city.

[Lukas] Lukas, unsatisfied with just the one kiss, leans into it -- catches Danicka's mouth as she begins to draw back. Kisses her again, deeper.

When that parts, his eyes open slowly. His smile is a little lazy. "Let's go to the planetarium," he says. "And then let's go crash some New Year's party on the North Shore. Ruffle the feathers of the Fang-type crowd a bit. But when the clock strikes twelve -- "

and he kisses her again, shorter this time, quick and firm,

" -- I want to be inside you."

[Danicka] "Baby I've got to d--" but he's kissing her again, deeper, until the car behind her is blaring a horn to GO, ALREADY. Danicka, not normally one to do this but since it's a special occasion -- flips the driver behind her the bird before she presses on the gas pedal and glances over at Lukas, her eyes half-lidded and dark. "We should have written on the windshield in soap," she says, mock-regretfully, shaking her head.

But she didn't ignore him, or mishear him. Danicka reaches over, smiling, and squeezes his leg. "You know you could be inside me when the clock strikes eleven and twelve, but I'm not going to start this whole 'marriage' business off by bickering.

"The planetarium it is," she says, and heads towards that strange, doomy-looking building.


There are parties everywhere tonight. The Adler is no exception, though it's a different sort of crowd than one would find in any of the nightclubs in town or on the North Shore. It's not empty, but it isn't wall-to-wall people sipping drinks and perusing the exhibits. Danicka, however, says she can go to an aerospace museum later, she wants to sit in a dark planetarium and look at stars. Looking at the available shows while in line, she jokes that they should watch the Big Bird and Elmo one, but Lukas points -- with wryly smirked relief -- that it isn't showing this late at night anyway, even with the Adler open later for the holiday.

She's interested in the IBEX show until she finds out it's narrated by "two inquisitive teenagers" and rules the Whoopi-Goldberg-voiced one right out. When she shows the young man at the counter her membership card for tickets, he -- obviously not thrilled to be working tonight -- says a semi-flat Have a great New Year's Eve and out of nowhere Danicka grins like an utter goof and shows him her hand.

"I just got married!" she says, with more glee than the poor man knows what to do with. So he blinks and blurts out a congratulations, but unfortunately, Lukas isn't there to laugh or grin with her. He stepped out of line to go get them some drinks and is, at that moment, informing the cocktail waitress that he got married tonight, pointing to the blonde woman in the gray dress with a rather ridiculous grin on his own face.

Coming back together, Lukas handing Danicka a drink and Danicka handing Lukas a ticket, they are both slightly stupid-faced and neither one of them says a damn word about it.


When they settle into their seats and recline them a bit to look up at the screen in the downstairs Definiti Space Theatre, Danicka leans against his shoulder, smiling and whispering: "Sooner or later, I'm going to turn you into a complete nerd, just like me." He kisses her hair. She closes her eyes when he does, opens them as the lights are going down.

The stars unfurl, and the narrator begins to tell them about mankind's endless fascination with watching the night sky.

Thirty five minutes later, the narrator is bringing them back to that original point, and everyone is realizing how small they are and how they are just tiny specks in time, eyeblinks in eternity

and Danicka is making out with Lukas, his hand at least several inches up her skirt, his palm hot against her inner thigh, both of them struggling to keep their breathing quiet, to keep from panting, and his hair is disheveled from her fingers running through it. Music swells and bursts and any second now the lights are going to come on

so she pulls back from him, eyes wide, lips pursed in an effort not to smile, and squeezes his hand between her thighs, biting back laughter as those lights do, in fact, come on.

[Lukas] Lukas isn't biting back laughter. He's just biting her, period, gently but insistently as her head tips back and she tries not to laugh; he's kissing her neck and flexing his hand between her thighs to try to get free, try to get closer, and

the lights come on and Lukas lifts his head half-dazed, looks around. There's a family in the row behind them, and the soccer mom's giving them dagger eyes. Lukas extricates his hand from between Danicka's thighs and shows her his ring, grinning foolishly, telling her,

"I just got married."

She looks like she doesn't know what to do with this news. Anyway, Lukas is turning back to his mate -- his wife -- and kissing her again. Just as deep, if a little more restrained.

"North Shore's nice and all," he says when they pull apart, "but it's really far." And when she agrees to this, "The W's a lot closer."

His eyes gleam. He grins crookedly.

[Danicka] The soccer mom behind them thinks Lukas looks like an idiot, the way he's grinning, the way he's showing her his wedding band, and all of her kids are in that awkward age where they have no parties to go to themselves and are too old to be watching Sesame Street at the planetarium, but all of them are giggling and kind of grossed out and fascinated all at once with the kissing going on in front of them.

Now that the lights are on Danicka -- who wasn't being so shy a few minutes ago when she pulled his hand to her hemline to begin with -- has her hands on Lukas's chest and is gently, laughingly pushing him away...

only not really.

She kisses him softly, her eyes twinkling where his gleam almost radioactively with color -- and lust. She cannot help but give him a hmming nod when he says the North Shore is really far, because it is and that's just the reality. Indeed, when he mentions that the W is much closer, Danicka nods and says, as she starts to rise from her seat, "It is... so I guess we'll have to find a party in Chicago proper instead."

With a grin of her own, less crooked than wicked, she starts to work her way out of the aisle, glancing back at him. "We should go dancing, anyway."

[Lukas] Lukas gets up and, in the same motion, all but scoops Danicka up from behind. His arms around her waist, he grrrs under his breath, playfully, as he lifts her up and sets her back down. When he bites the back of her neck, it's much, much gentler -- as much a nuzzle as a gumming.

"Let's go to that place," he says, "where we danced the first time."

His hand finds hers. He trails her out of the planetarium theater, the dim lights blanking the vast screen out. Lukas doesn't remember a bit about the show. Something about stars. And planets. And maybe black holes. On their way out, they pause to let another couple through -- young, slightly geeky, possibly grad students from UoC or Northwestern.

