarily talking about this room. He might not even be talking about this house.

[Danicka] When Lukas was thirteen, Danicka would have been something like fourteen and a half, on her way to fifteen. A high schooler who, if she were anything then like she is now, wouldn't have given him the time of day. But the thing is, Danicka now isn't even like Danicka now. Danicka is the sort of woman who gets excited about her new microscope and buys three hundred dollar pairs of shoes like she's picking up a new loaf of bread at the grocery store. Danicka likes math. Danicka takes apart alien weaponry in her spare time. Danicka's favorite movie is The Fifth Element.

Danicka then didn't wear glasses and wasn't a member of the A/V club, wasn't part of any clubs that might distract her from her duties to her family and after age sixteen a part of anything that might distract her from her work for the Sokolovs. Danicka at fourteen was best friends with a Fianna boy who was older than her, tall and dark-haired and on the baseball team. Danicka at fourteen, had she known Lukas at thirteen, would have been so on her guard around another of Thunder's kin that he never, ever would have gotten to know who she really was, or what her life was really like.

None of which would have precluded her ending up in his bedroom like this, his mother walking by often just to make sure that her son didn't get fresh with the little sister of a promising Cliath, daughter of a lauded and recently deceased Ahroun. It's possible that, if Lukas had never Changed, if he'd turned out to be like his parents and sister, the dynamic between them would have been profoundly different.

She would have been such a prize as to be far, far out of his league. Not even a chance. Vladislav never would have given her to a kinsman.

I'm glad you're here, Lukas murmurs, and Danicka stays where she is, her hands on his face, her face close to his. She's still for a moment, but then she's coming to lie down atop him, her forearms on the mattress beside his head. She kisses his mouth now, slowly. Softly at first, but parting his lips with the tip of her tongue, opening her own mouth to his.

[Lukas] There's no hesitation in the way he meets her mouth, lifting the back of his head from his bedspread to find her. No hesitation, either, in his arms wrapping around her, or the way that kiss swerves dizzily deeper, or the way his hands tug the back of her blouse up, then push beneath to open over her back.

He does pause, though, when his fingers graze the clasp of her bra -- or lack thereof, if that's the case. Lukas falls back with a quiet little pant, then, smiling.

"I think," he says softly, "we should head out now."

[Danicka] Lukas is drunk enough to loll lazily at the dinner table, to have lost the competition against his father, to have walked slowly with Danicka up the stairs. The last time she saw him this drunk -- well, he was even drunker than time -- he was putting his hand inside her dress at a Polish restaurant, kissing her just like this even though they were far from alone at the time. The last time she saw him really drunk, he shapeshifted in the car to sober up so that he could drive her home safely.

Which didn't stop him, for a moment, from fucking her on the hood of her car at a construction site in summer, the two of them working up a sweat that made them slippery to the touch. He didn't need to be drunk to want that. To be willing to do that. To be driven so mad with lust that nothing else, from the moment her put his hands on her, mattered to him.

With the alcohol still in his system, it's entirely possible that with Danicka warm and pliant and willing on top of him, Lukas might soon enough decide that they don't need to go anywhere, that he could just get up and close his bedroom door and have her

right here on his bed, biting back groans and trying to go slow so the springs don't creak,

not that any of that would stop the rest of the household from guessing exactly why Lukas and Danicka haven't come back downstairs yet. Which, really, is probably what's stopping him from shifting her off of his body and getting up to shut the door all the way.

And it does have to be Lukas who is stopped, right now. Danicka is wearing the thin satin bra he watched her put on this morning in her apartment, and her kisses are getting more heated, her hips rolling to press against him, rub her body against the length of his. Her blouse is gauze-thin, fluttering above his hands when he tugs it up and reaches underneath. She bites back a moan, exhales a little gasp instead, arching her back to push that much harder on his body even as he's panting and laying back again, stopping himself. Stilling himself.

"We have to at least wait til your erection goes away," Danicka tells him quietly with a lazy grin, reaching between their denim-clad lower halves to caress him. She dips her head again, biting gently at his lower lip, suckling it afterward as though to comfort the very flesh she just rolled between her teeth. "I could help you with that," she whispers, surprisingly playful.

If they stop and listen, they can hear his family downstairs. Anezka's laughter, above all. Hard to stop and listen, though, past heartbeats and breathing. Past the sensation of Danicka stroking his cock through his jeans.

[Lukas] "That's not helping," he whispers back, but his eyes have fallen closed; the look on his face is that sort of rapt, inward attentiveness as all his senses focus down to this one thing, that singular sensation of her hand on him through his jeans.

His lips part when she bites at him, then sucks at him. His eyes open after a moment and then -- with a quick, animal alertness -- flick toward the door, consider the presence of his entire family, mother of god, downstairs.

They think she's a good girl. They think she's Miloslav's obedient, quiet, frail little daughter. They think she's blossomed into a remarkably self-possessed and confident young woman, and they're a little surprised at this because she was such a shy little girl. They have no idea who she is, even if she's let them so much farther inside than she ever usually does.

Lukas's hand wraps behind her neck. He leans up to kiss her, sudden and hard and laughing silently all the while.

Then: "Do you still carry condoms? I don't want to make a mess."

[Danicka] For awhile Danicka just kisses him, writhing gently against his body, hardly oblivious but completely indifferent to the fact that the door is ajar and that there is no possible way to extricate themselves quickly from this position should they hear footsteps creaking up the stairs. She smiles as he protests that she's not helping, but then her mouth is on his again, warm and inviting as the rest of her.

Truth be told, she doesn't expect him to let this go on. Doesn't expect that Lukas will succumb to her. Not indefinitely. Maybe he'll get to the point where he can't hold in his groaning and then gaspingly beg her to relent, to just come with him to their hotel where he can fuck her properly, where they can be loud, where they can take their time. Danicka is half expecting all of that, but she doesn't care much either way.

There's something indescribably erotic to her about this, exciting in the way that so many illicit activities are to her. She's unbuttoning his jeans and drawing the zipper down because he hasn't told her to stop, please

yet

so she considers him fair game for now, until he truly and firmly tells her to wait.

Her mouth is on his neck, her tongue flicking his earlobe, her lips sucking a small fold of his skin, as he's glancing towards the door, thinking that his mother and father and sister and sister's boyfriend are all downstairs cleaning up dinner and talking and chatting and enjoying one another's company

while he's up here in his childhood bedroom with a pretty girl rubbing herself against him, reaching into his jeans to touch him through the agonizingly thin cotton of his boxer-briefs. The pretty girl who used to be a frail child, who is a bit distant but very polite and generally friendly. She's a good girl. If Lukas weren't her mate, they still wouldn't think she's the sort of girl to worry about, the sort of girl they don't want their son hanging around.

