[Lukas] They stay a few days. They buy things. They buy a bed for Kandovany, and a food and water dish. They buy a litter box, and though Danicka might suggest they simply move everything over when they go get Kando, Lukas insists on having two. One for the apartment, one for the den. Because he wants her to feel at home in both places, he says. They don't buy a cat carrier, and even if Danicka has one, Lukas holds her on the car ride instead. Something about not wanting to cage her.
They buy a Christmas tree, too. A tiny little one, a few inches high at best -- a bonsai tree, actually, which Lukas strings tiny LEDs on. It sits in their study, next to the fountain.
And -- gifts. Last year they had a quarter-decade to make up for. This year, it's just 12 months, and so they don't need an enormous tree; they don't need to pile it full of gifts, string it full of cards. Lukas buys only a few things, and he wraps them and keeps them under his side of the bed and refuses to give any hints whatsoever, noting only that one of the packages cannot be tipped over. And that he'll know if she tries to peek.
Christmas Eve is an early night. They make love the way they do when they feel tender, and close: tenderly, staying close. They sleep the way they do, his body wrapped around hers from behind, keeping her secure and warm. Christmas Day comes and the world outside is frost and ice and snow. Their furnace is roaring somewhere in the basement. Kando knows better than to scratch on the bedroom door, though one of the presents is for her.
Lukas doesn't even bother to get out of bed. He rolls to the side, reaches under the bed, and fishes out the packages. He hands them to his mate, and then he lies back, doubling his pillow over and stuffing it under his head so he has a better vantage point.
One package is largeish, irregularly shaped. One is flat, perhaps no more than a card. And the last is a tiny box, square.
"Merry Christmas," he murmurs, and yawns.
[Danicka] The morning after the eclipse comes, and with it, Lukas's wolf.
She inhales quite deeply when she wakes beside him, her eyes toward the window, his body warm on the bed behind her. The soft, sparse dusting of hair across his chest tickles her bare shoulderblades as he breathes, steady and slow. He has a certain soft growl in his throat when he exhales, a canine rumble from deep inside of him. She is still for a moment, then tugs the covers up around her shoulder, curls a bit into the curve created by his body and his arm, and goes back to sleep.
Little has changed. Just the moon, turning again.
The stores are busy.
Kandovany is used to sleeping in a little cabinet with a cushion inside, a secret dark place just for her. She turns up her nose at the bed they buy, the bed Lukas picks out, when they take it home and set it in a quiet corner of the den. He is crestfallen. There's no forcing her, Danicka says, and lays Kando's little toy inside the bed as the orange tabby flicks up her tail and saunters away.
Of course it doesn't matter as much that the dishes aren't the same, as long as there's water in one and the soft wet food Danicka buys in the other. Kandovany is quite indiscriminate, in that case.
They have to take her down to the laundry room where they put her litter box, but she's no silly kitten and she knows what this is for. The first time she goes down on her own she doesn't come back up for some time. When she does, she is quite pleased with the mouse she's carrying. It's quite likely Lukas has to work to conceal his pride in the stupid feline, all insult from the bed snobbery forgotten.
Danicka is more concerned with the fact that there are mice in their house. Lukas just laughs, as they try to get Kandovany to give up her prize: "Not for long!"
Last year, they had the tall tree, decorated by Danicka's hand well in advance of Lukas seeing it, or even knowing it would be there waiting for them. They had candles in the windows and there was more snow on the ground than this year. The little bonsai tree makes her laugh, and she calls Lukas a 'geek' for the LED lights he puts on it. He scoffs. She's one to talk. She smiles, and smiling, kisses him.
Little has changed. Just the turning of the moon. Just the changing of the season. Just the light coming back to earth.
She complains on Christmas Eve that this is weird, not opening gifts. She tells him he's weird, and she's looking under the bed and he's grabbing her ankle and all but pulling her across the carpet, no no no no no and Danicka's poking him in the stomach with her toe. None if it is all that serious. Last year one way, this year another.
He has her on the floor, amidst the bean bags he bought on a whim when he first got the house, kissing her all the while, her hair spread out like a halo over the carpet. Starts playful, changes along with their breathing. Once upon a time, a year or more ago, she laid on her own bed in her own apartment and told him to withdraw, to take off his condom, let her feel him. Terrifying. He wanted to warn her how addictive it would be, and how dangerous, how he couldn't lose her like that,
but that was a long time before he saw what he saw in the Underworld. Heard what he was told. Gave up the most stringent way of living the warrior's ideal of solitude, of sacrifice. Made himself believe: Yes, it will be hard. Yes, it will be dangerous. Yes, it's worth it.
They make love, kissing again and again, Danicka's eyes drowsy with pleasure and tenderness. Nothing between them, like there hasn't been for a long time now. They stay lucky. She stays with him. He knows now it would be all right, if she got pregnant. They'd make it all right. They'd make it.
Christmas morning comes, and with it, Lukas yawning and stretching -- but only after he's rolled over and gotten the presents and put them on the covers. Danicka's barely conscious as gifts pile onto the comforter over her body, pushing herself up on her side and looking blearily at him, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as any five year old this morning. She lays back down as he says Merry Christmas, muttering:
"You are so weird, baby."
Danicka yawns, hugging her pillow, as though she fully intends to just go back to sleep for another ten, fifteen minutes. At the door, Kando mrows, plaintive. She doesn't scratch, but the door bumps a little in its frame as she walks back and forth in front of it, leaning, rubbing her side onto the wood. Mrooow.
[Lukas] Lukas is not entirely opposed to the idea of ten more minutes. Or sixty. Or more. Danicka hugs her pillow and Lukas, done stretching now, flops down atop her.
Or rather -- he pretends to. He carries most his weight on his elbows, though, which are planted on either side of his mate's slighter body; his chest presses gently, warmly against her back, and he buries his face with a sort of shameless animal fondness in the nape of her neck. That low sound in his chest again, something a little like a growl, happy and quiet, as he wraps his forearms under Danicka and gathers her even closer to himself.
But then there's that plaintive little mrow, and the light thumping of the door in its frame, and Kando -- that little scamp, which did indeed entirely fell Lukas's crest when she turned her nose up at his offering, and did indeed please him immensely when she brought home a dead mouse -- is asking to be let in. Lukas lifts his head. He makes a sound of his own: mmf? and then he lowers his mouth to Danicka's shoulder. Gnaws on her gently, thoughtfully.
"I think Kando wants in," he whispers, stating the obvious. Under the covers, he shifts, sliding his leg over hers, covering her now. Nestling his groin rather shamelessly against her bottom, not even out of any particular need or drive to fuck but simply for the nearness. The intimacy. He bows his head, then, rubbing the bridge of his nose against her shoulder instead, kissing the smooth soft skin of her back.
And still talking about the cat -- "Should I go let her in?"
[Danicka] Moving around on the bed jostles the gifts, even the one he told her couldn't stand to be tipped over. At least Lukas is careful about it. If Danicka got him gifts, anything for Christmas or his birthday, she hasn't told him where they are hidden. He hasn't seen them. She's a secretive sort, his mate.
He presses down on either side of her, moves against her back, and all but burrows his face into her skin. Danicka makes a protesting groan as he pulls her over, snuggles her to his chest. She clings to her pillow, kicking her feet gently under the covers. It's no use. He holds her and she goes limp, exhaling a puff of mock-disgruntled air.
The cat meows, and rattles the door. The wolf grunts, and affectionately gnaws and gums at his female, as though the feel of her skin in his mouth somehow helps him process this strange insistence of the feline outside.
Lukas presses closer to Danicka as though he has no intention of getting out of bed and opening the door for the snobby mouser. She readjusts to his body, rubs herself lightly against him as she settles once more, her face mashed to her pillow and relaxing. Her mate nuzzles her neck, kisses her back, and she's warm. So warm.
"Sure," Danicka says eventually, musingly. "It's Christmas." Let's be nice.
[Lukas] They don't turn their heat up so high at night. Lukas doesn't like the constant rush of hot air; it dries his nasal passages out. Besides, their comforters are so very warm, and so are they.
That does, however, leave the air of the room considerably cooler than when they went to bed. And Lukas is careful of that; careful not to let the cold air in under the covers even as he shifts over his mate, careful not to let her catch whatever imaginary chill he has, since the very beginning, worried about.
Are you cold? is arguably the first sign of tenderness or caring he's ever shown her. Now, nearly two years later, he's still never quite convinced when the answer is no.
So he's careful when he shifts his weight over her again. When he gnaws at her shoulder and nuzzles at her neck, mmms as she rubs against him lightly, idly -- when he slips his hand under the covers and runs his knuckles down the dip of her spine, keeps the comforters snug. Keeps his female warm.
"I love your body," he whispers. "I love how soft your skin is. I love these sweet little tits."