"We just got married," Lukas tells them, too. The girl looks confused. The guy smiles and nods politely, looking like he wants to back away slowly.

[Danicka] If they had danced together at SmartBar the night he met her, if he'd been rude and taken her away from Gabriella, if he'd broken so many of his own rules of how to treat his kin, if he'd drawn her into the crowd and let himself feel her against his body that night

she would remember it as keenly, as easily as she does the night just this past summer when he sat half-drunk next to her and mentioned that he'd never danced with her. When she teased him that he'd never asked. When no one dared comment on the fact that Danicka had invited Katherine, of all people, out to go clubbing with her and had run into Lukas on accident, just like the first time she ran into him in this city.

By asking a Bellamonte to go out on the town with her. By drinking something colorful and discovering something tall, dark, and handsome looking at her.

She remembers where, and when, and how they barely got through a single song. How he was swearing in the cab and how he was stifling groans in her shoulder with his teeth to her skin. She remembers it very, very well.

Danicka laughs when he scoops her up like that, half-startled by the speed of it and yet laughing anyway, grinning as he nuzzles and -- simply put -- noms her. She holds his hand and laughs at him again when he tells the couple they almost run into about their recent nuptials. She squeezes his hand and grins at the couple. "As in today," she adds, and tugs Lukas away, bidding him to come with her, stop bothering these nice people.

Lukas drives this time -- the single drink they each had wasn't very strong, and he'd downed it some time ago, and though Danicka doesn't even really feel it, he insists. And she smiles, and lets him, and when they're in the car she says he'd better not try to trick her and drive to the W. She also smiles, leaning back in her chair and watching him.

"I told the guy at the ticket counter we got married. Just like that, like you with that poor couple back there. Out of nowhere." Danicka laughs at herself. "You know, we haven't danced since this summer, either? I should've made the clerk put that in your vows. That you'd promise to dance with me more."

She leans over the center console, on impulse, kissing his cheek, then settles back to her seat with a bounce, looking quietly, musingly pleased. "This is ridiculous." She laughs again, like she can't stop, looking down at her hands.

[Lukas] They're walking out of the planetarium. It's the last show of the night, or close enough -- the planetarium is emptying out, exhibits going dim. Lukas comes abreast of Danicka as they exit into the cold night. Light and shadow pass over him: streetlamps, and the darkness in between as they walk toward their car. Even in shadow she can see him smiling, that slow curvature breaking into a white grin.

In their car, buckling in, he pauses as she tells him what she told the ticketman. He laughs quietly, and then it gentles to a smile. She kisses his cheek, but he touches hers; keeps her close a moment longer.

"I promise," he says softly, serious for no reason he can readily say, "to dance with you more."

He lingers a while in that cool darkness of her car. It reminds me, curiously and oddly, of that first darkness he met her in -- not in New York but here, at SmartBar, with the lights and the drinks and the Bellamonte girl wide-eyed and pretending so hard not to notice the blonde's idle interest. He leans a little closer to his mate, bowing his head to rest his brow gently against hers.

"And to try to spend more time with you," he adds, just as quiet - though in all truth, he already does. Try, that is.

In the darkness, her ring gleams; his is little more than an impression of darkness, a fiery rim. He looks at their hands too, held between them. His thumb passes gently, thoughtfully over that ring he slid onto her finger earlier. A human symbol, but an old one. And anyway, they're half-human. As human as they are wolf. As they are neither.

Maybe that's why Lukas wanted to marry Danicka. Or maybe it's even simpler than that. He just wanted one more thing he can look at, and by which he can feel instantly connected to her. A talisman. A token. He brings her hand to his mouth, kisses her knuckles warmly. He shuts his door, then, and turns on the engine.

"It's a good sort of ridiculous," he says.


The club -- neither of them can remember its name, but they both remember where it is -- isn't far. It's new year's eve, which means the clubkids are partying, which means the premises are packed, which means there's a huge line. But they look like the beautiful people, like someone important, and even with their dulled senses the humans know there's just something different about the girl,

and besides, there's something terrifying about the guy. He looks like he could bend the brick-solid bouncer in half if he wanted to. It's not a surprise that they get to cut in line. The velvet rope is drawn back, their cover -- outrageous, $80 a head -- is taken, and they walk into dim cool lighting and hot, thunderous bass.

Lukas ushers Danicka ahead of him, a protective shadow at her back. Blurred faces pass them by -- all at various stages of inebriation. Lukas leans down to murmur in her ear, only he's actually shouting: "Let's go upstairs!" -- and then there's the spiraling, enclosed stairwell upward, where couples are making out and some girl in harajuku pigtails and an outfit so carefully crafted she looks like she just rolled out of bed turns to them, smiling, holding out a little altoid tin full of multicolored pills that definitely weren't altoids.

Twenty bucks! she shouts. Thirty five for both of you!

[Danicka] Promises. More promises, not recited by a secular version of clergy nor written ages in advance and agonized over to be performed in front of two hundred people, but sudden and heartfelt and disconnected from ceremony.

Her eyes are vaguely aching when he promises to spend more time with her, and she kisses him, her hand on his face then, shushing him softly. "Baby..." she begins, but cannot tell him what is behind that sound in her voice. He doesn't have to promise these things. He doesn't have to do anything differently than he did yesterday. He doesn't have to change.

And a month from now, coming back from a challenge that did not drain him of his rage or his spirit or even his will but left him feeling scoured all the same, he will be relieved to find that she doesn't treat him any differently than she did the day before, that nothing between them has changed. Right now, though, she thinks about their true mateship being so long before the day he challenged Vladislav, and how nothing changed then. How when he did challenge for her she felt things changing, he felt himself losing her, she felt him treating her like something he had just challenged for and won, and

they fought it.

How, when he told her he wanted to marry her, she had a sudden pang of fear that it would happen again, that things would change, that they would start acting different, treating each other different, twisting their relationship according to some expectations entirely external to them.

