hotel.

[Danicka] If anyone were to open one of the few other doors on this floor, they'd see Lukas mauling Danicka outside their room, her dress half yanked down and his hand cupping her breast, their mouths parting only so his can go to her chest and replace his hand. It's possible that they have neighbors tonight and that they're hearing them even now, those little noises -- half-moans, tremulous whimpers -- that Danicka's making as she rubs herself on Lukas's body, as he rubs himself back on her.

Biting her makes her shiver. Makes her swear, searching for words to try and tell him how good it feels, do it again. Sometimes there's fear in her. That may always be so. She seemed to come to an acceptance of this after she spoke with Jesmond a few months ago, started to heal in truth because someone could reflect back to her that there really was no neat, tidy answer, no perfect resolution. It ached that Lukas couldn't give that to her. It ached that she went to someone she barely ever sees and that person could help her in a way her own mate couldn't. It ached that even what healing she achieved is no clean triumph of love over fear or love over trauma.

In a month's time, Lukas will, perhaps, understand a victory like that so much better. Sometimes it's a cold, pale thing. Sometimes you ask yourself

How do I do this? How can I live like this?

and the answer is

I just do. I just can.

Maybe that's the difference between Kin and mortals, the reason they can withstand the Delirium. They just can. The reason why Danicka doesn't do what some would call logical and run the other way from someone that could hurt her, that almost did: she does not have to sacrifice her love to her instincts. She can weave them together, somehow, and find happiness in it. Find joy. Find ecstasy.


Danicka moans into his mouth when he kisses her there again, his hands on the door, fingertips infatuated with the cool white paint. She has her hands between their bodies, yanking his shirt out of his pants, starting on his buttons, undressing him. He noms her skin, grinding more slowly now, and Danicka purrs as she gets his shirt open, running her hands up and down the hard ridges of his abdomen, flesh that was heretofore inaccessible to her. She's smiling when he lifts his head and kisses her, deep and slow and dreamy. She grins when he gets out his keycard finally and opens the door for them.

"Oh no, my shoes!" she cries when he hurtles inside with her, reaching past his shoulder as though she's going to climb over his head and topple to the ground to get the shoes and card that not two minutes ago she didn't give a fuck about. Lukas carries her in and she's all but over his shoulder, giggling.

The 'suite' is the size of a two-bedroom apartment. There's a dining room and kitchen. It is an apartment, essentially. The receptionist might have told Lukas how long their reservation is for; Danicka might be able to tell him once she's come to her senses tomorrow. But right now, Danicka is giggling at her own inanity and Lukas is laughing because he just carried his bride over the threshold -- over his shoulder.

"You're a caveman," Danicka says, her hands finding his back, rubbing the muscles there through his shirt. "Mmmnnngh," she adds, opening her fingers and caressing his broad back slowly top to bottom, trying to cover all of him at once.

She's brought back, and the room is turned around -- no, that's her -- and she's against a door again, facing Lukas again, half-naked Lukas, blue-eyed, horny Lukas. As soon as her startled-looking green eyes register this she groans aloud, pulling his face to hers to eat at his mouth. "You're so hot," she whimpers against his lips, just before kissing him again, helping him push his shirt off, groaning at the way his shoulders and biceps feel to her palms. "God, you're so fucking hot."

Danicka gasps as they grind up against the door, rubbing his chest mindlessly, enthralled by his body being bared to her. "Put me down," she whispers. "You should put me down and sit on the couch or bed or something; I want to undress for you. I want to show you my panties." The word itself makes her chortle, low and deep in her throat, a strange little laugh that she stifles by kissing him again, moaning as his torso presses between her legs still, giving her something hard to rub against.

[Lukas] Not quite willing to let her go yet, Lukas presses back against her as she grinds against his abdomen; groans against the moan she slips into his mouth as her hands run down his arms.

And she's right. He is hot -- literally so, possessed of a body temperature that burns a degree or two above human baseline. Hotter still now, under the effects of that fever of a drug, so hot that with one more layer of his clothing shed, one layer left between his body and hers, he scorches like an ember.

Scorches like that kiss, seething between them so slow and hard. When he draws back he doesn't really -- he leans his brow against hers and breathes, rubs his face against hers, exhales.