-- and he's found them, slid his hand under her again, squeezes one gently before cupping the other, heel of his hand to her heartbeat. When he rubs himself against her again, there's more intent in it,
but it's Christmas, and he bites gently at her shoulder one more time before slipping out from under the covers. It's cold, and his body reacts, hairs standing on end as he trots, all but bounds to the door and opens it. More likely than not Kando, after all her insistence, now pretends indifference -- takes her sweet time looking down the hall at some half-imagined object of interest, yawns, stretches, and finally saunters past Lukas's bare shins.
He has the good sense to turn up the thermostat before he flees back to bed. Dives back under the covers, hauls them up to his neck -- and then, rather belatedly, reaches to right the tipped gift.
"Open them," he urges. "Open, open, open."
[Danicka] Growing up where she did, with what money her family had, Danicka learned about sweaters and blankets instead of cranking up the thermostat. She doesn't let Kandovany onto People Beds, but these days the nights she doesn't have a large man-shaped furnace curled up beside her are fewer than the nights when she does. He knows this, at least: he doesn't need fur to keep her warm, fangs to keep her safe.
There is also this: Danicka is a very warm person. Good genes, good circulation, good metabolism, whatever you want to chalk it up to. Maybe it's because she's Kin. Maybe it's because her family's bloodline hails from the warmer valleys and vineyards of Central Bohemia. She has better muscle tone now, and she's not liable to sudden shivers or icy feet pressed to her mate's calves under the blankets.
Still: he, in his rather overwhelming tendency to pick a believe and stick to it, gnaw on it, hold to it until holding onto it proves more perilous than the risk of letting go, isn't entirely convinced when she tells him these days that no, she's not cold. That even that first night together, maybe -- just maybe -- the way she tucked her feet under his was for closeness and not body heat.
The way he mmms behind her and moves behind her makes Danicka turn her head slightly to look at him. He's touching her now, stroking her skin. He whispers things not that different from what he half-grunted, half-gasped in her ear as he moved over her, inside of her, last night on the floor. Her chin brushes her shoulder as he finds and fondles her breasts, as his cock stirs gently. Danicka's lips curve a bit. There's that look he knows, that look on her face that is question and invitation, amusement and sweetness, a gentle lure that just as easily lets him go as it does draw him right back again.
So he is released, though with the somehow, subconscious knowledge that if he had just pressed against her she would have rolled over for him, arched her back and opened for him, that instead of going to the door and opening for the cat he could be finding his way into his female's body, hearing her groan
like she does
when it's him.
Kandovany does indeed turn up her nose at Lukas when he invites her into the bedroom. She sniffs at his toes and recoils as though he's repulsive. She walks past him eventually though, tail up, flicking it against his shins as though Her Majesty is deigning to acknowledge her serf. She looks towards the bed, curious about the new things atop it, but knows better, and heads for the bean bags. Sniffing, she senses their sex, and -- some snob -- curls up right in the midst of it anyway, yawning. She folds her paws, and closes her eyes, and waits until they aren't looking before she peers over at them.
By then, of course, Lukas is back in the bed, and by then, Danicka has rolled over onto her back, stretched, and snuggled back under the covers. By now, she's looking at the presents with the same sort of curiosity as her marmalade-colored cat, subdued, a portrait of restraint, but deeply fucking interested.
Her hand creeps out, and she snags the big one with her fingertips, dragging it closer and summarily tearing apart the wrapping.
[Lukas] Lukas is not at all surprised that Danicka adopted the cat she did. They have so much in common sometimes, in ways he can't easily vocalize but can so, so very easily intuit. He tries not to smile as she observes the gifts with pretend-disinterest. When she snags the largest, he stops trying -- lets himself smile, slow and broad, scooting closer until he can wrap his arm around her and cuddle her against the side of his chest.
"Careful," he murmurs. "Might get dirt everywhere."
She ends up unwrapping a plant. Another young tree, for that matter, some loose dirt in the wrapping paper from its brief upending. It might take Danicka a moment to recognize it -- the large, dark, waxy leaves, the thin branches bare of its trademark flowers at this age, in this season -- but the little tag affixed to its trunk identifies it.
Magnolia grandiflora, it reads. Southern Magnolia.
"I wanted to get you something that might remind you of New Orleans," he says quietly. His arm is warm around her, his side warm against her -- the deep solid thump of his heart unflagging in the cage of his chest. "But then I didn't think getting you a magnolia bouquet quite cut it. Because they die. And that sucks."
A pause, and then he nuzzles her hair. "We're going to have to wait 'til spring to plant it."
[Danicka] Danicka is a sharp one. She's bright, she's curious, and she's voracious in her studies. She knows it's a plant as soon as he mentions dirt, and she curls up against him as he draws her into his arms, holding the gift more carefully after that. The covers and sheets tangle around their shins as they get closer together.
It doesn't take her a moment to recognize the plant. It doesn't take her a second. She exhales a faint, perhaps surprised, huff of hair as the wrapping paper crumples away from it. She doesn't even lift the tag and finger it, read it. Danicka touches the leaves and there's such an ache in the answering color of her eyes that he might wonder if she's about to cry.
Something to remind her of New Orleans, he says. And not just the flowers, because they die. She barely seems to hear him, looking briefly lost as she gently touches the sapling.
"I'll take care of it," she says, much in the way she said that when he found the den, she would make it warm. She turns slightly towards him and kisses the first part of him she finds, her lips pressing against his shoulder and the slope of his clavicle. Pulling back, Danicka looks up at him. Her eyes are dark with emotion, and with warmth.
"The plantation the Sokolovs sent us to had this neglected garden out where the orchard used to be kept. It was covered in fruit trees, and magnolia trees. And... on nights when something happened --"
there were vampires in Louisiana
she got one's blood on her face when Rick shot its head off as it leaned in to bite her
there were just as many dangers there as here
some of them darker
"-- or when Yelizaveta would start telling me the things she would see --"
the girl who saw ghosts
who might have been mad
and might have been a medium
"-- and after I found out I was pregnant... any time I felt like I was about to break because of where I was and what my life was, I'd go out there after everyone was asleep and just... hide. Until I could calm down."
And now there are, really, tears in her eyes. She smiles, aching, not wanting to cry. She's smiling, too, holding the pot with the little tree in it. "I still can't smell magnolias without it making me feel better. About whatever is bothering me." Danicka leans over again, kissing his cheek. Because he had no way of knowing. Because he never knew, and he thought to himself that this was a silly little gift, just a step up from a bouquet. Because by sheer serendipity, he just touched her more than he ever could have expected to. "Mockrát vám děkuji, moje láska."
[Lukas] Lukas could have never known what magnolias meant to Danicka, but he knows now -- knows the moment she unwraps it and quiets, aches the way she does.
He holds her a little closer then, his big hand warm on her shoulder. Baby, he murmurs, but then she begins to speak, and it's his turn to quiet. His turn to listen, his thumb sweeping her shoulder now and then, as she tells him she'll take care of it. As she tells him about the plantation, the great old magnolias there that sprawled dark and majestic, full of white flowers whose luxurious fragrance filled the summer nights,
with the crickets, and the moon, and the waters, and the vampires in their city, the ghosts restless in their tombs.
A time of light and dark, New Orleans. A time of redemption and danger, that Lukas still knows so very little about. A little more now, though. Truth be told he was a little worried when he gave this to her; wasn't sure it would be enough. Wasn't sure it would even survive, this far north.
He believes her, though. She'll take care of it.
"Jsem rád, že jste to líbí," he says. Then, "I didn't know -- any of that. I just thought their flowers look like summer and the south. But I'm glad."
His hand comes up off her shoulder, strokes gently over her hair, then holds her a little firmer as he drops a kiss on her temple. Her cheek. When he turns back, he reaches out, scritches Kando idly under the chin.
"Open the little one," he says, and smiles. "It's for Kando, but I don't think she'll be able to manage."
[Danicka] The smell of soil, and the promise of seeing finally what was in that very interestingly scented parcel, has gotten the cat in question over to the bed, laying her paws on the side of the mattress while Danicka's eyes fill with grateful, tender tears. Her whiskers twitch and she tries to crane her neck upward to see what is going on up there, and eventually
just decides to risk it, leaping up with uncanny grace to the surface of the bed. The comforter dents under her paws and she goes suddenly still, tail swishing slowly and silently behind her as she crouches, preparing to be swatted off the bed. No swat comes, no tch!, nothing. Gradually, Kandovany raises her head, ears perked, and clambers over the hills of the duvet until she is pressing those sorrowfully clawless forepaws on Lukas's thigh, stretching across his lap towards the plant held between he and Danicka.
She's smiling that soft way she has, and she kisses his cheek again, gingerly laying the plant on the nightstand and then coming back to him. The thermostat getting cranked up is warming the house, yes, but the air is still cold, and she's bareskinned. He scritches the cat, and she glares slightly at Kando, who ignores her because her eyes are closed and she's arching her back and twitching her tail and leaaaning into that idle attention.