Now she kisses him, hard, rather sudden then pulls back and looks in his eyes. "It's ridiculous because I didn't expect to feel this happy," she says quietly. "Or be this... gleeful, about it. I'm ridiculously glad to be married to you. But I don't want you to promise to dance with me more, or be around more, or be home by seven for dinner or take me out on my birthday or remember to mow the lawn. I don't want --"

Struggling, she kisses him again, more gently. "I don't want anything to be different. You're mine. Not my husband or my mate or my boyfriend or anything, just... my Lukášek." Her lips press to his one more time, hold him there, deepen slowly.

[Lukas] They kiss over and over, drunk on their own ridiculous happiness, their outright glee at being --

well, not quite Mr. and Mrs. anything, but wedded all the same. This kiss tastes different, though. There's a sudden ache in it, a sudden flash of seriousness that has him responding and wondering all at once. When she draws back, he listens -- laughs once, quietly and wryly, as she mentions mowing their lawn (which, in all truth, has more or less been allowed to grow long and lush and wild in the backyard) -- but then quiets again.

When she kisses him again, his eyes close. He touches her face, strokes back her hair. She tells him what she wants from him, and it's the same thing she's ever wanted:

Všechno.
Nic.
Jen vy.

He parts his lips to answer, but her mouth is on him again. So he kisses her back: a deepening, slow thing, blossoming outward, ending with his hand on her side, his palm warm through the slinky fabric of that silvery dress she wore to the courthouse. When Lukas's eyes open again, they're clear, shadowed by the night, his pupils black.

"Já vím," he says quietly. And quieter, whispering, "I do know that."

[Danicka] They haven't discussed it, but Danicka doesn't seem the type to change her name to Kvnasnička. Her own family has an odd history where that issue is concerned: despite her mother's dominance, she and her brother were given their father's surname. His first mate took his name when they were married. Despite the fact that Sarka did, in fact, marry her mate, she retained the name Musil and passed it on to her children. The eldest, Tadeas, however, took his father's surname. Sabina, also mated, took her kinsman's last name.

So in her mind, regardless of conventions of Czechs or Americans, Danicka sees it as a matter of whim. And that which is a matter of whim is, for Danicka, only affected by two things: her mood and any indication on Lukas's part that one or the other would make him happier. Despite her glee tonight, despite her quirks of nervousness and delight at the whole ordeal she originally seemed so disinterested in, their marriage still looks to her as a matter of whim. One that came to fruition because it would make Lukas happy, and because her feelings leaned towards thinking it sounded interesting, appealing, gratifying.

It is that. That and more. She didn't expect it. Not this much.


So they kiss like they can't stop. They kiss because they don't want to, don't have to, never have kissed like they wanted it to end. From the first time, that first aching press of their bodies and mouths together --

which burns in her memory in large part because he held her, and because he held her so tightly, like he couldn't bear to let her go, or as though there was some wound in himself that holding her could staunch

-- they have tried, every time they see each other, to bridge what gaps lie between them with words, with physical contact, with anything that could bring their rational and primitive selves, both, closer together.


Danicka smiles softly at him, eyes closing. She holds his face in her hands, rubbing against it, nuzzling him heavily and eagerly. His hand all but covers her side, warming the lace that covers something softer, slinkier against her skin, and he feels her ribs expand as she breathes in. His eyes open, hers a second later.

"Let's go dance," she says, and smiles, and leans back, her fingers sliding from his jawline.

[Lukas] "Yeah." And Lukas smiles, turning his face as her hand slides back -- nipping gently at her palm, kissing her fingers as they pass. "Let's."

He sinks back into the driver's seat. He's unfamiliar with her car, but this just means he drives more carefully -- though occasionally, his left foot does search for a clutch that isn't there.

The club -- neither of them can remember its name, but they both remember where it is -- isn't far. It's new year's eve, which means the clubkids are partying, which means the premises are packed, which means there's a huge line. But they look like the beautiful people, like someone important, and even with their dulled senses the humans know there's just something different about the girl,

and besides, there's something terrifying about the guy. He looks like he could bend the brick-solid bouncer in half if he wanted to. It's not a surprise that they get to cut in line. The velvet rope is drawn back, their cover -- outrageous, $80 a head -- is taken, and they walk into dim cool lighting and hot, thunderous bass.

Lukas ushers Danicka ahead of him, a protective shadow at her back. Blurred faces pass them by -- all at various stages of inebriation. Lukas leans down to murmur in her ear, only he's actually shouting: "Let's go upstairs!" -- and then there's the spiraling, enclosed stairwell upward, where couples are making out and some girl in harajuku pigtails and an outfit so carefully crafted she looks like she just rolled out of bed turns to them, smiling, holding out a little altoid tin full of multicolored pills that definitely weren't altoids.

Twenty bucks! she shouts. Thirty five for both of you!

[Danicka] Every single time Lukas puts his left foot down, Danicka has to fight not to laugh. "Are you just forgetting?" she teases him. And: "Maybe I should have driven, you're obviously drunk."

She relents, though. She leans over and kisses his cheek, holds his arm and lays her head on his shoulder for awhile since he doesn't have to work a stick shift. She smells him. She pulls away when they park and yet is right back there against his side, held by his arm, when they step out into the cold. Her arms are still bare. They don't look like they're going clubbing. They look like they're going to some very nice meal somewhere, when in fact chances are they'll be ordering some ridiculous food at stupid o'clock from their hotel room when they realize the last time they ate was just shortly after sunset.

The bass inside the club feels like its making the floor shake. It probably is. There is no talking inside. There is only yelling, and even that is done in pockets along the walls, or at the bar. Lights flash across their faces as they're let in, paying a cover that doesn't come close to the tab that most of the people inside will be running up. Danicka walks confidently inside, her arm back to hold Lukas's hand, keep them in contact. She goes to places like this alone. She goes to places like this, worse than this, better than this, with friends from school, with Katherine, even, but still he is that much more alert, watching over her

when quite literally, people pull out of his way without his shoulders so much as brushing them. Danicka doesn't have to duck, weave, squirm through people. His rage precedes even her presence. She grabs him when he pulls her close to yell that they should go upstairs, and she kisses him hard before the words are out of his mouth. Nods, pulling away before the kiss can deepen, and taking him quickly after her, energized by the music, the people, the kiss, the day, a hundred things.