She's a good girl, and he's parting their mouths long enough to laugh silently, to ask her if she still carries condoms with her, and Danicka just smiles at him, a trace of sharpness and wickedness in the flash of her teeth.

"In my purse. It's on the floor," she tells him, and squeezes his cock when she kisses him again.

[Lukas] There is a certain excitement in this, undeniable. It feels like high school all over again, except Lukas never went to high school. He's never done anything like this before, ever. First he was too young to be sneaking girls up to his room, and then he was growing too frightening, and then he was simply a cub, and no longer lived at home, and as much of a second father Istok was to him --

what was it Jaroslav had said? We raised our boy until he was thirteen. Then the Tribe raised him.

-- it wasn't he same; he never would have cared if Lukas decided to bang some pretty girl in his spare time. Istok's rules were simple enough: guard your kin. Don't dishonor them. Punish them if they step out of line, but don't harm them for harm's sake. And don't ever forget they're not the same as you, not your equal. Don't forget the hierarchy.

In that regard, Istok was not so very different from Danicka's mother. And Lukas's views toward kin, toward humans, even, are still evolving to this day. Danicka's a part of that, too. She's a big part of it.

All of which goes to say: this is new to him, completely. He's as excited as he might have been ten years ago had he been born human, fumbling his way into a pretty girl's pants. She's smiling at him, an edge of carnivorous wickedness in that flash, that grin, and his head is falling back with a barely-caught groan when she squeezes him,

but it wouldn't matter if he'd groaned anyway because she would have swallowed it.

Then he's toppling her off of him, the springs on that narrow bed creaking once -- tellingly -- making him huff a laugh and whisper shh, shhh as if it would do any good now. He's getting up and tucking himself halfheartedly back into his pants as he crosses the small stretch of floor and shuts the door all the way, as softly as he can, before he's coming back and scooping her purse off the floor and digging haphazardly through it until he comes up with a condom.

He's back on his back a moment later. He's pulling her on top of him, unfastening her jeans and tugging them down, whispering just a quickie, okay? and we have to be quiet. I'm never going to live it down if they find out while he's reaching into her pants and stroking her the way she stroked him, rubs his fingers over her clit and kisses whatever sighs and moans she's holding back out of her mouth.

[Danicka] If they stopped to talk about it -- which is unlikely, really, as much as it is unnecessary -- it would come out that this is new to Lukas, new and exciting and fun. It would come out that it's new to Danicka, as well. She was hardly a slut when she was in high school, wasn't a bad girl, really. She knew better. Feared her family enough. It wasn't until she moved in with the Sokolovs that Danicka started the deviant behavior that marked her for years, and by then, well

she wasn't fucking high school boys. The world of bedrooms with band posters and guys on this team or the other and girls who weren't quite sure what they were attracted to yet -- that was long gone for Danicka. The men and women she was going home with or slipping into bathroom stalls with weren't shy, and no one cared about parents finding out anything.

Truth be told, Danicka's childhood -- her adolescence, really -- had weathered too much by the time she was fourteen to thrive. It existed on a sort of trickling life support system, threadbare and struggling, and then died completely the moment she opened her eyes as her brother healed her from the worst beating he ever gave her. By the time she miscarried, she had no innocence left for that latest sorrow to take away.

So much playfulness, so much freedom, so much joy is in her life only now, and only with him. She guards it with mind-melting ferocity sometimes, hid it away for the longest time lest it be damaged or taken from her or broken. She trusts it more now. Trusts Lukas to protect it, too. Even shares it sometimes, letting -- for example -- his family see just how happy he makes her, how content she can be when she leans against his side.

This, though, they can't see. The novelty and delight she finds in coming up to his bedroom while his parents are downstairs, sneaking around to make out, to touch each other, to writhe and grind on the bedspread while Lukas quickly devolves from saying they should get out of here to not. Giving. A single fuck.

Neither of them have ever done this before. Not like this. And if they really were teenagers they would be fumbling, but Danicka's hand is too sure and Lukas is too aware of keeping himself quiet. They kiss, harder now, more desperate, til Danicka is rolled off of him and starts -- even while he's crossing the room to shut the door -- unbuttoning her jeans, wriggling them down her hips and peeling her panties down, pushing everything to her knees, laughing noiselessly as he's rifling through her purse to get the little foil packet out of the same little zippered pouch where she keeps some extra makeup and breathmints.

Danicka bites her lower lip, grinning, as Lukas gets back on the bed with her. They both still have their shoes on. Danicka lies there with him, her newly bared skin hot to the touch when he reaches for her, kissing him and helping him push his jeans and underwear down, too. Just a quickie, he says, and quiet, he says, parting her thighs with his hand so he can play with her pussy. Danicka kisses him hard, suddenly, burying a moan in his mouth when he finds her clit, panting into his mouth as he strokes her. Her hand finds his cock again, bared now, stroking him a little faster than before, a little less seductively, a little more wantonly.

When she can compose her voice she pulls back, licking her lips, wetting her mouth again. "I should've worn a skirt," she mutters, regretfully, and then: "We should lie on our sides."

[Lukas] "Okay," he murmurs, and, "here, let me -- "

He rolls the condom on, then, and even after a rather long time without practice he's better at this than any teenager would have been. When he stretches it down he smooths his hand over his cock just a few times too many, and then he's panting quietly against her mouth as he's, quite frankly, stroking himself. It takes effort to stop. It takes her hand on his cock, working him with more deliberation now, more wanton and more wanting, before he finally turns to the side. Turns her inward, putting her between himself and the wall as he always does, as though even here, even now, he thinks of protecting her. He thinks of keeping her safe.

She's tugged her jeans down. She's unsnapped his, pushed his jeans down too. He's still in his sweater, and he's grabbing his shirt-tail with his hand and pulling that up to bare more of his lower abdomen, bare more of himself to her when he moves in behind her. He puts his cock against her then, his hand guiding the head of it between her legs, against her clit, slapping the shaft of it gently against her cunt as he pushes up on one elbow and leans over her to find her mouth and kiss her.

"Fuck," he whispers, and a grin skates across his mouth, and even in that alone she can see it: new, exciting, not something he's done before, "this is so hot."