Stupid thing has no idea the gift is for her, and does not care.
Danicka picks up the little square box and unties the ribbon, tossing it at Kandovany, who does not go apeshit like a kitten but looks rather affronted at the interruption. Danicka lifts the lid, and Kandovany presses her head against Lukas's hand, making a noise a little more like a growl than a purr.
Inside is an orange collar, with a little bell that is shaped like an orange, and Danicka just laughs. "Oh, you're ridiculous," she says, lifting the collar out of the box by the bell, so it doesn't chime and rattle. "Hold her, okay?" Danicka asks of him, before she unbuckles the collar and leans over a bit. She makes a clicking noise, the very tip of her tongue against her alveolar ridge, and that gets Kandovany's attention, the cat's head lifting.
It takes some sniffing and hesitation before Kandovany deigns to allow Danicka to put the collar around her neck, but she doesn't bite or hiss or bat at the woman's hands. She suffers with dignity, and when the blonde pulls back, there's a stripe of bright orange buried in the marmalade and white of her fur. Every time she moves the bell rings a bit, and to say that she looks balefully at the two of them does not quite encapsulate the expression on the cat's face before she abandons the two furless bastards to their bed, whipping around and trotting away, jangling the whole way, tail held up.
Danicka laughs. "Why a collar? I have some tags for her but I didn't see the point. She never goes outside."
For good reason. The fact that she caught a mouse without use of her claws says something for her ferocity and determination, but even in this neighborhood Danicka doesn't dare let Kandovany out of doors. Not even in the back yard. She worries. And she curls up against Lukas again, smiling, one present still between them.
[Lukas] Lukas sits up to hold Kandovany still, his long fingers and broad palms easily -- but so very gently -- folding around the small feline's narrow ribcage. Kando has the dignity not to struggle, but looks rather displeased, all in all, with her gift.
The little bell jingle-jangles its merry way down the bed, across the room. Lukas lays back, pulling the covers back up, wrapping his mate up again. When she asks him why, he laughs a little.
"I've got to confess," he says, "it's mostly so I can hear her sneaking up to pounce my ankles."
He quiet a moment, then, thinking of Kando and her mutilated paws; the mouse she caught regardless.
"Though," he says -- sounding a little sad now -- "then she won't be able to sneak up on the mice either. So maybe we should only put it on for special occasions. Like fancy shoes or a nice dress."
[Danicka] That Kandovany was declawed by some previous owner has always been a point of sorrow between them. It was a part of why Danicka chose this cat, not a kitten but a sleek, slightly underfed, severely handicapped adolescent. She is firm beyond belief with Kando. That the cat was allowed on the bed for a few minutes this morning just speaks to the fact that it's Christmas, and Lukas touched her heart with that magnolia tree. Lukas is, perhaps strangely to most who think they know him, the one who would probably let Kandovany get away with murder. He's crushed when she pretends not to like the bed he picked out, delighted when she hunts down a mouse.
The funny thing is, Kando can never do much damage to Lukas when she pounces. She doesn't bite, and her paws just bat ineffectually at him when she does leap out from behind corners to attack his ankles. Mostly, she just makes him grab the walls so he doesn't get tripped and go crashing to the floor.
He's so careful when he holds her for the application of the collar. He knows he could break her without thinking, if he's not paying attention to the strength in his hands. He's thoughtful, quiet, when he leans back to hold Danicka and considers how -- for all her attitude, for all her regal self-possession -- Kandovany is at a severe disadvantage from other cats. Considers how, despite that, she catches and kills her prey with perhaps twice as much ferocity as any other predator might need to exert.
Danicka says nothing for a moment. Her hand traces light patterns on his forearm as they cuddle. The air is warmer; she lets the blanket slide, doesn't huddle under it any longer. It rests around her ribcage. Gently, Danicka kisses his chest and nuzzles him, breathes him in, settles again. "I like that she can sneak up on you," she says, faintly amused. Faintly proud: "She's so smart."
And in the back of her mind, she thinks of her father. Briefly.
"Maybe I should put her tags on it, and let her go in the back yard sometimes," she muses aloud. "We can watch her. And hear her."
[Lukas] Lukas is still mostly mired in the comforter. He reaches out under the sheets, his hand finding one thigh, then the other; wrapping around the outside of the far one with a loose, comfortable clasp that speaks silently of affection. And ease. And laziness.
A smile flicks over his mouth. Unseen, his thumb rubs slow circles against Danicka's leg. "Yeah," he muses back. "I like that idea. Let's just leave the collar off unless she's going outside. Then we can put it on so she won't wander off. Or if she does, the neighbors will know where to return her."
Under the covers, Lukas's blunt fingernails scritch gently at his mate's skin for a moment. Then he pauses. When he moves again, it's the pads of his fingers against her leg, and she can easily surmise the path his thoughts took when he says, "I'm glad you got Kando. Not even because she's orange. Just ... I'm glad it was her."
He turns his head, kisses Danicka's arm. Then Lukas reaches out and picks up the last of the gifts -- which feels rather like a thickish envelope in wrapping paper -- and hands it to his mate.
[Danicka] He's touching her. Has been touching her since last night when they made love, when they washed each other, when he helped dry her off and picked her up against his body to take her to bed, when she tangled her long legs with his and fell asleep facing him. She must have turned around without waking, because when morning came her back was to his chest and his arms were looped around her middle. Now his arms are covering her under the blankets, a quiet hum of sexual energy underlining everything between them this morning.
Neither of them would deny it, if it was mentioned. Neither of them mention it, or need to.
She smiles softly at what he says. "I am, too. I didn't even mean to get an orange cat," Danicka tells him, smiling. "Just... saw her and she felt right. And she is."
He kisses her arm, like she's kissed his collarbone and shoulder and chest and anywhere else, like he's kissed her temple and cheek and anywhere else. Then there's a third, last gift coming her way and Danicka grins, taking it from Lukas. Opening it up, and then opening the envelope inside the paper, she discovers a set of memberships to museums and aquariums and galleries. The planetarium. The zoo. She laughs as the little membership cards with her name on them come out, grinning. They all allow in two people per pass. Danicka kisses him on the mouth, quick and light, after she reads the Christmas card enclosed with them all:
Veselé Vánoce. Miluji tě.
Merry Christmas. I love you.
С Рождеством Христовым. Я люблю тебя.
"Thank you, baby," Danicka murmurs, still smiling, tucking all the cards back into the envelope to set it beside the tree. "We should go to the planetarium for New Year's."
To which he might, and rather accurately, reply: You are such a nerd.
Whether he does or not, she grins, snuggling closer, her hand on his chest for a moment. "You want your presents now?"
[Lukas] Lukas writes with a firm, confident hand -- letters large and slanting, half-cursive not out of any real deliberation but because it's faster to write that way. Danicka knows he still writes his parents. Not emails, not phone calls -- though there are a few of those, too -- but letters in the mail, scrawled page after page, folded neatly into envelopes and sent. For all that practice, he barely knows Cyrillic at all. Those characters are blocky and childish at best, the ones that even remotely resemble latin characters written with an obvious and relieved ease; the rest printed painstakingly and unattractively. The Я looks like what he likely thinks of it as: a backwards R, dyslexic and illsuited. The ж looks like he doesn't know what to do with it.
He doesn't mock her for wanting to go to the planetarium instead of some gallery opening, some club, some party, on the eve of the new year. He just laughs, tips his head to bump his temple lightly against her shoulder. "Okay," he says agreeably. And, joking about it now because it's over, "We can ask them when the next lunar eclipse-cum-solstice is."
She snuggles closer. He wraps his arm around her, keeping her there, comfortable, close, and pretends to think for a moment. Very theatrical: eyes giving a quick sweep of the ceiling, then coming back to her.
"Hmmm... yes."
[Danicka] Truth be told, if Lukas could see Danicka's Cyrillic he wouldn't feel so bad. She grew up speaking Russian, not writing it. Notes in her home were in Czech or English, primarily. Her fluency is casual and informal and when she has to write in Russian -- which has happened only enough times to count on one hand -- it is little better than Lukas's note in the Christmas card. She can read it just fine, but writing is another animal altogether. The fact of the matter is, if Lukas studies his dictionary and looks at any online learning supplements, his reading and writing in Russian will actually be quite a bit smoother than hers.
She grins at the joke, but she hugs him, too, holds him for a moment. He was frightened. He was panicked. He didn't know what to do with himself, or what his life was going to be, or even how to cope with the way he felt in the hours before dawn. She remembers that, and she holds onto him for a half-breath, then gentles. "Probably not for awhile," she says, quite rightly. Hundreds of years, if then.
Danicka is happy this morning. Her eyes bright, her hair tousled, her body tangled with his and with the covers of the bed they've been sharing for the last few days. It smells like them now. Smelled like fabric softener the night of the solstice, but now it smells like their bodies, their skin, their sweat, them.