Halfway up the stairs, a pigtailed girl offers them E. From the outside, it looks like Danicka doesn't so much as bat a single of her dark lashes before her hand is in Lukas's pocket, taking his wallet, unfurling two twenties and handing them over because it's just easier and faster than bothering to find a ten, a five. Or worse, asking for change. Ridiculous. Two bills and two pills exchange hands between cute girl and beautiful woman and Danicka's heading upstairs again, still holding Lukas's hand.

From the outside, that's what it looks like. Inside, there's more going on. There's more thought than that. There's more considerations. But they don't show on Danicka's face, and in the dark and the noise and the crowd her mind is so much more masked than it is when he's alone with her, able to see her eyes.

At the bar upstairs, Danicka asks for water and, given a couple of bottles, goes towards some of the plush red seating where she once sat with a mostly-drunk Lukas and had a little help teasing him into finally asking her to dance. There are six people sitting there, crushed together on the couch. Danicka stands there, Lukas beside her, and someone laughs and tells them to come on, cram on in

but four of the people are getting up. They're getting up to go dance. They're getting up to go anywhere, do anything, that makes them feel strong and powerful and less like prey. So before Danicka's stepped forward and replaced them on the curved seating, the other two have decided to join their friends. They slam drinks back and are gone, and Danicka leans back, leans against Lukas, says to his ear

"You don't have to," she tells him, sliding her hand into his. He finds a pill pressed into his palm. If he looks at it, it turns out to be a little white one, stamped with an image of a dove. A grin flashes across her teeth. "But I'll babysit you if you're nervous."

[Lukas] The girl in the stairwell beams as she's paid full-price for both tablets. She lets Danicka pick her favorite ones and then waves with her fingers, silky pigtails sheening as she bounces down the stairs toward the next customer.

Lukas looks mildly surprised, mostly amused. They go upstairs and he's still thinking about that first scorching kiss she laid on him in the club, the bass pressing on his ears and his woman, his girl, his mate pressing against his body. At the bar she leans over and he plants his arms on either side of her, leans against her, nuzzles the back of her neck while she exchanges dollars for bottles.

Then they're in those plush velvet booths, and their new friends are clearing out, and Lukas is smiling and he's about to tell her it's not his first time, but then

he remembers when the last time he took E was, and he doesn't want to think about that tonight. He leans over, his arm loose and heavy across her shoulders; hugs her against his side and kisses her behind her ear. He doesn't shout, but even speaking normally at this distance, she has to strain to make him out:

"I'm not nervous. I trust you."

He claps the pill into his mouth, and he hasn't taken it often enough or hard enough to let it dissolve under his tongue: he swallows it whole, then reaches for a bottle of water.

[Danicka] The pills Danicka took were random. It's hopeful that Lukas won't be startled at the ease of the exchange, the practiced feel of it, but he's been cranky to see her so drunk she could not remember talking to him, and he once stuck Martin's head in a toilet. He does not know just how far down how many roads Danicka has been before, and it's possible that it doesn't matter, that he wouldn't judge her, that she's different because she's not an addict, but

still.

She remembers how angry, how uncomfortable he seemed, hearing that she was blackout drunk after arguing with him, that she literally had no memory of seeing him on occasion. She remembers how he treated Martin for embarrassing his tribe. Lukas -- she's never seen him with anything more questionable than an Adios Motherfucker. Not even a joint. He seems the type to abstain, to look down upon, to ...Gaia only knows.

They're married. They don't know everything about each other. Lukas doesn't know and probably doesn't need to know the extent of Danicka's edge play. Danicka doesn't know and would be surprised if he admitted this wasn't his first time.

Danicka doesn't drop the green pill with the question mark on it into her mouth yet. She gives a smile, warm and strangely tender, as Lukas downs his. The bass of the club throbs, vibrating the benches they sit on. She waits til he's done drinking and then leans over to kiss him. At the bar when he leaned against her she pressed her ass against him, arched her back eversoslightly, an invitation he could not accept in public, an invitation as cruel as the way she drew his hand up her skirt at the planetarium.

The kiss is drenching, cold on their tongues from the water bottles. She draws back only after a long, long time, after his hands have found their way to her body, after she's quickened her breathing, after she's all but climbed into his lap, and before she even pulls completely away she puts the little green pill in her mouth and swallows it. It isn't about inexperience; it's uncertainty about the meth content and not wanting an oral chemical burn on her honeymoon. She kisses Lukas again, smiling through it.

"Oh, baby," she murmurs, and he feels the whisper against his mouth more than he can hear it, sees the movement of her lips more than he can understand her words. This, too, though her hands are curled into the fabric of his shirt, ignited by lust long before the MDMA has had a chance to have any effect: "Dance with me."

[Lukas] Lukas loves the way Danicka smiles at him then, loves the way she kisses him, which isn't unlike the way she smiled at him, kissed him, the first time he let her

no, asked her to

tie him down on her bed and do with him what she would. Something of the same, this. He's tried E before, mostly with Ed Bellamonte and Ed's girls; smoked a few blunts before, mostly with Ed again, and sometimes with Sam, but in terms of deviant behavior Danicka's the old pro in this game, and

and he's not thinking of that, anyway, because she's all but on his lap and he's tilting his head up to receive her kiss, receive and give back, give it back to her in the form of his hands sliding up the hem of her dress, his wrists pushing it back dangerously as his palms cup over her ass.

Some hint of what she's wearing under that, then. The first he's had all night. The invitations she keeps issuing him, like the way she drew his hand up under her skirt in the planetarium and the way she pressed back against him at the bar -- when she draws away his breathing is a little ragged; he lifts his hips and grinds against her when she asks him to dance.