"Okay."

And he lets her down, bare feet touching rich carpeting. When she slips around him he presses his brow to the cool wood of the door for a moment, as though overcome. Then he turns to watch her walk away. Turns to follow her, undoing his belt as he comes across the room. The couch is closer than the bedroom, so that's what he picks: sprawling out with his knees apart, leaning back, hands almost-idly, almost-absently unclasping his belt, unbutton his slacks, lowering the zipper

and pushing down his boxer briefs to free his cock. Quite unabashedly, he starts stroking himself, head falling back at that first pass sending luminous signals of pleasure all the way up his spine. His free hand drifts: fascinated by the textures of his own body, now, palming up the ridges of his abdominals, rubbing the ball of his thumb over his own nipple.

"Show me those panties," he breathes. "Show me what you've got on under that little dress, baby."

[Danicka] They worked up a sweat on the dancefloor. They drained those bottles of water dry and got more and she's still thirsty but doesn't care right now, not enough to tell Lukas to hold on a moment while she goes to get a drink. She tips her head back to be nuzzled by him, to feel his soft nose against her silken throat and shudders as the two slide against one another.

There's nothing uncanny or shiver-inducing or different about the way he lets her down from the door as he has so many times before, keeping her close to his body as though to make sure she gets there safely, doesn't fall. He feels it when her legs swing free of his body, feels the shift in her internal gravity when the ball of one foot connects with the lush, thickly cushioned carpet. She sighs as her weight tilts down, as her heel touches the floor, her other foot, as she's left holding his arms.

Danicka thoughtlessly, habitually fixes the strap of her stress, tucking one bare breast away, groaning gently when she touches herself. For a moment her hand is inside her dress, two fingers rubbing her nipple in a circle. It makes her stumble back against the closed door, clutching at it with her free hand. Her brow is furrowed as though in pain or concentration, overwhelmed. She doesn't slip around him just yet. She's there when he leans against the door, forehead to the cool paint job, and if his eyes are open he can see into her dress, watch her hand, see past her skin and sense the red hot pulse of her heartbeat.

Or not.

When she can make herself stop playing with her tit she leans her head up, kisses him gently. It's soft. He tastes like water. Then she is, now, sliding around him, walking further into the room, glancing over her shoulder to see where he goes. Her breath catches when she sees him following her, undressing himself as he goes to the couch, flopping down on it and getting his cock out. She bites her lip at the sight of him lifting his hips to push his pants and boxerbriefs down, exhales when he starts stroking himself.

"Baby," she whispers, almost to herself, the breath of a word shivering as she says it.

Her back is to him still. Through some familiarity with allure she keeps it that way, reaching up as she turns her head again and sweeping her hair off the back of her neck, drawing the length and thickness of it over one shoulder. The first thing she takes off is the silver bracelet she is wearing, tonight, on her right wrist. She slips it off and bends over, setting it on the coffee table in front of her gently. Tenderly. It was the first piece of jewelry he ever gave her.

She tips her head to one side, removing one pearl droplet, cupping it in her hand. She tips her head the other way, removing the second, and when she bends again they slide with soft sounds to the wooden table, lying in the middle of the bracelet. As her back straightens her arms bend, the way he likes to see when she's dressing in the morning, undressing at night, and she draws down her own zipper to mid-back. Danicka moves slowly, and it's hard to say if it's because she knows what the slowness adds or if she just likes the parting of the teeth, the new air against her skin. Briefly she turns her head, looking at him over her shoulder, feeling such an ache of love she can't quite -- doesn't want to -- put into words. Her head turns again.

He already knows her breasts are bare underneath that little dress -- her wedding dress, in point of fact. The smooth, unbroken V of skin she shows him as the zipper comes undone is no surprised, except in the way her skin is always so new. The small of her back is so tender. He's touched her there, run the backs of his knuckles over that spot so many times as she's laid on her belly next to him in bed, still half-asleep or on her way to sleep, soothed by his hands on her back, his lips on her shoulders.