Then he's kissing her again, harder, guiding himself against her and pushing into her on one smooth thrust. His palm comes under her thigh -- pushes her leg up, pushes her thighs apart as far as her jeans will allow, opens her up to receive him more deeply as he rocks into her. It's hard to bury that groan in her mouth, keep it unheard.

[Danicka] Next to him, Danicka notices that as he rolls the condom onto himself he can't help but start to jerk himself off, and she huffs a small laugh, one low and tinged heavily with wanting. She pushes against him, kissing him more deeply, her hand joining and then displacing his, as though retaking possession of him. Mine.

She doesn't want to turn away from him, all things being equal. If Danicka had worn a skirt she'd be lifting her leg around his waist like this instead, lying on her side still but facing him as they fuck. She'd keep her arms around him, kiss him without stopping, bite her moans and whimpers into his shoulder, bury her face in his chest to keep from screaming.

And maybe when they get to their hotel later that's what she'll do, that's what she'll want in whatever big, soft bed they've rented for the night. Maybe she'll want him on top of her, maybe she'll bend over the edge of the mattress and pant for him as he pounds her. Maybe she'll fall asleep as soon as they've showered, her head on his chest and her body limp with warmth, with contentment.

Right now, though, she rolls over easily, shivering slightly at the feel of his body against her bare ass. "Yeah," she whispers, in agreement with nothing, unless it's the sensation of his skin touching hers. There's no word to the noise she makes when he slaps his cock against her, just a hard shudder going through her as she clutches the thin bedspread beneath them to try and rechanneling some of the desire to open her mouth and cry out.

Lukas swears as he rubs himself on her, and already Danicka's expression looks so far gone that she can barely process that grin of his, but she kisses him hungrily all the same, moaning in his mouth. Even the words he says seem to make her more wet, sliding slick across his cock every time he pushes his hips forward. She wriggles slightly to get her pants down to her ankles now, wrestles as quietly as possible on the bed with him so that he can open her legs wider, slide deeper into her.

Danicka's hand is on the nearly-flat pillow, the linens still cool to the cheek. Her fingers clutch at it when he pushes his cock a little further into her, her breath hitching as he looses groans into her mouth. She gasps the air out of him, rolling her hips slowly, slowly as she can bear, to try and keep the bed and herself quiet. It doesn't stop the soft whimper of oh god from leaving her mouth, and it doesn't stop her from whispering

"Put your hands on me, Lukáš. I want to feel your hands all over me."

[Lukas] It's not just his hands he puts all over her. It's his mouth, his body -- as though those words lit off some fire in him. He's plunging his hands under her shirt, grasping at her stomach, her side, pushing her bra up out the way so he can fill his hands with those perky little breasts of hers, holding her breast so he can feel the way her heart pounds when he reaches between her legs and starts fucking her with his hand, starts stroking her while he fucks her with his cock.

And he does. Fuck her, that is. She's worried about keeping the bed quiet; he's distantly and remotely worried about spending so long in here there'll be no question, none, in anyone's mind what they've been up to. He's distantly and remotely worried about going downstairs flushed and sweaty, a little too happy even for a nice dinner with family; he's worried about all this but it's all so distant, so remote, that it might as well not even be on his radar.

His mouth leaves hers. He bites her shoulder through her blouse. It doesn't matter that he's vaguely worried about leaving a damp spot there, or toothmarks. He seizes her with his mouth as he covers her with his body, all but rolling her under him now, and he clutches at her and holds on to her and strokes her while he starts pounding her, hard and deep from the start as though she'd driven him to some mad height he can't get down from any other way other than to plummet.

"Oh, my god," he breathes, underlain with a groan -- might be he doesn't even realize he's echoing her. Faster now, pushing the rhythm relentlessly upward, "I want to feel you come. I don't care if everyone knows. I want to hear you coming on my cock."

[Danicka] She thought about asking him to fuck her like that -- face down on his mattress, fucking her hard, fucking her like an animal, their clothes just yanked down and pushed aside. The only reason she didn't was because she wanted to be able to feel him touching her. She wanted to be able to twist her head and kiss him, put her hand in his hair and hold his head right there to maul his face while he fucks her.

They've already been gone longer than a tour of this house should take. Even if they go downstairs composed and calm, their skins no longer flushed and his hair no longer tousled and no bite marks to be seen on Danicka's neck, it's very likely that eyebrows will be raised or conclusions drawn. Are being drawn, right now.

And Danicka doesn't care. He's her mate. In a twisted little way deep in her heart she likes the fact that his family might hear him fucking her. Embarrassment doesn't enter into it, not for her, not for a moment. Once upon a time what would have stopped her from doing something like this would be worry that it might reflect so badly on her and her family that it would get back to her brother

and then she'd pay.

But Danicka doesn't have to worry about that anymore. She doesn't worry about that anymore. In some small ways she does trust Lukas to protect her, relies on him to protect her, is happy that with him she's safer than she's ever been

even while recognizing how fucking ironic that is, given what he is.

Nobody can hurt her. Nobody can shame her. And beyond all that, nobody here has any reason to -- no need to pressure her or manipulate her with the threat of pain or humiliation.


The honest fact is, though, right now Danicka's not thinking about any of that. Right now she can just feel Lukas's cock pumping in and out of her, and she reaches back to caress his thigh, rub his ass, pull him harder into her with a gasp. She feels him stretching her out, pounding her as he bites her, palms his hands all over her. Her bra gets disheveled, her nipples hardening under his fingertips. She half-squeals and then stifles it against her hand when he finds her clit again, plays with her while he fucks her a little faster, goes at her a little more desperately.

"Oh, you're so fucking good," she gasps, bouncing herself against his lap a little, squeezing him inside her pussy. The bed protests and she slows, grinding back against him instead, turning her head to moan into his pillow. "Shh," she slurs, as he's muttering that he doesn't even care, he wants to hear her. Her hand still runs over him, touching whatever part of him she can reach. "Shh, baby, just fuck me. Just fuck me, you hard, beautiful boy," she mutters, dissolving into less and less coherent phrases as she goes on, "fuck me with that big, hot cock."

[Lukas] So he shhs. So he presses that mouth of his to her neck instead, kissing that flash of tendon that shows when she twists into his pillow like that, buries her sounds there while he's moving into her, grinding into her hard and slow and -- not even really trying to keep the bed from squeaking now, not even caring about any of it except that

she's pulling him to her, she's got her hand wrapped behind herself, behind him, gripping his hip, grabbing his ass as he's fucking her. He kisses her neck, kisses her throat, kisses her jaw until she turns her head and kisses him back, and then he's kissing her as he fucks her because, yes, he wanted it that way too. Face to face on this narrow little bed, which is even smaller than the one at the Brotherhood; literally so small that if he'd grown up in this house, really grown up here, they would have had to get him a longer bed simply because his arms or feet would be hanging off the ends.