"Okay." It's more felt than heard. He bites her bottom lip, so softly. Then he's getting up, loosejointed -- not alcohol, certainly not MDMA yet -- just her, and the night, and he's intoxicated on his own lust. The dance floor on the second level is smaller, a little more intimate: not the soup of flesh that the first floor is. He follows her out onto it and slides his arm around her, opens his hand over her midriff, her abdomen, and draws her back against him.

[Danicka] For a moment it almost feels like she's going to let him fuck her, right there, sitting in an otherwise empty booth and being pointedly ignored by everyone who passes by it. His hands are up under her her skirt and she's straddling him now, her hands on his face, her breath warm on his jaw. Those hands pull at her, his palm passing higher than it did at the Adler. He feels lace against his palm up Danicka's right thigh, not her left -- tracing it, he can outline a garter.

She never lets him get higher, reaching down to push his hands down back towards her knees as though she's anything close to a good girl, to virginal, to shy, gasping softly, "No, baby, not yet," and there's a trace of a moan under her voice.

He doesn't get a hint of whatever else she's wearing underneath, then. He gets her on his lap, gets her grinding back against him when he presses up against her. He gets ...her. Always. Her eyes are dark when she looks at him, lifts herself up from his lap. Danicka stifles a groan as he bites her lip, shuddering as she gets up off of him. She runs her hands down his arms to his hands as she moves away, drawing him after her, taking him out to dance.


Up here it's not such a mass of throbbing, jumping bodies. Some people are obviously the harajuku girl's earlier customers, their pupils dilated wildly and their mouths chugging from water bottles without anything close to sanity or moderation. Danicka doesn't slowdance here, doesn't just grind against Lukas as she might if they were listening. There's an almost tribal drumline on this song pounding alongside the growing, soaring synth before dropping back to rhythm, to beat. Even upstairs, the dancing isn't so much sensual as it is animal.

They work up a sweat.

[Lukas] There's a low groan into her mouth when his fingers found the garter. Another, a little more ferocious, a little closer to a growl, when she pushes his hands back down.

His eyes are dazed when she gets up. He lets his gaze run all over her before he's up and following her out, and

it's one song after another, mixing expertly together because it's New Year's Eve and this is one of the largest nightclubs in the city, and it ain't no rookie on the turntables. Not that these sorts of places have turntables anymore. Digital turntables hooked by USB 3.0 and FireWire into the backs of servers, maybe; laptops serving as head units, and the DJ not some dreadlocked urban primitive but some bespectacled, soulpatched neo-geek. Doesn't matter -- the beats he lays down are sick.

They work up a sweat. He shrugs out of his coat before long. They pass by their booth to drop it off, to chug water, and then she's pulling him back out on the dance floor and he's loosening his tie and stripping it off and putting it in his pocket. Her fingers undo the buttons of his collar while he's bending down to kiss her, ravenously, pulling her belly against his groin, but it's not yet baby so he backs off, panting out.

They move. The beat's fast enough that there isn't much room for staying close. They move around each other, caught in one another's gravity; their feet join the bass in some primal rhythm stomped out on the floor. The roots of their hair grow damp. His shirt starts to stick to his back, and

Danicka can almost see exactly when the ecstasy starts to hit Lukas, can see it thirty, forty minutes later because his eyes start to gleam and glitter; his hand tugs restlessly at his shirt before going onto her body, and once he touches her he can't stop; runs his hands all over her while they're moving, keeps her closer now, a more feral sort of orbit. The beat drops out of the song suddenly -- a soaring sort of emptiness -- other couples take the opportunities to kiss, but Lukas bends to Danicka and wraps his arms around her and presses her close and bites her shoulder instead, snarling softly in his chest.

"Take me somewhere and fuck me," he says into her ear.

[Danicka] "So fucking sweaty..." is one of the strange, random things Danicka half-moans in his ear, running her hands over him when she can, trying to get her touch inside his shirt, against his body with only one or two buttons undone. This is a completely different night than they might have had if they'd gone to the North Shore and gotten drunk on champagne with wannabe-Fangs. They might have ended up in the car or some marble-floord, gilded bathroom somewhere, Danicka bent over the sinks and her hands on the mirror, Lukas snarling as he got his slacks down far enough to fuck her, because it's nearly midnight and she's been teasing him all night and they're drunk and --

But they're here, some nightclub off the Mile, plus benches and girls selling ecstasy and a DJ who goes by the name Dust who started when he was a teenager, with some regular old turntable, and then someone showed him a computer and now he's in a booth downstairs with the same persona adopted by so many of his ilk: he acts like he's barely even there when he's jockeying, but he is

in reality

feeling everyone in the club. He thinks of himself like a drug. He takes them up. Sometimes he lets them down gently. Sometimes they plummet, only to lift back up suddenly, saved at the last minute from a crash. He's nowhere near the couple upstairs that could not stop gleefully telling planetarium goers that they just got married. No one else here went to the goddamn planetarium for New Year's Eve.

The couple upstairs that did, in fact, curl up at the planetarium and watch the stars for awhile before making out like teenagers could not also be the same couple who had a nice, sedate, respectful dinner with their parents before going to the courthouse to be married.

But they are.


She grins as his pupils change, bites at his lip as his hands start running all over her, marveling at the contrast between the lace overlaid on her dress and the softness of the skin, gasping at how warm she is. She can feel him when he grabs her, his cock pressing hard against her through his slacks, through her dress, his hips on the verge of rubbing on her. Danicka's eyes roll back as she lets him, as she squirms closer. She doesn't answer. She kisses him, groaning at the first touch of his tongue in her mouth, sucking on it.

The beat explodes again.

[Lukas] And with that sharp peak, that crash, Lukas hauls Danicka up against his body in one or two swift lifts. So like that first night, that first dizzying kiss where she reached for him and he reached for her and they were together, finally and her legs were wrapping around his waist and

it's not that first night, it's this one; he's picking her up and his hands are on her ass and he doesn't even care, no one cares, everyone else on the dance floor is obeying the bass and he's picking his female up and holding her on his body as he lifts his face to hers.