Danicka turns around then, facing him, as she slips the straps of her dress -- not quite a gown -- off her shoulders again, lets the dress slip down to her hips. Her hair, longer now than when they met, covers her left breast in waves and the nostalgia of the curls she wore at dinner and the courthouse. She helps her dress slowly down her body and steps out of it without dropping it in a pile of lace and silk to the floor, holding it almost casually to one side of her body.

The air is cold in here; they haven't touched the heater, and likely won't. Her nipples stand tight and hardened from arousal and the chill both, pink and sweet and known to him, known by him, as so many parts of her. Danicka smiles at him, her eyes half-lidded, half-glazed with what is now a steady, warm stream of arousal running through her like a river.

Lukas has seen her lingerie closet. He knows the sheer variety of colors, fabrics, styles. He knows that after two years with this woman he hasn't seen her wear everything she has. He knows that he's literally ripped apart some of her things, ripped them off her body to get at her, to fuck her. He knows that, interestingly, almost nothing she has is black.

Like he knows that the only times he's seen her wear that color are very, very special occasions. Winter solstices come to mind. Sacred nights when the supposed signature color of her bloodline and breeding and tribe is donned like a ritual.

The panties she has on -- has had on all night, wore at dinner and their rapid civil ceremony and the planetarium and the club and the cab ride and in the elevator -- are pure silk, a simple and low-slung pair with sumptuous bows tying them on her at each hip. On her right thigh is the matching silk garter he felt earlier with his fingertips, though the ruching now would flicker against his touch and blow his mind. He felt the ends of that bow against the back of his hand when he reached under her dress at the club. The contrast of the black to her skin, so creamy in wintertime, is striking. Stunning.

Danicka turns slowly, bending eversoslightly at the waist to drape her dress over the coffee table, offering him a hint of the line of black silk down her ass. Too soon, she's straightening again, turning, stepping over to him and climbing onto the couch. Even her slight weight sinks into the plush, deep purple furniture. She stays up on her knees as she did at the club, smiling at him, smiling long before her body touches him.

First her hands on his shoulders. Then her breast to his face, stroking those hard little nipples of hers over his brow, his cheeks, his eyelids, his mouth.

[Lukas] Danicka's mate is not a mouthbreathing neanderthal. He's not an idiot, not a mindless brute driven wholly by his instincts, and she wouldn't love him if he were. None of that, however, changes the fact that when Danicka starts to undress,

starts with her jewelry, that bracelet, those earrings,

she can hear Lukas take a slow, measured breath behind her. The room is quiet enough with the heater off and the rest of the building, the rest of the world, shut away behind thick walls and luxurious furnishings that she can hear the cadence of that breathing. The slide of his hand, even, over his body. On his cock.

She can hear the low sound he makes in his throat, too, when she straightens. It's part anticipation, part disappointment. She can hear his breath catch when she lowers her zipper, and when she steps out of that dress, so casually elegant, keeping her dress by her side rather than letting it pool to the floor, he groans aloud behind her.

Lukas's eyes catch the light and throw it back. They move all over her as she turns, trying to take in all of her at once. She comes to him and he has to make himself not reach for her; it's almost more than he can bear to sit where he is, to not lunge up and wrap his arms around her and wrest her under him and mount her like

a mouthbreathing neanderthal. A beast.

He stays put. He keeps his back to the couch, feeling the cushions indent on either side of his thighs, then his hips, as she mounts him instead. She smiles at him and his eyes glitter; he shows a glimpse of teeth as he smiles back, crookedly, like he no longer quite understands what smiling means. Her hands touch his shoulders and he makes a stifled sound. When she leans into him he closes his eyes, opens his mouth, rubs his cheek and his lips and his nose and his chin over her, all over her, like he's dying of thirst and she's cool water.

His free hand opens over the center of her back. He presses her to him, closer, turns his face into her torso and bites aimlessly at the smooth, taut skin over her stomach. Tilts his face up. Kisses the underside of her breasts, the hollow of her solar plexus, before wrapping his mouth around her nipple

and sucking at her, lazily, luxuriously, wrapping his arm around her to keep her close now, keep her right there while he has his fill of her. Drugged hypersensitivity makes even the muffled moan he buries against her breast a tactile experience. She can feel the brush of his knuckles, too, as he strokes himself, over and over, jerking himself off while he enjoys her.