There's something intrinsically a little deviant about this. There's a side of Danicka -- and it used to be a significant side, a very large and deep-seated side -- that revels in bucking convention. In outmaneuvering rules and regulations, restrictions, strictures. There was a time when Lukas was afraid she was only with him to ... corrupt him somehow, twist him and twist his pack, prove that she could before she moved on.

He's not afraid of that anymore. And let's be honest: some part of him, some small hidden part of him, likes bending the rules just as much.

Otherwise he wouldn't be here. Fucking her while his entire family cleans up after dinner downstairs. Fucking her, feeling her wetness on his fingers, feeling her thighs twist around his wrist as he strokes her, fills her, fucks her, while dishes clang downstairs and laughter rings up the stairs and -- someone turns on the TV downstairs, Anezka's talking about Wii, which almost makes him laugh because, yes, his sister is a great big dork, and --

then he's not laughing anymore because Danicka's falling apart into incoherence beneath him, is grinding back on him, and his mouth is letting hers go to pant over her neck, to bite down on her shoulder again as he swallows the grunts rising in the back of his throat.

Daniel calling up the stairs suddenly: "Hey! Wii! You guys in?"

-- and Lukas freezes for a second, buried in his mate, his fingers playing with her clit, his hand covering her breast, his wrist rucking up her shirt. She can feel him panting. Then he turns his head and yells back:

"No!"

Then he's pulling out of her, and maybe for a second she thinks he finally can't stand the potential for awkwardness anymore; intends to get dressed and pretending nothing's happened long enough to get out the door. But no. It's not that at all. He pulls out of her and he's hard and wet, the goddamn condom glistening on his cock; he's tugging her jeans off, off, all the way off and flinging them to the floor as he flings her on her back.

"Here," he mutters, and, "wrap your legs around me," and his mouth is on hers and he's back inside her in a single slide so dizzyingly fast he almost bites her tongue.

Then he's pounding her, slamming her against his bed like he really is a teenager, like his parents weren't home, like he's an animal and she's his mate and if he doesn't come inside her, fill her full of his cum, soon, now, he'll lose. his fucking. mind.

[Danicka] This got out of hand very quickly. He could have held her close, kissed her softly and said they should head out now, he understood that she was tired. And Danicka could have sat beside him or snuggled with him on the narrow, tiny bed that only fit him til he was about twelve and was already starting to get too small when he was thirteen, and kissed his chest and nodded drowsily when he suggested the go.

But that's not what happened, and she's not really drowsy or sleepy anymore. She's sweating slightly and gasping into his pillow, her mouth open against the cover, bucking her hips every time he strokes his wet fingers over her clit. And very, very quickly this has gone from a careful, silent quickie into the sort of fucking that used to drive them so mad they didn't know what the hell was happening to them when they got around each other, seemed to hate each other, could not stop touching each other, were shockingly tender with each other afterward.

She wriggles against him, her ass making soft slapping noises against him every time he thrusts into her, not quite loud enough for someone on the steps to notice but if someone were to come down the hall they'd absolutely hear the way Lukas is pounding Danicka inside his old bedroom.

You guys in? Daniel hollers, and Lukas freezes, and Danicka bites a moan into his pillow before letting it go and yelling back, essentially at the same time that Lukas bellows his No!:

"In a minute!"

And then, realizing he yelled what he did, she claps her hand over her mouth, gasping and laughing at the same time, then

moaning into her palm when he pulls out of her, her eyes rolling back for a second. "Co to kurva, lásko?" she gasps, twisting a bit even before he grabs her lower body and flips her onto her back, his face dark with lust, animal with it. Danicka sees his eyes, glittering in the dim room, and reaches up to grab him by the back of the neck as he's yanking her jeans off, sending her pumps thumping off the end of the bed. She kisses him voraciously, lifting her head from his pillow and pulling at his clothes, tugging his shirt and sweater upward even as he's twisting and yanking her panties off her ankles.

Lukas doesn't get the full sentence out before her legs are folding around his waist, doesn't even get to ask for what he wants. She's riding up on him, lifting her hips from the bed as well and breaking the kiss long enough to glance downward, to work herself onto his cock even as he's positioning himself and sliding back into her, his mind blowing into pieces when he does.

Danicka's back and hips hit the bed again as he comes down over her, fucking her now with the sort of snarling, seething desire of a beast. And she arches her back, grabbing at the bedspread beneath them, gasping. Her head is tipped back for a moment but straightens, eyes opening, matching his.

"You sure you don't want to make a mess?" she all but purrs, her hands up under his shirt, touching his chest. "You sure you don't want to fuck me filthy?" Her teeth are bared, slightly on edge, her back arching again as he pounds harder into her. Her inner thighs slide over him, slippery with sweat. She squirms on him as she replaces them, lifts them higher, takes him deeper and turns her head to bite at his arm, at the pillow, to stifle a scream.

[Lukas] If Daniel has an inkling of what's going on up there, he doesn't let on. "Okay!" he calls goodnaturedly up the stairs, and retreats.

Lukas doesn't bother to answer. He's flipped Danicka on her back by then, he's mounted her, he's pounding her all over again while she's --

well. She's only taking it for a moment. Then she's running her hands up until his shirt, and his skin is so hot to the touch, his musculature hard and the sweat on his body just starting to slicken under her hands. She finds his nipples hard, finds his heartbeat fast, fast, fast.

"Oh, god," he groans, when she says what she says. And he bites her as she bites him, or bites his pillow -- bites whatever of her he can reach, bends lower, bites at her blouse in a sort of unthinking frenzy of lust.

A second later he pulls out of her again. He puts his hand where his cock was, touches her, pushes his fingers into her to feel her bear down on him. "Oh, so fucking hot," he pants, "such a fucking hot little cunt," and then he's doing what he meant to do, pulls that condom off his cock, drops it on the bedspread -- so much for not making a mess -- and slicking himself down, rubbing her slick and his precum all over his cock before entering her again. A third time, and each time harder, more absolutely than the last, plunging into her, filling her up with a moan he can only barely, barely restrain.