This kiss burns. It burns like fire and it burns like ice, sliding down the throat. It sears in his belly and he snarls aloud, his tongue all but fighting hers, his mouth tearing from hers a second later to bite at her dress -- at her dress, because he bites hard, doesn't want to hurt her.

His arms loosen just a notch. He lets her slide down until she can feel his erection, feel how ready he is, how much he wants to fuck, here and now, on the dance floor if need be,

he doesn't even care.

Or there's a booth. Or there's a car. Or there's a hotel, each successively farther from the last. They're all the same to him right now, and his hands are squeezing her ass, grasping at the soft fabric of her dress; he's starting to hike it up again. "Baby," he groans, "now."

[Danicka] This time Danicka's legs don't wrap around him. She's a little more in control of herself, a little more used to this feeling, a little more keen on how wild Lukas gets than on going wild herself right now. It isn't normal for her to enjoy this so much, to tease, to drive him ever closer to some calamitous edge of his own sanity. But she does it with him more than she's done it in her entire life, luring him and goading him and drawing him after her and by god she loves the way he tips into her, aching and biting and groaning for it.

Loves how he locks his arms around her and kisses her. Loves how he tries so hard, even high off his ass, not to hurt her. Loves how he presses her against his cock so she can feel it, loves how doing so makes him pant.

She licks sweat off his clavicles where his shirt parts. "I'll call a cab," she says, louder than she would if they were anywhere else, her hands on his hands, pushing them down, holding his wrists, kissing his palms, putting one hand on her breast

kissing him again.

But now he said, and she's not giving him now, but she's saying soon and she licks his tongue quickly before drawing back, drawing away, panting, grabbing his hand and taking him to the booth to get his coat get the phone sit on the bench while his hands are trying to get up under her dress and she's trying to remember this place's address and soon, baby, soon, I promise

while her hips make circles where she sits on his lap.

The phone call, shouted as it was, ends, and she wriggles, looking up at the ceiling, at the way the lights flash against it. For a half-second she's flying, hardly even aware of whatever Lukas is doing except that it feels amazing

and she laughs, closing her eyes before she gets dizzy. "Let's go. Let's go downstairs. Let's go."

[Lukas] What Lukas is doing:

is wrapping his arms all around her like the very feel of her intoxicates him. The contrast, skin and fabric. The similarities, soft and soft, but the texture, and -- and then she's tipping her head back onto his shoulder and he's running his palms all over her and, yes, those are his hands on her breasts and he's kissing her neck again, touching her, and his hand's heading downward when

she laughs, and says let's go.

"Okay," he whispers back. And grins. And on the way down they pass the harajuku girl again and she laughs to see them, offers them seconds, but Lukas is already running his hands along the wall and all but gleeing at the texture so Danicka says no thanks, next time, and

the night air feels good. Lukas hasn't bothered to put his coat on. He stands at the curb tugging another button loose at his collar. When Danicka comes up beside him, even like this, even high off his ass, he wraps his arm around her instantly and hugs her against his side, drapes his coat around her to keep her warm. Warm and safe. His. Here. Yes.

The cab pulls up. They tumble in, Lukas inhaling deeply, eyes looking every which way. He likes the red glow of the meter. He paws at the upholstery on the ceiling, and then his hand drops to Danicka's thigh, slides around to her inner thigh, rests there for a while while she's telling the driver,

Lakeshore W

and he's laughing quietly as he lets his head loll back. "Miluju tě tak moc," he tells his mate, wonderingly, like the extent and depth of his love surprises even him. He thinks a moment, thinks very hard. Then, "Nemůžu se dočkat, až tě šukat."

[Danicka] On the way back down the stairs they pass the harajuku drug dealer and she laughs to see them. Danicka laughs, too, a little too loud, her eyes bright as she throws her arms around the girl, telling her Thank you! and We got married tonight! and giggling when the girl extricates herself to move on, laughing at Lukas touching the wall. She leans over and kisses the back of his hand, rubbing her face on his fingers, lips against his knuckles.

It takes them longer to get downstairs and out of the club than it took them to get in. To anyone else, on any other night, with anything less in their system, it would feel like a waste -- dancing to a few songs, less than an hour spent inside, not even a single drink other than water -- of an eighty dollar cover. Danicka is shuddering as Lukas drapes his coat over her, the lining feeling like silk. She tips her head back as he holds her outside, chest to chest, gasping every time he runs his hands over the wool and she feels the sliding pressure of his touch through the thickness of the coat.

"Fuck," she mutters, and laughs at her own use of such a harsh word for such a soft, deep feeling. "Fuck!" she laughs again, and rubs her breasts against him through his shirt, half-hidden by his enormous body, his equally large coat. By the time the cab has arrived she's determined that her feet hurt and she's out of her heels, and the concrete sidewalk is like ice on her soles and she insists it feels good but a minute later she's stepping onto the tops of Lukas's shoes and sighing

"Oh, that's better."

He all but has to physically put her in the cab ahead of him, and she bounces on the seat behind the driver a few times while he's climbing in. Her feet wiggle back into their pumps just before the driver starts to pull away from the curb again, meter running and him shaking his head, Christ, New Year's Eve. Lukas's hand on her thigh makes Danicka's legs open, her right one going over his lap. Thankfully the skirt is long enough that she isn't instantly, painfully indecent, but she leans back, slouching, wrapped up in the coat that smells so much of Lukas that it brings tears to her eyes.

She really wants to tell the cab driver how nice he is and that she got married tonight and she's so happy and that the W is their favorite hotel and it's so nice and everyone there is so great but thinking about it makes her want to cry, and wanting to cry makes her laugh because that's so ridiculous so she just lolls, wanting to touch herself

but knowing better.