[Danicka] Considering how they were panting in the planetarium, and how he suggested they go to the W right away, and how on the dancefloor it was take me somewhere,

baby, now,

they're going slow now. Taking their time as even the slide of their clothing off their bodies becomes such a mindblowing sensory experience that they can't quite move past it.

Danicka purrs with his hand between her thighs, knowing his cock is there, knowing he's jerking himself off just being near her. She rubs herself on him, lets him suck at her nipples and lick her and rub his face on her

but she wants his chest. And his arms. And his cock. She kisses him in passing as she starts to lower herself on him, but doesn't rub her pussy against his erection through that skin-warmed black silk. She wriggles between his chest and his arm, rubbing her ass on his forearm, her breasts on his chest, groaning a low, undulating mmm.

Her fingers wrap around his wrist and move his hand off his cock. "No, mine," she says, uninvested in the words, as she's turning her body and moving off of him so that both knees are on the cushion beside his thigh, moving so she can bend over and stroke her belly against his cock, feel him against her tits, gasp as she does what she said she wanted to in the cab. She rocks over his lap to rub him on her breasts, sinks back til her ass touches her heels so she can rub her face against him, gasping as the head of his cock strokes over her cheek, brushes agains the lower lip.

All but purring, Danicka climbs over him, opening her legs to rub him on her inner thighs, laying out facedown, crosswise on his lap, squirming to get him all over her. "Touch my ass, baby," she whimpers, looking at him over her shoulder, closing her legs around his cock and rubbing her silk-covered pussy up and down him now. "Play with me."

[Lukas] Mine, she says, uninvestedly, but it makes him laugh anyway -- a silent shivering his broad chest, a grin on his mouth. Which kisses her again and again, wherever he can reach, as she slides down his body. He gives himself over to her, shuddering when her soft hand wraps around his hard cock, shuddering again, harder, when she rubs herself

all over him

the way she'd promised to in the cab. Lukas reaches back, then, grasping the back of the couch with both hands, holding on for dear life, holding his breath when her mouth passes so close to him, quite certain that he'll die if she puts him in her mouth now, when he's like this.

She doesn't. He groans in sharp disappointment, but she's moving again, slithering over him like a snake, making his hips buck against her, making his fingernails dig into the upholstery. "Oh my god," he gasps -- she's wrapped her thighs around him, is rubbing her pussy over him, literally over him, and he can feel the heat of her through the silk, can feel her wetness slowly soaking through.

It takes her verbal prompting to get him to snap into any sort of coherent state. He pries his hands off the sofa and brings them down to her ass as she grinds on him. His eyes meet hers over her shoulder. He watches her, watches her face, watches her eyes as he rubs his palms over her silkysoft skin, fingers spreading, fingertips grasping. He watches her reaction when he brings his palm across her ass -- a light, glancing blow, and then another.

The silk ties of her thong slip and slide under his palms. So easy to get them undone. Just a tug, a pull; he resists, moves his hands on, pushing up her back to bury into her hair, and back down.

"I want you on my cock," he mutters. "I want you to ride me."

[Danicka] It would be so easy for him to tug on those ribbons and untie the panties from her body, but he doesn't. Danicka feels him stroking the sensuous fabric, can almost feel him thinking about it, and she laughs softly as she opens her legs a little. He spanks her, once, and she arches her back, lifts her ass again to ask for more,

which he gives her. She looks at him over her shoulder, hair askew along her back, and the grin on her face is a gasp of an expression, her breath coming in pants now. "Yeah," she whispers, rubbing her ass into his palms, moaning as he strokes her. "Baby, you want to finger my pussy?"

He wants her on his cock. Danicka arches again, rubs against him again, smearing her wetness up and down his erection, rolling her hips in spirals, circles, fucking him without fucking him.

"Okay," she says. "What time is it?"

[Lukas] Lukas's head falls back again, his hands going still and slack on her body. His body doesn't slacken, though. If anything, tension ratchets up in him, winding tauter, making him flex his hips against her; making him buck and arch as she fucks him

without fucking him.