Then he's going at her again. He's wrapped his arms around her, holds her against him, their clothes pushed up and pulled awry, his body flexing between her thighs as he hammers into her. I want to fuck you filthy, he wants to tell her, but the words are caught -- his mind is caught on that one phrase, fuck me filthy, filthy, fuck me, fuck --

and he's pushing his hand over her brow, pushing her head back to kiss her neck, suck at her skin hard before he lets her up again, finds her mouth with his, kisses her as he takes one hand off her body to knot it into the sheets beneath her.

" -- gonna come," he manages, a raw, ragged mutter, all the warning he can manage to give her. "Oh -- god -- gonna come -- !"

[Danicka] Downstairs they're starting up the Wii. Anezka and Daniel are helping Jaroslav and Marjeta create their Miis, which seems incredibly silly to both of Lukas's parents

while secretly a lot of fun. And if the volume on the television is kept a bit on the loud side, it might not be intentional, but it goes unremarked regardless. Danicka is still trying to stay quiet, stifling her moans in either Lukas's body or his pillow or her own hand, even though she knows that what she just said is going to drive him nuts.

She shivers with pleasure, grinning in delight as he tears at her after that, fucks her without stopping. Danicka, ever helpful, pulls her blouse up over her breasts, tugs down the cups of her bra as his mouth is moving over her, gasps as his lips catch on one hardened nipple after the other. "That's it," she breathes, tilting her hips to rub her clit over his shaft as he goes on sliding into her, out, in again, each thrust faster than before. "Oh, that's it, use that cock on me, make me come."

When Lukas pulls out of her, she shudders all over again, but she knows what's coming, and she props herself up on her elbows. She has her legs spread to either side of him, her body almost completely bared, her upper half only slightly covered by rumpled and tangled clothing, and she tips her head back, hair swaying, when Lukas gives her his fingers. Danicka works herself as easily on his hand as she does on his cock, letting him fuck her like that for a few seconds. Her head lifts when he removes his hand, her breathing coming in hard, ragged pants. She writhes her hips against the bedding as he slides the condom off, watching him with widened pupils.

"That's it, baby," she whispers again, encouraging, watching him stroke himself. "That's fucking it, that's that sweet cock,"

which hardly even makes sense

but that hardly even matters.

When he pushes her back down and pushes himself into her again in one hard, forceful thrust, Danicka bites his neck to keep from screaming. She starts fucking him before he's even properly found himself in her, gasping against his throat until she grabs his wrist and brings his hand to her mouth. Danicka puts his fingers in her mouth, sucking her taste and his slick off of them, moaning around his skin the way she does, so often, when she's blowing him.

Neither of them are talking now, though they're both thinking in trains of looping words that drive each of them perilously closer to the edge. She's thinking

he's going to make her so dirty

so messy

he's going to fuck her dirty, filthy, fuck her pussy,

so hot

oh god, oh my god, fuck, dirty, filthy, fuck...

Her cunt keeps clenching down on him as what's going on in her mind and what she's doing with her body and what Lukas is doing to her, what effect it's having on him. She's close, close to one of those tight, hard orgasms he loves giving her right off, getting her off almost before she's ready for it, opening her up, making her squirm

which she does, when she starts to make this soft whining sound as her hips grind against him, her pussy bearing down on him even as he's pushing her head back to kiss her neck, lick her, kiss her again on the mouth and grab the sheets below her. He gasps out that he's gonna come, half moans it, but Danicka's gone, can't even seem to hear him as she rides herself up on his cock, gasping these little noises --

and if he doesn't cover her mouth or kiss her soon she's going to start moaning, going to start crying out as that hard, tight little orgasm starts to unfurl into something more molten, more complete, rolling through her body as she holds onto her lover. Her mate.

[Lukas] The first time they made love, Lukas wouldn't let himself moan aloud. He wouldn't let himself make the sounds he all but can't help make now, and he was so damn good at that. Holding back. Holding it in. Choking down grunts, groans, sighs; even the gasps that he gives when she moves on him a certain way, takes him in a certain way.

What she didn't know then, perhaps still doesn't know now, is that it was no easier then than it is now. It was never easy for him to stay so silent. It was almost impossible then, and it's almost impossible now, and --

and she's opening her mouth to give those gasping little sounds she makes when a tight, coiled little orgasm is twisting through her, and her pussy's squeezing and clenching on him and her thighs are wrapped so tight and Lukas's free hand is coming around the back of her neck, cupping her brow to his the way she pulled him down to her moments ago, brings her close, catches her mouth, kisses her

so fucking hard

as he comes into her. What noises they make are buried in each other. Half-stifled moans vibrating into one another's mouths. He comes into her the way he always does, with short, hard thrusts of his body that he can't at all control, driving himself into her as though to fuck it deep, fuck it all into her, give it all up to her and let her hold him, protect her, cradle him

when he comes down over her, panting.


Downstairs, game music, rising and falling waves of conversation and laughter as someone does something and something else happens, and --

upstairs, in Lukas's old bedroom, he holds his mate atop his sheets and shudders once, groaning, before his mouth slides from hers and goes to press to her collarbone.

Her shirt's somewhere up around her neck almost. Her bra is pulled down. His sweater and his shirt are up to his armpits, his jeans down to his ankles, and her jeans are simply gone, off the bed. In all that nakedness he slides his body slowly, luxuriously against hers, the muscles in his torso jerking and jumping involuntarily even as his cock twitches inside her from stimulation, overstimulation, post-stimulation.


It's another minute or two before she hears him laughing quietly against her skin.

"I can't believe I just ... "

He bows his head, then, rubs the bridge of his nose against her shoulder, her upper chest. Gently then, tenderly, he rises up on his elbows to tug her bra back into place -- but not before dipping his head to suck again, so slowly now, so gently and so tenderly, on her nipples. "Mmm," he murmurs, kissing the rise of her breast. Then he kisses her neck. Then he kisses her.

"No more getting smashed on vodka for us," he whispers, grinning against her lips. "It's dangerous."

[Danicka] The taste of her is in her mouth, licked off his fingers. When he kisses her like that, coming inside of her, he can catch hints of that taste still on her tongue, given back to him. Her hands are on his back, on his side, holding to him as he shudders, as he tips over that edge and plummets, falls the way he always does. They kiss messily, deeply, gasping past each other's mouths as they ride out the rise and the crash of their pleasure.

And when those rises aren't so calamitously high, and when the crashes aren't so world-destroying, when they start to ebb together back towards some kind of welcoming baseline, Danicka's hands slide more fully across his back. She holds him in her arms, and pants softly across his ear as he lays over her. Her eyes have closed, but barely. She looks slightly dizzied, like she's trying to make the room go still.