She kisses his cheek, and withdraws, wiggling out of the covers. "Stay here," she tells him, and -- bare from top to bottom -- dances across the room to the bathroom door, disappearing through it and closing it firmly behind her.
She's actually gone for a few minutes. Not terribly long, but longer than it should take to grab something in the other room and come back with it. When she does come back she's wearing her robe, the one like his that they keep here, hanging on the back of the bathroom door. She's all bundled up as though she got cold while gathering the stack of gifts she went to find.
There's a flat box, the sort one might put a shirt in, but not quite as tall. There's a larger, blockier box. Those two are wrapped in obviously Christmassy paper, black with white snowflakes, silver ribbons stuck onto the corners. She also has a second large, flat box that is wrapped in red paper that says Happy Birthday Happy Birthday Happy Birthday in yellow all over it in various fonts and sizes. There's an envelope stuck to that one.
Danicka bounds back into bed, putting the gifts on his lap, tucking her robe close around her. Beaming. "Christmas first," she says, nudging the snowflake-wrapped presents at him.
[Danicka] [NOTE TO SELF: THE CYRILLIC IS 'MERRY CHRISTMAS. I LOVE YOU.' THE TWO CHARACTERS HE HAD TROUBLE WITH ARE THE BACKWARDS R AND THE ASTERISK-LOOKIN' ONE.]
to Lukas
[Lukas] Lukas isn't very patient, waiting for Danicka to come back. He rises up on his elbows when she gets out of bed. There's almost an air of surprise about him, as though he didn't quite comprehend that getting his gifts necessitated getting out of bed. Off she goes, and he has to keep himself from protesting it's cold, she's naked, be warm, mate, be warm.
When she comes back, he's sitting up in bed, back to the headboard. He throws the covers back to receive her -- her presents go unremarked for a second as he more or less hauls her bodily against him and wraps the blankets around the both of them. She's sitting almost in front of him now, his legs bracketing her. He has to reach around her to look at the gifts; she has to twist around a bit to see his face, which is lit with a sort of intent, focused curiosity as his hands hesitate over the gifts.
Christmas first, she insists, and his brilliant eyes flick to hers with a laugh. He leans forward to steals a kiss. Then, spontaneous now, he grabs the flatter, thinner package and unwraps it. A pad of stationery paper rests in his hands, textured and fine, edged in a reserved, elegant black-and-silver border that all but screams from the desk of Lukáš Kvasnička.
Her mate looks pleased, fingering the paper, turning the pad over in his hands -- but then the rest of the gift drops out of the box, and it's a pen, minimalist and modernist. Lukas sets the pad down to pick the pen up, studying it, and there's a sense that he might sniff at it if she weren't watching him. There's no point, no nib, no well for ink, no tube of gel -- nothing but a metal cone attached to a smooth barrel.
After several moments of investigation, he breaks down and asks, "What is it?"
[Danicka] Last night there were no gifts anywhere to be found. She was hiding them. Granted, last night when he first went to sleep Danicka was lying one way with him and when he awoke she was lying another way. She even explains, as she's curling up with him again, tucked first in her robe and then in his arms and then in the blankets: "I put them under the tree in the study last night but you apparently wanted Christmas in bed this morning."
Which is all right. She snuggles between his legs and grins as he kisses her, watches as he tears off the wrapping and opens the letter paper. He likes the paper. Touches it. Then the pen catches his notice, gets turned over and over in his fingers. Her grin only grows as it becomes clear he has no idea what this pen-like thing is. She's gleeful.
"It's called a Beta Pen," she says. "See, the nib is an alloy that leaves a mark on most paper. When you write with it, it sort of looks like a pencil mark, but it won't smudge and you can't really erase it. There's no ink, so it doesn't dry out, and it lasts almost forever. If the nib ever does get worn down you can use sandpaper to sharpen it again." Danicka beams. "I got one for myself in white."
[Lukas] "That is ... awesome."
It's not a word that comes often out of his mouth. Then again, that look of absolute delight isn't a common one on his face, either. He slings his arm around Danicka's neck and kisses her again, a quick firm stamp of his mouth on hers before he pulls back again, grinning.
"Baby, thank you. I love it." And he tucks the pen behind his ear, schoolboy-like. "I actually thought about getting you a Smartpen," he adds, reaching for the next gift. "One of those pens that records what you're hearing in sync with the notes you're writing, and then plays it back later on if you need to hear it? I wasn't sure if you already had one, though."
[Danicka] "I know!" she says, delighted. This is the girl who set up a microscope in her second bedroom. This is the girl who reads every article about the LHC she can find. This is the girl who wants to spend New Year's Eve... at a fucking planetarium, listening to an overblown narrator morosely describe the birth of the cosmos. Granted, she'll sneak in a flask to share with her boyfriend. Granted, when the clock strikes midnight she'll be in some hotel room with him, whimpering and gasping and the city lights through the window catching on the sweat on her flesh in the dark of the room, and though she might not be coming when 2010 turns into 2011 she fully intends to be riding Lukas's cock rather than kissing him and taking a sip of champagne
but she still wants to go to the planetarium, and thinks that this pen is probably the neatest thing in the whole world.
"I don't, actually," she says. "But you should definitely get me one," she agrees, unselfconsciously.
Danicka kisses him, grinning. Seems like every other moment she does this again. Smiles. Laughs. Kisses him. "Open this one," she says, handing him the second box, the slightly heavier one.
[Lukas] "Really?" Lukas sounds genuinely surprised. "I thought for sure -- what with you being in college and ... the electronic stuff you have -- well. You're getting one. Soon. When the stores open again."
The second box is heavier than the first, a little taller, but with a smaller footprint. Lukas knows better than to shake it, but he does open it with a sort of undisguised eagerness, wrapping paper coming asunder under his searching fingers. Revealed, a little Nikon camera -- one of the newer models, compact, designed for the consumer rather than the professional. The box advertises it as HD-capable. Lukas doesn't stop with the wrapping; he opens the box, too, lifting out the camera and turning it over in his hands.
"HD," he says, and laughs. "I'll have to buy you another hard drive to store the videos in. And I'll finally be able to record my dad a birthday greeting that isn't two inches high. Láska, thank you."
[Danicka] "I just never thought of getting one," she answers, shifting around on the bed til she's laying on her side, watching him open gifts. "I like taking notes. I remember things pretty well." Danicka smiles. "I am not opposed to more trinkets, though."
Trinkets. Toys. Gadgets. Like the one he's opening now, a sleek camera in dark blue that promises to take videos much better than the ones on his iPhone. Danicka smiles, and he says he'll buy her a new hard drive.
"I have a couple of extra portable hard disks," she mentions. "As backup for my main computer. One in the safe that has my research into the rods on it, and the backup to that one is in the safe here. But it's not really for videos for me," she says, sitting up, scooting closer to him again and wrapping her arms around one of his biceps, resting her chin on his shoulder as he fiddles with the new camera. "I see you more often now," she says, quieter. "It isn't days or weeks that we're apart.
"I'm glad you want to make videos for your parents," she says, smiling gently. "I thought... this could be for us to use when we're together, too. Have pictures and videos of ...well, going to the museum or the zoo or gardening or when Kando is being silly."
She kisses his cheek, squeezing his arm. "Veselé Vánoce, láska."
[Lukas] It's true: she sees him more often now. He comes home to her more often than not, sometimes calling to see where she is, which home he should come to; more frequently simply looking for her, searching for his mate in one place after another until he finds her. That's more fun for him. It's more enjoyable, more rewarding, and she knows because she's seen his eyes light up with primitive, primal pleasure when he finds her sleeping in her own bed, or reading quietly in the study of the den, or curled up already in his bed at the Brotherhood.
But -- he sees her more now. So the nights apart are fewer, and the videos he makes her are fewer, and not so filled with ache and longing. Sometimes there's only one or two when he hands her the USB key. Sometimes he forgets for a month or two, and then there are more.
The camera isn't for the videos, though. For us, she says. When we're together. And there's a new light in his eyes, a new comprehension as he lifts his head, and
kisses her yet again, whatever part of her he can reach, as though his affection for her, and their affection for each other, no longer needs to be bound by human conventions and traditions. Afterward he sits forward long enough to pop the battery pack into the camera, turn it on, and turn it around.
They're lying in bed. They're naked, obviously so if not explicitly so, and her hair is tousled and his jaw is unshaven. Lukas doesn't care. "Smile," he says, his arm around her, and snaps a picture. Then another, turning his head at the last moment to kiss her on the cheek, suddenly and playfully enough to make her scrunch her face up on that side.
When he turns the camera around, he scrolls back through the pictures. "We look happy," he observes. Then, "Jsem šťastný."