She wants to know what time it is. His eyes open; he laughs at the ceiling. "God," is the first word that spills out of him, followed by, "I have no idea." His palm hits her ass again, sharp and quick. He changes his mind, "Come up here. I want you to sit on my face. I want to taste that sweet little cunt."

[Danicka] She's reminded inexplicably -- and with the most bizarre timing -- of the first time they came to the W together. They went to the aquarium first. He talked to her about the schools of fish he was watching, the way they were nothing more than a blank canvas to project his own thoughts and mood onto. How the Kin of Thunder were the same. How he didn't want her to be that. How he didn't want her to just be whatever it seemed he wanted most at the time.

And he asked her if she was there because she wanted to see him or if she was there because he told her to come,

and she said nothing, but offered him her hand, drawing it to her wrist

so he could feel her pulse, quickened by being near him

and not from fear.


Fifteen minutes later they'd shared one kiss, and she'd led him to the Lakeshore W, taken him up to a room, and set her foot up on the coffee table, where he reached for her and took off her boots for her. Straddled him where he sat and, one by one, removed her earrings. They had each other against the wall and again on the bed and later in the shower but between all those

he asked for her real name. And he asked her to stay.

It was the first night they slept together, and Danicka wrapped herself around him, held him, covered his heart with her hand as though she could protect him from even the very uncertainty that being with her bred in him. As though she wanted to protect him from that, but did not know yet how to give herself over to him

any better than he knew, at the time, how to give himself over to her.


Danicka remembers this in a flash, suddenly and vividly remembers the first time they came to this hotel, and she's up suddenly, crawling over him, tipping his head back with her hands in his hair and on his jaw, kissing him not hard

but drenchingly. She puts his hands on her hips, holds his fingers to close around one ribbon, guides his hand to tug the bow loose. Then the other. She never stops kissing him but deepens it, groaning into his mouth as silk ties unfurl against her hypersensitive hips. She doesn't want him tugging her panties out of the way, fucking her like that. She doesn't want anything on her now but the ring he gave her tonight, but the truth is that Lukas is still half-wearing his clothes and his shoes and she's got a silk-bowed garter belt around her thigh. She forgets these things as soon as the panties come loose and as soon as she tugs them off.

Because she takes his cock in hand then, and slides down onto him in one fell stroke, taking him inside herself. Her mouth never leaves his, only opens

to gasp.

[Lukas] That first night they were here, they didn't even properly go to the aquarium. He went there. He watched fish, he came to some sort of epiphany, and because he wanted to share it -- because he wanted to see her -- he summoned her the way he summons Cliaths sometimes, calling her and saying, come.

And then, when she showed up, it turned out he didn't summon her to gain some power over her after all. He did it because it was all he knew how to do, even when all he knew how to do engendered such doubt, such torturous mistrust, in his own heart. He didn't know if she really wanted to be there. He didn't know if she was there because she wanted to see him, or because she felt she had no choice.

So she asked for his hand. And he was wary to give it. And she gave him her pulse instead, the quickening of it, the undeniable truth of her body. Her heart.


Later that night, he asked her for her real name. And after that, he asked her what he should call her. And she told him,

What you've always called me,

as though to hearken back to their shared roots. A childhood spent briefly intersecting before the very destiny and weave of their lives pulled them apart again, only to meet -- years later -- in a city hundreds of miles from home.


Which is where they fell in love. And made their den. Which is where they took each other as mate, and then -- much, much later -- as a wedded pair. She wears her wedding ring now and her garter, and nothing else. The black of the latter is velvet-dark against her winter-pale skin. The former gleams on her finger as those fine, lovely hands come to his face, push his head back and hold his face between their palms while she kisses him,

slowly and drenchingly,

like this in and of itself is some act of sacrament. He's reminded of religious rites, potions and wines cupped to the lips. He's reminded of nothing at all, except perhaps the searing white-hot light of creation itself, when she takes him in hand and brings herself down on him, gasping, making his head thump back against the back of the couch, making his arms spread along the line of the couch for a second before they wrap around her.

There's no shame, no hesitation, in the way he groans for her. The sound he makes fills the living room of the suite. There was a time he wouldn't even let her hear him grunt, barely let himself gasp. Gradually his hands settle on her hips. He moves her, urges her to move, not to raise her hips but simply to grind on him, wind her hips on him, feel their joining, feel him inside her.