They move together. Slow. Sliding naked flesh on naked flesh, displacing displaced clothing even more. She rubs their abdomens together, strokes her thighs along the sides of his waist, his hips. As Lukas slides his mouth down to her collar, Danicka lets hers turn, falling against the pillow, her hair spread out behind her and her body going gradually more limp beneath his. The last jerks of his cock inside of her make her cunt clench down on him, every time, like

question and answer,

call and response.


They lay lazily together for a couple of minutes. Danicka's eyes drift open and close again, as though she's too content like this to bother with moving. She knows they really need to get up, get cleaned up, go back downstairs, go to the hotel, something other than fucking and lazing about in his bedroom. But Lukas laughs like that and a quirk of a smile starts at the corner of her mouth, tugging at it. The way she smiles with him, looking almost shy about it as it blossoms across her features into an odd little lopsided grin.

She holds him tighter when he nuzzles her, lifts her arms and puts them around his neck for a moment before letting him up. Danicka opens her eyes finally, looks up at him as he pushes himself up to start adjusting her clothes, which is sort of adorable of him, since she'll have to do it herself all over again in a minute. But he pauses, dipping his head to suck on one nipple, then the other. Danicka exhales, her eyelashes falling again for a moment as she conceals a small shiver inside of her body.

Lukas kisses his way up her body, kisses his way to her mouth, all the while tugging satin to cover her breasts and all while still buried inside of her. So much, indeed, for not making a mess.

Danicka grins at what he says, laughs silently, moving him inside of her. She puts her hand on his cheek, kisses him again, more softly. "You should get tidied up," she whispers, "and go downstairs," in between kisses, "and tell your parents that after a long," soft kisses, "heated discussion," and a grin across her lips, transferred to his, "we decided to stay here for the night."

She nuzzles him, laying back down, her hands still on his cheek, on the back of his neck. Rubbing his shoulders. "Unless you really don't want to," she adds quietly. "But I kind of want to play Wii now."

[Lukas] Lukas doesn't look unwilling. If anything, he looks surprised -- pleased. He shifts over her, propping himself up on his elbows, smiling down at her.

"Really?" And, because the answer is yes, "Okay."

He leans down, and he kisses her again, light but not quick. A pause; again. Then, "I'm just gonna call down the stairs. And then I'm going to move some of these boxes out of the way so we have an excuse for being all sweaty and messy. And then I'm going to dash out to the car and get our luggage so we have an excuse for taking a shower. And then," yet again, as though he couldn't stop kissing her now that he's begun, "we should go down and kick Anežka and Daniel's asses on the Wii."

[Danicka] Danicka laughs as he kisses her, over and over again, in between his and then and then and thens. She puts her hands lightly on his face as though to shove him away, but she doesn't, and he kisses her fingers and her palms and she lifts her head to kiss his mouth and

there's really no reason for them to be this happy, except they ate so well and drank so much and fucked like they did, losing clothes and coherence and consideration for the fact that they aren't even remotely alone together. He can't believe he just --

Danicka smiles, kissing him again before laying back down. "You're ridiculous," she says. "You think for a moment they don't know what we've been up to?"

Her grin is lazy, as she starts to wriggle upwards, snuggling closer to him. She's lost more clothing than he has, chills more easily. Her body draws the heat out of his skin, and she kisses sweat off his neck. "Let's not make up any excuses," she says, as though the thought makes her happy. "You just go get our luggage. I'll meet you in the shower."

She smiles, stretching out along the tiny twin bed with her arms up over her head. Her hips roll with the movement, bearing her down on him again. It makes her take a quick inhale of breath, a hitch before she stretches herself out completely, only to relax again. "Okay?"

[Lukas] They fit together like this, easily and thoughtlessly. When she stretches her arms up, arches her back, he bends to the curve of her neck. The valley between her breasts. He kisses her there, over her heart, and that little inhale she takes is echoed in a low sound in his throat.

She relaxes. He rocks his hips against hers as to work himself a little deeper, stay a little closer, even as he softens inside her.

"Miluji tě," he says, softly, and smiles.


A little later, he works up the strength of will to get up. His sweater and shirt fall back down as he pushes himself up, but he catches it at the level of his navel, bowing his head to watch himself slide out of her. When he looks at her again, Danicka can see a gleam, just the beginning glimmers of want in his eyes.

He suppresses it, though. She finds some tissues in her purse and he cleans himself off the best the can, wraps the condom up and, after an awkward second, stuffs it in his pocket with a quiet ew, ew, ew --

as if that was any filthier than pushing his face against her cunt, eating her out, kissing her mouth after she's sucked him off. Ridiculous, she called him before; ridiculous, she might call him again.

He straightens his clothes out, then. He moves a few boxes after all, mainly to make room for their luggage, effortlessly stacking them. They're not heavy. His parents packed them so that they can move them -- not only now, but perhaps years from now, when their strength has ebbed entirely with the last shreds of their youth. When that's done, he opens the door -- and the window, a crack -- and then goes downstairs.

She hears his sister calling him to come play, Daniel sucks, and his father asking if he was going. There's a brief, caught silence, and then she hears him blurt --

We had a long heated discussion and decided to stay the night.

At least one person snorts laughter at that. His parents are far too gracious to say anything about it. Even so, a few minutes later, thumping up the stairs with their luggage in tow, Lukas is still a little red. He sets their suitcases down and digs out a change of clothes -- loungewear now -- then grabs some bath towels out of the linen closet in the hall and follows Danicka to the bathroom.

[Danicka] "Miluji tě," she echoes, in a whisper, stroking her fingers over his face,

pushing back the hair on his brow. The way she does. The way that makes his eyes close for a moment.


She sighs as he withdraws, arching her back a little as he does, tilting her hips to make it easier for him. If they were alone there'd be no reason not to go again, no reason to stop themselves from removing the rest of their clothes and bending back towards each other and working off that meal, burning through that alcohol. But they don't. Lukas suppresses his want, and Danicka wriggles a little as she lays there, then starts to sit up.

It makes her laugh, soundlessly, when he puts the tissue-wrapped condom in his pocket. "You could just scoot across to the bathroom and throw it away, goodness," she tells him, as she's cleaning herself up, too. Danicka does this matter-of-factly, without flickers of disgust or discomfort in her eyes, just calmly and neatly -- and with evident practice, frankly -- tidying herself up after an impromptu fuck.