[Danicka] The pictures are, at least, decent. It's just his chest, and her wrapped up in blankets and her bathrobe. She does indeed squinch her face up when he kisses her the second time. She is laughing in the first, because he's just so excited to take the first photos with his new camera she doesn't have a chance to pose in any way. The frame catches a bit of his extended arm in the second photo when he's jostling with her, kissing her face like he does.
A bell rings down the hall. Kandovany is trotting around the upstairs of the house again. They peer together at the screen on the back of the Nikon, and Danicka grins. "You look goofy," she says, when he observes that they look happy.
I'm happy, he says, and she kisses him, smiling. "Me, too." In English, and murmured.
Camera and stationery and pen all set on his nightstand, there's just littered paper and his birthday present left to Lukas. The envelope for the card is taped loosely to the box, and he tugs that off as Danicka tosses the Christmas paper off the bed. It's just a birthday card, nothing really special. It tells him happy birthday. There's a note, though:
Láska,
Vím, že tento rok byl těžký. Vím, že to cítí někdy, že se věci změnily mezi námi, ale oni neměl. Miluju tě víc každý den. Já jsem nikdy líto, že jsem si vybral vás. Jsem na vás hrdý. Jsem hrdý na to, aby se váš lodní důstojník. Všechno nejlepší k narozeninám.
- vaše Danička
And, for some reason, tucked into the card is a $25 gift card to iTunes.
[Lukas] There's still something of that eagerness, that glee, when he opens the card. When Lukas starts to read, though, he quiets. At one point he inhales, quick and smooth. When he reaches the end he rubs his thumb over her signature as though even that carried some indelible trace of her.
Wrapping paper rolls off the side of his leg, rustles gently on the mattress, as he turns to her. This time when he kisses her, it's very slow, very long, very tender: his hands gently stroking her face, her neck, her shoulder. At the end, he lays his brow to hers for a moment, and then wraps his arms around her and holds her.
"Děkujeme vám," he murmurs. She knows he doesn't just mean the gift card.
It's some time, not until they hear Kandovany's new bell ringing its way back into the bedroom, that he lets her go. There's one gift left, and he picks it up, drawing a recentering breath before sliding his thumb under a foldover in the wrapper.
[Danicka] One of these days they'll have to get out of bed. They'll have to get up and feed themselves and each other. Lukas may convince Danicka, who is very strict but worries so very much, that Kandovany will not get too cold if they let her bound around in the snowy backyard for a little while, her collar's bell jingling the whole way. Danicka may convince Lukas that he needs to put down his new camera and eat rather than just taking pictures of the pancakes and sausage and coffee.
For now it seems fine to both of them to remain curled up and warm, opening Christmas gifts, now birthday gifts, while Kandovany trots back into the room. Danicka beckons her as Lukas turns to open the gift that was under the card, pats the cover to get the cat to hop up. She gently removes the collar, setting it down with everything else on her nightstand, and swats Kando gently off the bed, shooing her to streaking silently through the house once more.
By that time, Lukas has gotten to the box underneath, and opened it, and is pushing tissue paper out of the way to reveal the framed print in the box. The frame is simple and black, and under the glass is what looks like a motivational poster. The picture, however, is of Batman glaring out of the frame. The text just says
LAWFUL GOOD.
It doesn't mean Lawful Nice.
When he looks at Danicka, she's grinning. "The second I saw it I thought of you."
But she doesn't let him linger long over that gift, doesn't let him laugh long. She kisses him, and she gets up from the covers and takes the box and bends over him to set it on the ground by the bed, the lid askew, and when she comes back up she slides her legs apart to straddle his lap. As her hands deftly undo the tie of her robe, she mentions: "I know that's hard to follow, since that's probably the best give you have or will ever receive, but there's also this."
And the robe sheds from her shoulders, falling in a terry pile behind her. He should have guessed when she got into a robe, or as soon as she reached for the tie, and truth be told, he probably did guess. It's possible that this is becoming a tradition of hers, in terms of birthday gifts.
The cubs of the brassiere are pleated silver satin, trimmed with black lace. From his vantage point he can see only the simple satin panties that go with it, no more intricate or stirring than a lot of her daily underwear. It's his hands, more than likely, that discover the black lace in back, the soft flutter of the thong tickling his fingertips as he traces them along her body.
Which is about as far as he gets. Danicka puts her hands on his face and kisses him as his arms wrap around her, or as his hands roam over her, but it doesn't last very long. Just long enough to moisten his lips, to steal his breath. She kisses his jaw, then. And his earlobe. Her hair falls over his chest as her mouth goes down his throat, and onto his chest. The first time her tongue touches him, it's circling his right nipple, slow. Her hands are curling around the bedspread as she slinks down his body, tugging the comforter and the sheets off of his lap, pushing them down past her own body, kicking them away. It's warm in their bedroom now, as Danicka slides to lying on her stomach.
And then there's just a woman -- a beautiful woman, his woman -- with a writhing gently between his legs, the lace of her panties interrupting the shift and roll of her otherwise bared hips, her thick blonde hair spread over his thighs, her mouth loosing soft little moans as it closes around his cock.
On his birthday.
[Lukas] All things considered, Lukas is glad Danicka takes the collar off again. He likes its cheerful bright orange-ness, and he thinks the tiny orange-shaped bell, complete with a tinier green stem-and-leaf, is cute as hell. Truth be told, though, he felt a little bad when Kandovany started jangling everywhere she went. And truth be told, something about unnecessarily collaring an animal doesn't quite sit right with him.
So: Danicka uncollars Kando, and Lukas doesn't protest. He smiles, actually, and runs his hand down Kandovany's back. Then Danicka is shooing her back off the furniture, and he's opening his last gift, and --
Lukas starts grinning as soon as Batman's face glowers out of the wrapping paper. When he sees the caption -- though he might miss the D&D reference -- he bursts into laughter. "This is going over my bed," he says, "so anyone walking in looking for Wyrmbreaker-rhya knows I mean business."
But he's not allowed to laugh very long. There's also this, Danicka says, and let's face it: Lukas is sometimes a little dense, or perhaps naive. He honestly attributed the robe to nothing more than the chill in the air. It's not until Danicka pushes the motivational poster aside and climbs into his lap that he even begins to suspect, but -- well. At least he's quickwitted.
There's a half-second of puzzlement. Less. By the time she's undoing the sash, his grin has gone crooked and lazy, and he's leaning back against the headboard, reaching out to touch her hair and her cheek and her body as she reveals it. "Now what," he murmurs, "could you possibly have in mind now -- "
and her mouth is on his, and he abandons his words, puts his arms around her. She hears, and feels, the little inhale he gives when he finds out what the back of her seemingly demure little panties look like. He tucks his fingers under the waistband, runs his hands over her ass. He's about a second away from rolling her on her back and getting on top to make good on those idle little promises they gave each other earlier, waking, grinding together sleepily and lazily under the covers,
but she's pulling back, and sliding down, and he can guess where she's headed. His hand cradles the back of her head. His chin lifts for her, and then his back arches when she finds his nipple with her tongue. "Baby," he breathes, but it's nothing compared to the groan he lets out when she puts her mouth on him. The thud the back of his head makes, connecting with the wall.
"Oh, that's it."
She's moved fast enough, taken enough sufficiently by surprise, that he's still hardening when she starts sucking him in earnest. His hands comb her hair back, hold her hair back so it doesn't fall in her face, but also so he can see her. Can see her mouth, can see her eyes, can watch her watching him tip his head back and exhale quiet groans, curses, rapidly decohering sounds.
[Danicka] Lukas has trouble believing it when Danicka claims that she's not cold. She came back to bed wearing her robe and the assumption was unquestioningly, instantly complete: his mate was cold. So he welcomed her back, got her under the blankets again, and held her close. Now the nightstands are stacked with gifts and the floor littered with wrapping paper, and Danicka's not wearing her robe anymore. It's been discarded, pushed and kicked away along with the blankets.
When his arms fold around her body, his hands pushing under her panties as though drawn there by some relentless force, Danicka knows how close he is to simply laying her back on the bed and pulling at that lingerie until he finds his way, sliding into her. She breathes faster as his hands open over her ass, knowing how close she is to simply letting him. It's his birthday, after all. If he wants to get on top of her and fuck her right now, like this, who is she to dissuade him?
But dissuade him she does, working her way down his body until he's groaning, thumping his head back, touching her hair while her lips slide down his cock. All he says -- all he can say, at first -- is that's it. He hardens in her mouth, her tongue stroking him behind her lips. Danicka isn't looking up at him, at least not at first. She's languid and warm between his thighs, her hands on his cock, on his hip, caressing him as he starts to swear and mutter filth, mutter meaninglessness.
It's obvious that she doesn't intend to suck him to completion despite how she moans, how she does look up at him after awhile, how she takes her hand off his cock to reach between the mattress and her body, between her legs. A hard groan vibrates around his cock as she touches herself, and it goes on. Goes on until his cock is firm as stone, until he's pressing his hips to the mattress to keep himself from thrusting, rocking up into her mouth. Goes on until he's panting, until there's sweat forming on his skin, until when she looks at him he just looks
delirious.