She puts her hand over Lukas's and makes his fingers massage her thigh instead. What he says makes her laugh. Uproariously. So hard, in fact, that she shakes, and tears come to her eyes, and she's crying anyway, cold and happy tears that she doesn't care to blink away because they feel kind of neat. She drapes both legs over him now, hugs him tight around his chest, rubs her face against his shirt.

"Chystám se třít celé mé tělo na tvůj kohout," she purrs, smilingly, the way one might say I'm going to eat so much ice cream, you don't even know.

[Lukas] The pills were starting to take hold in the club. They reach their soaring plateau in the cab, and it's a good thing, a very good thing, that one was all they took because two would have very likely had Lukas, at least, putting his hand up Danicka's skirt with zero discretion; would have had him trying to pull her dress off her shoulders and suck her tits right there in the back of that cab with the cabbie who's so nice to have picked them up and ferried them over to

the W, there it is, dark in the night with its glowing, enormous sign. Lukas takes a deep breath, and even Danicka's arms around his chest feel nice. The warmth, the contrast to the coolness of his shirt. Her legs over his lap, and the little promises she makes him, which make him laugh.

"Oh my fucking god," he groans, in English, and the cabbie makes a vaguely disgusted sound. Get a room, he'd say, except obviously they already have. Lukas is trying to pay, holding his wallet up to the light. In the end he just hands the cabbie a twenty and gets out, pulling Danicka with him. When her feet hit the ground he realizes they're still bare and ducks back in for her shoes, telling the driver thanks! again.

He helps Danicka with her shoes. He pauses to run his hands over and over her legs. Then he's kneeling on the asphalt kissing and biting at her knees, her thighs, and she has to push him gently away to make him get up. He's laughing. He kisses her, and it feels like the world sways around him but it's just him, swaying into her. When he draws back he takes her hand. Her shoes aren't quite on right, aren't buckled or aren't fitted properly or might even be on the wrong feet, he doesn't even know. They pitter patter as he takes her into the lobby and

shhh, he says, they have to be serious here, which of course sends them both into hysterics.

At the front desk, Lukas all but topples onto the counter. He beams at the receptionist -- might be the same one from all those other nights, he's not sure -- and he tells her they just got married. He says the reservation should be under Musil, or maybe Kvasnicka, and she finds it and forces a smile and he signs for it, giving her a credit card while Danicka's running her hand up and down his back, making him want to arch like a cat at the sheer pleasure of it. His card and the room keycards are handed over, and they pile into the elevator where Danicka hits the button for their floor and Lukas pulls her back to stand against him as the ground lifts beneath their feet.

"Moje žena," he whispers, like this is a great secret fit only for his ears and hers. "Můj lodní důstojník."

And, kissing her neck, rubbing his face against her skin, "Mine."

[Danicka] She can't keep her feet in her shoes. Out on the curb. Back in when they're in the cab. Out again, draping her legs over his lap. On again, when he's standing on the sidewalk helping her get into them and she thinks of that night in Times Square when she stood over him and rubbed her pussy on his face and that's what she tells him, putting her hands in his hair as he's lifting her skirt up so he can kiss her knees, lick her thigh as high as she'll let him.

"Baby," she mutters, fingers rubbing his scalp, closing around locks of his hair to feel the silky-damp slide of each strand, "baby, you remember? You remember when you --" Whatever train of thought she's on gets lost. "I like it when you call me a hot bitch," she purrs, as his hands go higher, forgetting her shoes, his fingertips going for her cunt, trying to find out what panties she's wearing for him under that pretty dress she wore to get married to him. "Because you're so horny," she insists, as though she's quite aware she's not making sense, not getting across at all what she really means to say.

She swats his hand, gasping as he crosses that indelible line of her garter again. "Bad!" Pulls him up to his feet with his hand in hers, licks his hands between each digit, strokes her tongue along the hypersensitive insides of his fingers. "Bad," she mutters, meaninglessly, and it's like they're in the club again,

Baby, now.

Her heels are on the wrong feet. She's wide-eyed as she wobbles after him towards the lobby, alarmed at how hard it is to walk. But she makes a litlte meep noise as he steers her inside and she cracks up as soon as she hears it, as soon as he's laughing to ask her what's wrong and my shoes are wrong! They don't -- they're wrong!

Shh, shh, Lukas tells her. They have to be serious here.

Danicka doubles over, leaning heavily against him in his coat and her mismatched shoes. She's pretty sure she had a bag in the trunk of her car, but they left that forever ago, oh well. She finds herself at the receptionist desk and marvels at the gleam of the lights against the wood, running her hand over it as though there's some kind of disruptable sheen. The light hits her fingers and her eyes nearly pop out of her head. "Oh, my god," she breathes, putting her hand on Lukas's ass while he's trying to figure out, with the receptionist, where they're going tonight.

"Congratulations," the receptionist says as she hands them their key cards, though she didn't seem to be listening when Lukas told her they just got married. She saw the reservation. It hardly even matters what they're celebrating, but it's absolutely certain that they are. The reservation was under Kvasnicka-Musil, and his card is waved aside; that room couldn't be reserved with a card on file to begin with, and the name on it doesn't imply anything but what the room is: shared.

Danicka glees out. "Thank you!"

They go to the top floor. And they touch; can't stop touching. Danicka's arms go around his neck, her feet coming out of her shoes again. She whimpers when she rubs against him. "I love how hard you get," she mutters in his ear, facing him dizzily instead of leaning back against him. Mine, mine, mine he whispers, and she shudders at the words, holding him tighter. "Baby," she says softly, the way she does sometimes. "Oh, my beautiful."


Swiftly rises the elevator to the thirty-first floor, the doors chiming open and Lukas and Danicka still kissing softly, slowly, the feel of one another's mouths too decadent to rush through. The doors are almost closing again, in fact, and they don't stop.

They go down to the 30th floor and step out, and get very confused, and then lean against a wall laughing when they have to go back up. Danicka stands on one side of the elevator and tells him to stand on the other, grinning. "No. You! You stay there. It's dangerous."