Danicka gets up on her knees and strips off her blouse while Lukas is tucking himself away and pulling up his pants, fastening his jeans. She doesn't bother getting re-dressed but leaves her jeans and panties in a pile beside the foot of the bed, reaching back to unclip her bra and remove it completely. Naked, and despite the fact that she just left her clothes in a pile on the floor, Danicka carefully sets her pumps together under the bed, neatly aligned.

She smiles at him as he's moving boxes around, shivers slightly at the first breath of icy air from outside. The room isn't chilled, but it's cooler than his body, and her nipples are perked still as she lounges on the bed. Danicka waits for Lukas to leave the bedroom, then -- as he's heading down the stairs -- darts across the hall into the bathroom with a grin on her face, biting back laughter at whatever expression that causes on his own.

A few moments later the pipes rattle as the water gets turned on. It just so happens that the water gets turned on during that beat of a pause when Lukas is making effort not to stammer. Water rushes out and he blurts that they had a long-and-heated-discussion

and Danicka doesn't hear it, but someone laughs.


By the time Lukas brings their luggage in from the car, the water is hot and Danicka is washing not only the sex but the travel off of herself. She peeks at him past the edge of the curtain when he comes in, smiling at his still-present redness. "Oh, baby," she murmurs, his clothes coming off and his larger, darker form entering the shower with her. Her hands go to his chest, slide upward to bring his face down to hers to kiss him. "You're so cute."

And she's so shameless. Her hand is on his cock before the kiss ends, wet and slippery and working him up all over again with the skill of long familiarity. "I'm just doing my womanly duty for my man," she teases, grinning as her teeth graze his jaw.


However that goes -- whether Lukas protests and Danicka mercifully relents or if he gives in again and reaches to pull her body closer to his own -- it's a little while before they're out of the shower, skin pink and hair wet. It's a little while before they've brushed their teeth and Danicka's braided her long hair back. Lukas, putting his foot down on this running-around-naked business, goes to get Danicka's blue-gray pajama pants and 'that pink t-shirt, the one with the panda and the cherry blossoms on it' out of her suitcase, goes to get her a pair of underwear and some warm socks.

She seems so at ease when they head downstairs finally, opened up in a way she wasn't even as she admitted that she was excited to meet his family. And she's utterly without embarrassment, without ducking her eyes away from any knowing glances or sly comments from -- most likely -- Anezka. It's almost defiant, her refusal to pretend that she was doing anything but fucking Lukas upstairs. Granted, she doesn't bring it up. She doesn't mention it. She doesn't talk about it or crack jokes about it.

Danicka, frankly, is more interested in finding just the right hairstyle for her Mii. And telling Lukas that his should be taller. No, taller. No, taller. That jaw isn't rugged enough. Oh, wear a red shirt! Aw, you picked black. That's so boring. Until he tells her -- fondly, the grumpiness feigned -- to leave him alone, this is his Mii.

She likes to sit behind with him, legs tucked up beside her, when it's not their turn to play. She is surprisingly good at boxing, and it says something about the Kung Fu she studies in Chicago that her shoulders aren't sore after a few rounds. She suggests hot cocoa, after awhile. Offers to make it, too.

She's happy. And given the way she leans so contentedly, so quietly, so thoughtfully against him in between their turns on the Wii, Lukas may intuit soon enough that no one is more surprised at how relaxed she is here than Danicka herself.

[Lukas] It would be easy enough to attribute his embarrassment to the fact that that's his family downstairs, not hers, but that's not it. He'd be embarrassed if they were at her house, too. If it were her father downstairs, her half-sisters, their family.

Whose family it is has no bearing on Lukas's instinctive urge to conceal their deed. That instinct comes from something closer to protectiveness: an urge to shield Danicka from whatever embarrassment she might feel, whatever unkind assumptions she might fear.

Except -- she doesn't feel any embarrassment. And she doesn't fear what they might think of her, his father and mother and sister and sister's-boyfriend. She all but dances across the hall naked, skitters into the bathroom with -- let's admit it -- the sweat and slick of sex still on her, the flush of it still in her cheeks. She gets a glance at the look on his face: he looks utterly stunned.

And -- yes, later, still red. Which she calls cute. Because she's shameless, and she's pulling him into the shower with her, and for all that he's embarrassed, all that he was red and blurting things about heated discussions, he doesn't resist one bit. He barely has his pants off before he's following her in, wrapping his arms loosely around her waist as she pulls him down to kiss him.

He tastes like water, and like the kolache he snuck before coming upstairs. He tastes like himself. A little later, when her hand slides down the hot hard planes of his body, he leans back against the shower wall and closes his eyes, laughing, gasping, not making a single move to stop her.

She's so shameless. He's a little less embarrassed, a little less protective of what they have and what she feels, with every passing second.


They spend a very long time taking that shower. At some point they're kissing under the spray, half-blind with water, drowning on each other, their hands exploring and grasping and stroking and -- his mouth going to her shoulder, his hand pressing to the wall behind her as he tries not to groan, his eyes shut as she strokes him off, brings him off, makes him come all over again until his knees feel weak.

After that he turns her around. He presses against her, kisses her back and rubs himself against her. Plays with her until he's ready to go again. This fuck is hard and fast, the quickie they meant to have but didn't, earlier -- his hand between her legs the entire time, getting her off, holding her on his cock, holding her right there while he --

well. Makes a mess of her all over again.


And then they have to actually get clean. So: by the time they get out of the shower Lukas's parents are probably pretty damn good at the Wii already. And Lukas doesn't want her to run across the hall again because, no, she's naked, she's wet, the window is open, she'll catch cold. He'll go, he says, wrapping a towel around his waist. She wants her pink t-shirt. He grins, quick and bright, and he says he loves that shirt. It's cute. He comes back a moment later, flinging his towel up to dry over the shower curtain bar, stepping into his lounge pants and tugging on his shirt.

Downstairs, everyone's in the den. Anezka doesn't even say anything -- too grossed out at the very thought of it. The Wii belongs to Anezka, but Lukas has never played on it, so they have to make Miis, and Danicka takes a very long time picking hairstyles because, let's face it, her hair changes every week. Or less. Lukas sprawls on the couch beside her munching yet another kolache and sprays little crumbs everywhere saying no, the other one and I like your hair like that better and your eyes aren't blue which triggers a minor discussion of what specific conditions, exactly, cause her eyes to appear blue.

His Mii wears a black shirt. She calls it boring. "I'm wearing red pants," he points out, and then his little avatar is dropping into the middle of mii-verse with a little bounce, which makes Marjeta chuckle.