Slowly, sweetly, Danicka lifts her mouth and kisses his head softly, flicks her tongue across him to make him jump, crawls up onto his lap again. She spreads her legs but she doesn't lower herself onto him, doesn't even grind herself on his cock through her panties. She does press her tits to his chest, though, rubs herself against his body as she kisses his neck, muttering in his ear:
"Baby, touch my pussy," she breathes, finding his hand, pulling it towards her. "I get so fucking wet when I suck on your cock." She arches her back, shuddering, her hands holding his arms, her teeth going into his shoulder to stifle a groan.
[Lukas] Jump is exactly what he does when she kisses him when she's done sucking on him. Jump -- his cock jerking, the muscles of his abdomen flexing involuntarily, his entire body giving a single tight shudder as he groans. When she flicks her tongue across him to see him do it again, the reaction is bigger, the groan louder -- threaded through with a laugh.
"Fuck," he sighs then, because she's crawling up over him and his hands -- which have knotted into the bedsheets to keep from grabbing her hair, and to hold on so he doesn't lift his hips and fuck her mouth, doesn't lift his entire body and blow away somewhere -- rise to receive her. He finds her waist easily, holds her by the hips as she straddles him, and when she presses against him he's eager, so eager, lifting his back from the wall to try to kiss her mouth.
Kisses her cheek instead. Her ear, her jaw. She's kissing his neck, and she's muttering in his ear, and he's bowing his head to bite her shoulder as she finds his hand and,
and,
and when she pulls his fingers between her legs he groans aloud again, wordlessly but harshly, almost savagely, when he feels the wetness between her legs. "Oh -- fuck," he says, like that's the only word left to him because this act, by corollary, is all the awareness left to him.
They bite each other, mouths to shoulders. Like animals mating. He strokes her, almost clumsy with arousal, his fingers slipping and sliding between her lips before he finds her opening and thrusts himself, some part of himself, inside her. Two fingers, forefinger and middle, entering her quickly but then staying still, filling her, as he pulls back to nuzzle and nudge her until she gives him her mouth.
He kisses her then, utterly and devouringly, eyes closed, inhaling. That first kiss is long and hard and deep. The one after is hungrier, searching now, his mouth opening to hers. His hand opens over her back. When his fingers withdraw they're wet from her, wet when they go to her clit. He wants to feel her back arch when he rubs her -- he leans his head back, and he looks at her, because he wants to see the look on her face when he touches her.
Languidly at first. His own eyelids heavy, his touch heavy. Then faster, playing with her, fucking her with his hand, the angle a little awkward but the motion so familiar now, so natural to him. He can still remember the first time he made her come like this, and the thought makes him bow his head to her; draw her nipple into his mouth as he wraps his arm tighter behind her waist, draws her solidly against his larger, hotter body, holds her half-lifted against him as he works her toward that first, tight orgasm.
[Danicka] The truth of the matter is, no matter where they are or what they're doing, if Danicka moves a certain way, if she touches him just so, if she gets that look in her eyes, it's like Lukas's attention goes suddenly sharp, a dog hearing a whistle or
a wolf scenting his mate nearby, smelling her heat.
And he's ready for her, always, reaching for her, eager to descend as fast as she will let him into this. At the beginning it wasn't so. He worked so hard to stay human, to pretend civility, to strive for self-control that would not even let him moan aloud for her. He gasped her name though, named her as he moved into her, as he welcomed her onto his body. Now he doesn't feel the need for words, for sense, for petty human trivialities like coherence.
His mate draws his hand between her legs, shows him her arousal even as she murmurs about it to him, and Lukas all but growls in response. He doesn't even try to roll her over now, doesn't throw her on her back and yank her panties aside and fuck her like he easily might have just a few minutes ago. He plays with her, kisses her, as though to capture the truth of what she wrote to him: nothing has changed. He wants to pleasure her, as he did in his bed the first time he had her there, as he did when he first went to his knees to kiss her.
Danicka bucks against his hand, tightening her grasp on his arms as Lukas starts fingering her, starts stroking her. He leaves wet spots on the pleated satin of her bra when he sucks on her nipples, turning the silver fabric to the color of concrete. He watches her as she arches. He watches her as she gasps, fucking his hand, riding the pleasure he gives her. He watches the way she quivers, trembling atop him like she's going to shatter apart at the joints. He watches the muscles in her abdomen work as she gives herself over to it. To him.
As she comes, whimpering more than moaning, her arms wrapping around his neck to hold herself there, right there. She's gasping even as the waves of orgasm go through her, whispering to him that she wants
"-- your cock. Baby, put it inside me. Fuck me,"
the words dissolving into tight little groans, hard little whimpers.
[Lukas] That's it, he's whispering again, that's it, that's good. That's so fucking good, as he's making her come, as he's bringing her off on his hand, giving it to her with his fingers,
as though he were the one being pleasured. As though he were the one shuddering in orgasm, holding on to his lover.
She's gasping for his cock, then, for more the way she always did at the beginning when they couldn't see each other without fucking (or fighting); couldn't fuck without fucking three, four times in a row, until they were too exhausted to go on. He's turning his head swift and fierce as a wild thing, biting her shoulder again, groaning hard against her flesh as her words go right through him. When he leans back he puts his fingers in his mouth. Sucks her taste off of his own skin, snarling his want, taking her by the hips and spanking her gently to make her rise up on her knees, drawing her forward and down until
he can lean back, tip his head back against the wall and find her eyes and meet them all lazy and wanting, desire a banked but ferocious fire in the cool blue of his eyes. He fits himself against her and both of them shudder. He rubs himself against her and she can see every spark of sensation arcing through his eyes, can see it in the way he breathes, the way his words hitch when he murmurs,
"Is that what you want? That's what you want, isn't it. This big, hard cock filling you up,"
a pause, a hissing breath in as he slides himself into her, just the head, just far enough that he can feel her pulse and clench around him for a moment or two before he catches her mouth and kisses her like he's falling into her, muttering --
"Fucking you."
-- against her lips. And, "Come on. Take me inside. Fuck me."
[Danicka] She's never been shy. As demure a face as she could put on, he at least knew it was a lie from the start -- he's practiced at rooting out deception, he's a Shadow Lord, he sees it even when it isn't there, he can spot a liar. He didn't know exactly what it was concealing, and that was what drove him mad. Lukas knows now, better than anyone, why the masks Danicka wore were there: never to harm him. Always to protect herself.
But even when she couldn't tell him the truth, when she hid from him so many secrets of her heart and her past, she was never shy or coy with him when the door closed behind him and he put his hands on her. His mouth. She never tried to conceal her lust for him, never bit back the sounds of pleasure that came when he was fucking her.
Doesn't, now. Doesn't titter or turn away when he rubs his cock on her under the covers on Christmas morning. Doesn't balk at the idea of calling him over just because she's horny and wants to fuck. When she mutters in his ear that she loves sucking his cock, that it makes her so wet, there's no suggestion that it's a ploy, a play, anything but the unabashed truth he finds when he starts to touch her.
There's barely any time between that first orgasm and her moaning that she wants him inside of her. Nevermind the lingerie -- he never has before. Lukas's lust was always as transparent as hers, and Danicka's known for a long time the surge of excitement he gets at simply tugging aside scraps of lace or cotton or satin and fucking her, just like that, her lingerie tattered and askew on her body when they're done with each other. That the sight of her like that, even after he's taken his satisfaction in her, arouses him all over again, makes him eager for her all over again.
Lukas sucks her wetness of his fingers and Danicka darts in suddenly to kiss him, fighting his mouth and his fingers to lick her taste along with him, to taste it on his tongue. Her hands go into his hair, the sort of ferocious behavior she did, in fact, control when she wasn't strong enough to trust him. They grind together as they kiss, her panties yanked aside so he can slide his cock all along her pussy. It makes her gasp. It makes her groan when he snarls at her, makes her shudder to pieces with want when he spanks her.
Her lips are red when their mouths part, her hips squirming against the head of his cock as he gives it to her. "Prosím," she says, in pleading whisper. The words he says to her make her arch as much as the press of him into her, make her buck against him, make her nails dig into his shoulders. "Fuck, Lukáš --"
She kisses him again. Hard. Works herself down onto him another inch, two, with tight circles of her hips, but she doesn't take him inside completely. She has her hands on the headboard on either side of his face when she stops kissing him, rubbing herself on his chest and squeezing his cock inside of her, but she doesn't tell him what she wants. Doesn't tell him how to fuck her. She licks his neck, panting against the moistened flesh, and then slowly, torturously slides herself off of him,
and away from him,
unfolding her arms and legs and everything from him, a gasp of a smile teasing at her lips as she moves backward on the bed, towards its foot.