Lukas doesn't stay, and comes at her, and she squeals, but it's only a one-floor ride this time, and the doors ding open, Danicka hopping out of her shoes and taking off like a gazelle. Maybe he picks her shoes up. Maybe he doesn't. Her bare feet thump down the short hallway to one of the only rooms on this floor, one of two suites like it in the entire hotel. She squeals again when he catches her, fumbling with her key card, dropping it, laughing

"Oh, crap!"

as she bends over to pick it up.

[Lukas] "It is," he agrees while they're riding around in the elevator. "It is very dangerous." And this is true, because outside he was almost diving under her skirt to eat her out right there on the walkway up to the W, with cabs passing by and valets unloading passengers and

he didn't even care. Except then she stopped him, calling him bad, and he snapped his teeth playfully at her, eyes gleaming, hands grasping gently but insistently at her thigh under her dress. Hot bitch, he whispered at her then, half in jest and half in seriousness, because yes, let's face it, she's so fucking hot and she's stringing him along, teasing him, playing with him in a way that's only okay because

well. They're them. And it's not really about power or playing hard to get or any of that, but something a little more akin to a playful, playing echo of the way she lured him into the forest on the solstice.

Up on the 31st floor he stoops to pick up her shoes -- again -- laughing because for god's sake Danicka why can't you keep your shoes on, it's like you're three -- which slows him down enough that she gets to their door first. But he's right behind her, and when he catches up to her he all but pounces her, forearms thudding down on the door on either side of her. He's heavy enough that the vibration is felt through the walls. Poor whoever-ever-it-is getting the suite next to them; thick as the walls are, decadent as the furnishings, they're going to get to hear Lukas and Danicka having a lot more fun than they are.

He's millimeters away from her now, the front of his body pressing against her back, and then against her front as he turns her around or she turns and he's pressing her up against their door now, shamelessly rubbing against her -- not just his cock but his whole body, reveling in the slide of their skins against their clothes against their clothes against their skin.

When he puts his hands on her, her shoes thump to the floor. One heel taps on the dropped keycard. He runs his hands up and down her torso, eyes half-lidded, sparking and flickering, utterly mesmerized by the stretch and slither of her dress over her body. He wants to tell her he loves the way she feels, and the way she smells, and the taste of her mouth and none of that comes out; all that comes out is mmmgh, and he's kissing her again, hoisting her up against the door and -- quite frankly -- doing his best to get between her legs.

"We need to fuck," he whispers. "We need to fuck until ... you don't even know. God, this sweet little pussy," and on that nonsensical pronouncement, he kisses her again. Deep, drinking her out of herself.

[Danicka] The worst of the ache is gone now, the constant press of longing, the need to grind -- that left them when the ecstasy took hold and replaced everything with euphoria. This lust is different, somehow. They're here, now, right at the door of their hotel room and so close to a private place where they can devour each other that all they have left to do is enjoy it. Enjoy themselves. Enjoy each other.

Traipsing down the hallway, Lukas compares her to a three year old and all Danicka does is exhale a chortling Heee as she runs. "Stupid shoes!" she says, "they're wrong anyway!"

The keycard flips over on its way down, fascinating her. Lukas gets to her and slams his forearms to the door before she can bend down to get it, making her gasp. She shivers against him, letting his coat slide off her arms and down to the floor, but it gets caught between his hips and hers,

drops finally when he turns her around, grinding his entire body with hers. The pressure of his heaviness and warmth pushing her against the door doesn't make her nervous tonight, doesn't make her uncomfortable, doesn't make her heart race faster than she wants to admit. She groans instead, reaching up to tug one strap of her dress down, pulling his hand to her now-bared shoulder, clavicle, the soft skin above her right breast. The strap drags downward, bounces on her upper arm when he lifts her up, pushing her skirt up.

"Okay," she breathes instead of squirming away to tell him that they need to go into their room, at least. She puts her hands in his hair and kisses him instead, hiking her skirt up, wrapping her legs around him to grind herself on his stomach.

[Lukas] His hand is going under the fabric of her dress almost the instant she places it on her shoulder, her upper chest. His mouth is where his hand is a moment later, and he's kissing and sucking at her skin, nipping lightly at it as she grinds against his stomach.

Lukas isn't even trying to contain himself. He's growling as he goes at her; rubbing the tensed span of his abdomen right back against her. When he lifts his head, it's just to kiss her neck. Bite at the soft skin over her throat, her pulse, where a couple years ago -- maybe even a few months ago -- she wouldn't have dared let him.

The truth is, even now, sometimes when he does this he can feel her heartbeat spiking in a way that has more to do with instinctual fear than arousal. Or worse: than mingling of the two. Not right now, though. Right now they're both so very far gone, both too far gone, and there isn't any hurry, any real reason why they can't just get to a private place and fuck, except that

the door is so smooth and cool, the texture so fascinating against his bracing hand. And she's so warm, her skin so hot, her legs wrapping around him so tightly. He doesn't want to go anyway. He relaxes for a moment, leaning heavily against her, against the door, all but nomming at her neck and her shoulder now, making a low, rumbling sound in his chest.

His head comes up at last. He looks at her, his eyes blue rims around black pupils. His grin is crooked. His hair is mussed: dancing, cab ride, her fingers wreathing through the black locks in the driveway of the hotel. This kiss is open-eyed, luxuriously slow, and when it's over he gets his own keycard out and unlocks the door.

It swings open to the best suite in this hotel; one of the best suites in the whole damn city. The lake spreads to the horizon beyond the vast windows, frozen almost as far as the eye can see. Furnishings are lush and dark, wine-red, imperial-purple, and Lukas is laughing suddenly because

he just carried her past the threshold.

They leave her shoes, his coat, their dropped keycard outside. He shuts the door and puts her back to it, leaning back from her just far enough to start undoing the rest of his buttons. The lights are at his back, but even shadowed she can see him smiling. She can see his eyes closing as he leans forward to kiss her, peeling his shirt back from his shoulders and down his arms.