They play -- passing the Wiimotes around, going through sports games, balancing games, silly games. After a while Jaroslav decides he's had enough and turns in for the night, furrowing a smile at everyone, pausing to take Danicka's hand for a moment and wish her a good night. Not too long later, Marjeta follows, and there's a brief discussion of whether they should have leftovers for brunch tomorrow or go out, and whether Lukas and Danicka were staying here the entire time, and whether they wanted to have dinner again before they left for Chicago.

Then it's just the younger generation, and in all truth it's Anezka and Daniel who seem to get most into the Wii. There's a bit of a competitive streak in both of them when it comes to gaming. Anezka's is perhaps less surprising; she's Lukas's big sister, after all, and look at him. Daniel's is wholly belied by his otherwise mild manner. They get more and more absorbed. Pretty soon it's not some E-rated game anymore but some first person shooter, split-screen deathmatch, and

Lukas is yawning on the couch, watching Anezka and Dan kick each other's asses, watching Danicka, perhaps, take a turn against them now and then and blow them both away.


It's getting late, well past midnight, closer to 2am, when Lukas stirs. He turns his head as he starts to get up, nuzzling Danicka where her hair begins to sweep back from her temple.

"I'm turning in," he says quietly. "Want to come with?"

[Danicka] For all that they've been mated for so long -- officially for over a year, in their hearts for even longer than that -- Lukas and Danicka are acting like newlyweds. Or teenagers. It's possible that Marjeta and Jaroslav are a bit surprised at the lack of discretion, but unlikely that they are surprised by Lukas and Danicka's eagerness itself. It's possible that they're grateful for what he has, achingly happy that he has a mate, and he has love, and it's also -- yes -- quite possible that Marjeta is thinking that sometime in midsummer she'll finally have a grandchild, if this sort of thing keeps up.

What Marjeta and Jaroslav and Anezka and Daniel think of it, however, doesn't much matter. Not to the two of them upstairs, grinning nonstop because of the delightful, erotic novelty of fucking on in the room he couldn't even be a teenager in. Smiling because of Danicka prancing naked across the hall. Gasping out little laughs as they fuck in the shower, not bothering to bury their moans quite as deeply because the spray of the water conceals a lot of noise.

She kisses him when he comes, a carnivorous smile on her face and in her eyes when she pulls back. "So messy," she's whispering in his ear as he shudders his way down from orgasm, "you make me so fucking messy, baby,"

which for some reason is so hot that he almost bites her when he kisses her then, so hot that he turns her around, mutters something in her ear as he bends her over til her forearms are pressed to the tile, his hand between her legs, his cock against her ass, his breath heavy, his voice rough.

Which makes her quiver, and makes her whimper when he shoves his cock into her again. He grunts and she clenches on him. He gasps, and she arches her back for him, presses harder to him. He spills filth into her ears as he fucks her, and Danicka bites her own arm to keep from moaning loud enough to reach past the crash of water.


All of my shirts are cute, Danicka answers, and laughs because the reason he doesn't want her running around naked is because he wants her to stay warm and healthy, not because he's afraid someone will see. Her clothes are soft as they layer over her body, and he's seen her like this so many times now: pajamas, braided hair, curling up on the couch beside him to play games or watch a movie. The first time he saw her anything like this was in his room at the Brotherhood, in a pair of cotton panties and a t-shirt, her hair up in a ponytail, reading a book while she waited for him to come in, and back then

she wasn't his mate. She wasn't someone he'd bring home to meet his family. He didn't know what she was to him, but his heart clenched in his chest when he saw her there, wanting so badly to get used to this. Admitting, long before he could have been prepared for it, that he was getting used to it. Getting used to her. Wanting to have her, not just those hot nights fucking her before she left him or waking up to find her already on her way out but ...

god, this.

Like she is now, snuggled up to him on the couch, opening her mouth at one point to indicate she would like a bite of his kolache, then smiling. Saying Prosím? which makes Anezka all but gag at how cute they are, ugh!

"Please never wear red pants in real life," Danicka says, as Lukas's Mii bops into the lineup.

Not surprisingly, Jaroslav and Marjeta drift upwards to bed before the Young Folk do, and Danicka smiles as Jaroslav says goodnight to her. She votes that they go out for brunch, but they can't stay for another dinner, she and Lukas need to go see her sister's family tomorrow, too. Which makes him ask about their hotel reservations, which is when he finds out she called to cancel them while he was getting their luggage, which explains why her iPhone was sitting on the bathroom counter.

Dobrou noc, Marjeta. Dobře spát, she's saying a little later, and then

it's just the younger generation, and Danicka likes playing Wii well enough but she's never been into shooters and she's far more content to curl up with Lukas than to compete with Anezka and Daniel. She doesn't get up to kick their asses, glancing with amusement up at Lukas as their competitive streaks come out. She's drifting off on his shoulder, drowsing the way she was when they first went upstairs, before they started kissing, before she intimated that she would very much be interested in screwing around.

She makes a noise of protest when he gets up, and then he's not kissing her head or asking her if she's coming with because she's got her arms around him, using him as leverage to pull herself up. She's relaxed, she's content, she's comfortable... but she still doesn't want to be without him. And more than that: she'd so much rather go to bed with him than continue playing Wii.

So that is what she does. She says goodnight to Lukas's sister and Lukas's sister's boyfriend, climbing upstairs with her mate, her hand in his. Downstairs Anezka and Daniel turn the volume down but continue playing for god knows how long before they, too, are making out on the couch or falling asleep on each other. Danicka doesn't care. She doesn't care if Lukas brings up kolache to bed. She looks ready to fall asleep as soon as she climbs back into bed, shedding her pajama pants as Lukas shuts the window once more. She's already halfway to comfortable when he sinks into the miniscule twin bed with her.

It won't be the most comfortable, easiest night of sleep they've ever had. It won't be anything like a king sized pillowtop at the W Times Square, which is where -- as it turns out -- Danicka had made their reservation in the first place. Sleepily she explains that it's because she liked fucking him there, utterly serious in her pre-sleep grogginess.

She sleeps before Lukas does. He remembers how worn out she was, how drained, how she seemed to need to go somewhere and be alone with him to restore herself. He remembers how restored she looked when he held her, when she stretched out underneath him, grinning at the love they'd just made. She smells like water and soap when he wraps himself around her in bed, warming her more with his body than with the blankets. She smells like she belongs here. And it feels like home.