[Lukas] There's a sort of decadence, a sort of feral abandon in the way they fuck. She's not ashamed to show him she wants him. She's not ashamed to say it, and she's not ashamed to wind her hips on him like that, to work herself down on him inch by inch until he throws his head back and lets out a growling vowel of a sound that he's not ashamed of, either.
His hand go up onto the headboard. His forearms brush her fingers; he grips the wood farther out, his armspan longer than hers. When they kiss it's all lips and tooth and tongue, their bodies pressing together, his hips lifting to push deeper into her
even as she's lifting off of him, so slowly that his head falls back again. He gasps,
"Co to -- "
-- and then she's away from him, and his cock is so hard it flexes back immediately, falls against his stomach and makes him jump at the impact. She recedes from him. He watches her, half-dazed, wanting to know what the fuck, Danička, even as she's moving to the foot of the bed.
Suddenly awareness flares back into his eyes. His mouth quirks, a lopsided little grin that rides the edge between wickedness and playfulness. He sits up, sits forward, rolls up on his knees after her and catches her by the foot. His lips are on the hollow of her foot just beneath the ankle-bone; his teeth on the inside of her shin, grazing.
"Now this is interesting," he murmurs, letting her foot, her calf, slide over his shoulder now as he moves over her. Mounts her. "Am I supposed to fuck you on your back, or on your stomach?"
He's pinned down prey like this before. Rivals. She's neither prey nor enemy, though, but his mate: he doesn't hold her down, doesn't force her to the ground. His hands are flat on the mattress on either side of her. When he lowers himself to her, his tongue flicks light, explorative little arcs over her belly, her ribcage -- the lace and satin that covers her breasts. He could pull her bra down. Push it up. He does neither, preferring to suck at her through the lingerie, closing his eyes because he gets so fucking into it as his hands come to smooth over her shoulders, wrap under her shoulderblades. He's lost for a while, covering her, grinding against her through her panties while he adores her with his mouth -- it's moments before he adds,
"Or maybe I'm supposed to fuck you over the edge of the bed."
And he's tender with her. He's careful when he catches her nipple between his teeth, through her bra; heavier, though, more unabashedly affectionate, when he turns his head and rubs his cheek against her body.
"I really think," he suggests, "that you should make up your mind soon, though. Because I think I might die if I don't get inside your tight little pussy right now."
[Danicka] There's so much less restraint to them now than at the start, which is not necessarily the same thing as comfort and not at all the same thing as control. He keeps thumping his head against the headboard, grabbing hold of the bedding or the bed itself as though to control himself, or just keep himself grounded. Danicka works herself away, still tasting the cum she took from his lips inside of her mouth. It took effort to make herself get off of him, to not let him push his cock up into her and fuck her.
But she plays. And she never used to play quite this boldly, with this much freedom, with this much delight. Danicka yelps a little when Lukas flows after her, grabbing her foot. She laughs as he pulls her back to him, puts her leg over his shoulder, makes her arch her back and stretch herself out under him.
On her back, or her stomach, he wonders, musing aloud while he crawls over her body. Danicka, more catlike, would purr, but she just grins at him, then gasps as he starts licking her, the smile dissolving. Her eyes close, head tipping back, as he licks her through her lingerie. It doesn't matter how expensive it is. It doesn't matter if he just tears it off her with his teeth, crushes it in his hands as he rips it away from her flesh, but he doesn't do that anyway.
Through the tidy little pleats, he can feel her nipple harden and tighten up when he sucks on it, bites at it with his lips. She's writhing where he rubs his cock on her through that thin layer of satin, that tracery of lace.
Once upon a time he thought he was going to lose his fucking mind if he didn't come inside of her or break something with his bare hands. Frenzy, if he couldn't have her. Fall. The fuck. Apart. Now he's verging on growls again, his cock so close to being inside that tight little pussy but held back, which is not the same thing as restraint.
"My mind," Danicka repeats, breathing the words back to him. Her hands are in his hair, running over his back and arms. She reaches between them and touches herself, her hand idly brushing against his cock as she does so. "You can do anything you want to me, baby," she murmurs, lifting her hips from the bed a bit to stroke herself against his cock, his abdomen, again. "I just want you to fuck me. Fill me up with that big, hard cock." She shudders, biting her lips momentarily before gasping, moistening them with her tongue. "Give it to me, nice and hard. Make me scream for it."
[Lukas] "Your mind," he agrees, smiling. She's close enough to count the flecks in his eyes, the flecks and threads in the irises that are so pale they're nearly gray; nearly silver. She's close enough to see his eyes shadow when she reaches down to touch herself; close enough to see them close, see his smile dissolve into a shivering inhale when her fingers brush him.
And she's close enough to see how they open again, lazily, halfway only, when he leans down to kiss those lips she's just licked. He sucks those words off her tongue: do anything you want and give it to me and scream for it and fill me up. There's a low sound in his throat, something like a growl, and it's echoed in the singular, rough roll of his hips to grind himself against her
once again
before he reaches down and pulls her panties aside. When he enters her, it's gentler than that intimation of a fuck. It's slow, his hips rocking in slow swings, winding to work himself inside little by little, inch by inch, while he holds her lingerie to the side, bares her cunt to him, moves into her while he lowers his mouth to her shoulder and seizes her in his teeth.
She can hear him groaning as he sinks into her. Grunting in short bursts, shuddering, kissing the very spot he's bitten when he's finally in her. It feels like it's been a while; but then, it almost always does. He misses her when he's not with her. His body misses hers too, remembers hers, though these are things he tells her rarely or not at all.
He finds her mouth again. Warm and luxuriously slow, this kiss, unbroken even when he starts to move inside her. When it breaks he breathes a laugh out -- not humor, really, nor even a response to any particular event or occurrence.
Just -- happy. That hand between their bodies, between her legs makes it way up her body now. Slowly, lingering here and there, heavy on her skin: all the way up to her chest. All those tidy little pleats, all that ridiculously expensive fabric and silk and whatever the hell else that bra is made of -- he rumples it aside when he slips his hand under, cups her breast in his bare hand, kisses her mouth as he's feeling her heart beat against his wrist.
"I love," he tells her again, playing, "these sweet little tits."
[Danicka] The change is so sudden, so inexplicable, that Lukas can see the flicker of surprise in Danicka's eyes. Her hand is out of the way when he grinds against her again, making her gasp. Her fingers leave traces of wetness on his shoulder and arm when she holds him there. She's expecting him to shove his cock into her, one solid stroke. She's expecting him to snarl, flip her over, and take her the way he might have if they'd never gotten around to opening their gifts. She's expecting him to get up, drag her to the edge of the bed, and fuck her with her legs against his chest. She's expecting almost anything but the way he loves her now, and though she gives a little gasp when he pulls her panties out of the way, it's not surprised. The shift of color in her eyes when he starts to enter her, though -- that is.
Her legs open wider for him as Lukas starts to press his cock past her lips. They wrap slowly around him as he works himself inch by inch into her, folding him closer. Her hands on his arms, holding him as though to keep herself anchored when he started pounding her, slide over his shoulders. He can smell her, wet from orgasm and fresh arousal, feel her still quivery and shaken -- they didn't even take a break, she's barely catching her breath even now -- and he can taste her sweat when he bites her. When he kisses her, pressed as far as he can into her cunt.
It's only been since last night. Maybe nine hours, ten at the outside. They slept deep and long, but they still woke up early as the sun streaked into their room. It hasn't been half a day since he had her last but his body missed hers. Her body slumbered, wakes now, remembers him. And Danicka --
Danicka herself arches to accept him, rolls her hips to gently fuck him while he's remaining still inside of her, getting used to the feel of her, a moment of sanity or patience or sheer, simple happiness. Her eyes aren't surprised anymore but tender, as though she's thinking about the way they made love last night, too. That started out playful, biting, teasing, and melted into something that ended with Lukas wrapping her in his arms, kissing the sweat as it trickled down her temple, whispering something she barely even remembers but that it was soft, and that it was loving. Sometimes he startles her with how he wants her -- and he thinks she's the unpredictable one.
But then, since the night of the solstice, he's held her so close at night. And they've made love so gently.
She kisses him as he caresses her breasts, kisses him slow and deep and molten. It breaks as she smiles, their bodies rocking on the mattress, her eyes opening again after closing slowly during their kiss. She grins, something lazy and happy. "I love you," she whispers, with equal sincerity, with equal delight.
[Lukas] It's hard to have predicted the way he loves her now. The way she was teasing him, sucking on him, letting him get her off, letting him get inside her before sliding off again -- the way she moved away from him, playing, and the way he spoke to her before he started to fuck her -- all that implied something else entirely. Rough and animal, growling, pounding.
When they do finally join, it's entirely different. Her limbs fold around him. He moves into her. It's slow, and it's gentle, and it's warm and deep and --
he remembers how she told him, once, that she didn't let him fuck her like this when it first began because she didn't think he would let her protect him. Hold him. She didn't think him capable of that, just as he didn't believe her capable of any real loyalty or love.
He understands that better now. It was never the implication of domination: male on top, anything like that. When he loves her like this, he understands that she's holding him. She has him, protects him, cradles him, rocks with him, arching softly the way she does, still trembling from what he did to her a moment ago.
She kisses him. He lets himself fall into it, and when it's over she grins. She can see the same smile in his eyes long before it surfaces. He leans down to kiss her again, softly, as though to taste the words from her mouth.
"I know," he says, because he does. And a moment later, because he does: "I love you."
A little more, then, after a while. A little harder, a little deeper, the kisses they share tearing out into something a little wilder. For a long time his face is against hers, rubbing, nuzzling; he's panting against her ear and over her jaw, he's sucking gently at her neck as he fucks her. She keeps him close, and his weight is on one elbow, and his free hand is moving over her, pushing bold and unfaltering over her breasts, her stomach, moving down to caress her clit as he fills her.
It's the feel of that, the wetness between her legs and his cock sliding into her, that drives him to another level. He's groaning then, biting at her shoulder, muttering something half-incoherent about how fucking wet she is, how hot. He rises up, straightens his elbows, puts his weight on his palms on either side of her.
"Put your hands on my sides," he says: so specific, because he likes to feel her palms there, warm against his ribs and the broad sweeps of muscle that sheath them. He's over her, atop her and covering her, bowing his head to look down their bodies at where he's inside her. It's a little harder, a little rougher, the motion centered low, all the force centered in the short, deliberate, quickening swing of his hips into her until he's fucking her heavily enough to make her breasts bounce, make her breath hitch.
Lukas raises his head then. He finds her eyes, he meets them; lets her see what she's doing to him, and what he's feeling, the electric flashes of pleasure every time he moves into her. His brow is furrowed now, lips parted, panting -- edges of his teeth showing on every quick inhale. Yeah, he says, and baby, and fuck me, or maybe it's feel me -- hard to tell, scraps and rags of words before he's coming down to meet her mouth, kisses her as hard as he's fucking her now, pounding her, mauling her face.
His free hand comes under her lower back. He lifts her against him, arching her back, changing the angle of her hips. The shift makes him moan aloud. The kiss doesn't break; he buries the sound in her mouth, harsh and sudden, close to the edge.
[Danicka] There's no time they've ever made love, no time they've ever fucked, that she wasn't aware of him in a way that likely few -- if any -- women ever have been. It isn't just that she's known all along that he's not a man but a werewolf, a species simultaneously caught between and far beyond the viscerally mortal and the utterly supernatural. No matter how civilized he's acted -- or, conversely, how aloof he's pretended to be -- she's always understood what this is really like for him.
What it's really like for her.
Danicka didn't know the first time that he held himself back from her so strictly because he was so close to simply falling into her, wrapping around her and never letting go. But when he was there with her, holding her on top of him, she could feel the intensity of his want every time his hands moved up her body, every time he flexed up into her. She could feel how he wanted her every time he kissed her, and he kissed her over and over like he couldn't breathe otherwise.
In some ways it's always been like this, always is like this. Truth be told, sometimes the sex is better than other times. Sometimes she thinks if he stops fucking her she'll die, if he makes her come she'll break into pieces, if he teases or tortures her any more she's going to scream. Sometimes she rides him, reveling in how his head rocks back, how he grabs onto their sheets or her headboard so he doesn't end up hurting her. Sometimes she likes to see the way stars explode and die in his eyes when he comes in her, lost in it, completely overwhelmed.
And sometimes it's just... sweet. Comforting. Close. Good in a way she never saw coming at the start, when everything seemed life or death, do or die. Good in a way she never thought sex was going to be, for her. She's fallen asleep on her back, her legs akimbo to either side of him, and he's slept half on her, half on the bed, his head resting on her lower body. She's fallen asleep facedown, his leg covering hers, his arm over her back, their panting turning to quiet breathing and then their exhaustion turning to sleep. She's fallen asleep without sharing more than a soft kiss with him, laying her head on his chest and waking up to drag herself away to go to school, kissing him over his heartbeat.
But even then, it's always like this to some degree: the two of them stripped down to nothing more or less than they are, making love in a way that only adds to her belief that there can be no true separation of spirit and body, humanity and wolf. They're nothing but the parts of them that will survive in the homelands, but they get there with bodies that will soon enough turn to dust. It isn't magic, and it isn't orgasm, it's the thing that makes them greet each other:
mate.
beautiful boy.
my female.
Her hands are on him when he lifts himself up over her, running down his chest and his abdomen -- the feel of him, the sight of him stretched out over her, makes Danicka breathe in sharply. She reaches down and touches his cock as he's driving himself into, fucking her now, and she puts her hands on his ribs, traces his chest and then holds him, when he tells her to. Anything he wants. Anything he wants to do to her. Happy fucking birthday, but it doesn't seem to be about that anymore.
She's tilting her head back when he grabs her hips and fucks her a little harder. She's making those noises, moaning for him until her hands flex at his sides, clutch at him. Those noises are shattering apart into gasps, taking her back up again before she even descended completely. Lukas is close: the feel of her so wet, the way she whines baby you're so hard, the sight of her stretched out under him with her bra rucked up and her breasts bouncing and her panties pulled aside and her pussy just taking it, the way she rolls her hips up to fuck him right back, squeeze him inside, the way she half-groans, half-whimpers when he pushes his mouth onto hers and grinds his cock into her.
It's his orgasm that sets hers off, just as -- truth be told -- she wouldn't have come again at all, this soon, if he weren't touching her like this. If he didn't start fucking her fast and hard the way he does. If he didn't make those noises like he does, mutter in her ear and gasp at the way she moves. And as long as we're telling the truth: she'd never buy, much less wear, the lingerie that she does if she didn't enjoy it. If it didn't get her off to feel his hands sliding under the waistband of a lace thong, if it didn't make her wet to see his eyes flash with arousal because of the way her nipples feel under a thin layer of satin.
When Lukas comes, his body going rigid, almost tremulous between her legs and above her, Danicka is still holding him. She's still keeping him close to her, wrapped in her legs, her hands over his body. She groans as he spends himself in her until the arch of her back tilts her head back, tears her mouth from his, puts his lips on her neck, his hot breath coming in blasts over her chest. It's hard to describe the sound she makes when she comes, overcome and grasping for a scream but gasping just short of one, clutching at moans the way her body clutches his cock. She's still panting, still caught up in it, when she puts her hands on his face to kiss him again, moaning into his mouth.
[Lukas] That's a shared and overcome noise they give each other -- Lukas on the hypersensitive far side of the orgasm as Danicka is coming down from the heights of her own. Her hands are on his face, and his cheeks are scratchy with a day or two's beard growth; his jaw moving as he opens his mouth to her, his chest moving with every quick, deep breath. When her body clenches on his involuntarily, he shudders all over -- one hand flying out to grasp a handful of sheets, bear down.
When she lets his mouth go he bends to her neck again. Her upper chest. The juncture of her collarbones. He kisses her over and over, mindlessly, any part of her that he can reach. His back is wet beneath her hands, his body so hot that were it an hour earlier, before they'd turned the heater up, he might literally steam in the cold air.
Outside, christmas morning is all grey and white. Peaceful. Their neighbors have children and church and presents and christmas hams, christmas dinners. They have this: piles of wrapping paper, gifts that veer wildly between random and touching, a card written in czech, and their bed rumpled with their lovemaking.
And his body on hers, held in her arms and wrapped in her legs -- heavier with every breath as he comes down, relaxes, sinks into her.
Eventually he turns his head, puts his ear to her breastbone, opens his eyes. The lace of her bra catches and scratches against his beard-bristle. He nuzzles against her body, kisses her skin. He wraps his arms under her and holds on to her like that, shifting to ease his weight off of her a little, settle it more sustainably,
because he really doesn't want to move right now.
He does, though, after a time. Lifts his hand and sets it down again on her breast -- heavy as a lion's paw. His thumb grazes her nipple. Plays with it, teasing it to hardness before he covers her with his palm to soften it again. His attention is fixed there, curious as an animal's, fascinated by her body and its reactions. After a while a little smile curls the corners of his lips, and he pulls her bra gently back into her place before turning his head to kiss her over her heart; look up into her face.
"When we first met," again, he may as well say, "I always liked seeing what you were wearing under your clothes this time."
He kisses her body again, over the lace this time, eyes still on hers; still smiling.
"I still like it," he adds. "Even if it's just plain white undies."
Another little quiet. After a while he puts his head back down on her, listening to her slowing heartbeat. Covering her breast with his hand as though to warm her.
"I thought about getting you a ring for Christmas," he admits, much later. "As in an engagement ring."
celebration.
9 years ago