No words now. Just his eyes opening to hers, dazzled with pleasure, his lips and his teeth parted to draw breath after breath from the air.

[Danicka] But she does raise her hips. Starts riding him almost immediately, uncontrollably, like she can't bear not to. Her hands stroke all over him, touching arms and chest and face and smoothing back his hair, kissing him again, just the same

after a brief moment to come up for air. She could drown in him. She would, if he'd let her. Right now, at least. Danicka steals those breaths he takes, gives him back not air but sensation. The couch they're sitting on is too sumptuous to creak as she rises and falls on his lap, the garter clinging to her thigh and the ribbon on it flapping gently on her skin every time she descends. Danicka wants to tell him to touch her, put his hands on her ass and rub her body and play with her breasts and feel her but she can't stop kissing him, and she can't find the words to say anything at all because every time she takes a breath to speak she slides her pussy down on his cock anew and it feels like she's going to die.

Danicka does, though. She does take her mouth from his. She does stop kissing him. She leans back and looks down and watches his cock disappearing into her, sliding out again, filling her. Lukas, every nerve ending alight, can feel how wet it makes her, watching like this. He can see the tension of building arousal in her face, knows how to take her up higher, right to the edge, fuck her hard and fast or firm, fuck her til she comes screaming, arching under him or bouncing on his lap, fingernails digging into him either way.

But she keeps riding him slowly, up and down, up and down, watching their bodies, watching his cock, gasping:

"I'm so fucking hot," which he'd agree with if she meant anything but the searing feeling in her own body, the sweat building on her skin. Again, aching, as though pleading for something from him: "Baby, I'm so hot."

[Lukas] It's okay with him that she's riding him so slowly. It's okay because it's all he can handle right now. She rocks on him, up and down, up and down, and he gasps and holds on to her and kisses the breath back from her lungs, back and forth, back and forth.

When she puts some distance between, his eyes drop with hers. He gives a low, wordless exclamation at the sight of it, her thighs opened over his lap, her knees beside his hips; his cock moving into her, out of her, wet with her slick. His hands are all over her; he barely knows where or how; they move with a will of their own. His hand grasps at her breast, tugs gently at the nipple. Pulls at her side. Smooths over her belly, opening low over her abdomen as though he might push her away, or back, but

of course he doesn't. His hand wraps around the crest of her hip. She's telling him how hot she is, and all he can think is yes, she's right, she's absolutely right, and this makes him laugh, and laughing he leans up to her.

Catches her mouth again. Kisses her harder than before, pulling her back with him, down with him, as he sinks back against the couch.

"You're fucking perfect," he says. He sounds like he means it, which makes him laugh because of course she isn't, they're neither of them perfect, it's those imperfections that make her so perfect and now his thoughts are running in happy little loops, spirals that all come down to how she feels right now. Under his skin. On his body. "You're so fucking ...

" ... so fucking hot," he decides, finally. "Faster, baby. Give it to me."

[Danicka] They aren't spending the night talking about their families, or the family they might one day have. They aren't talking about the meaning or lack of meaning of a human ceremony by human laws, performed by a human. They aren't talking about the manner in which a Kinswoman can pray to Gaia or how an Ahroun can use his hands for tenderness and not lethal brutality. They aren't discussing name changes or lack thereof or the logistics or reasoning behind either decision. They aren't arguing about whether or not Lukas's name is going to go on Danicka's accounts, or why he doesn't want that. They aren't talking about their next project at the den.

There are no rose petals, no bottle of champagne, no chocolate-covered strawberries up in this suite waiting for them. Hell. Danicka didn't even remember that her overnight bag -- and a second piece of luggage, with Lukas's things from their closet at the den -- is in her car, parked at the club still, hopefully not getting broken into. Her iPhone is in the glovebox with Lukas's camera, both bearing the photos that they and their parents took during the visit. And just after the little wedding. They aren't going over the day's photos or events, either.

They're high on ecstasy and fucking on the couch.

Give it to me, he says, words that have, in the past, made one or the other of them go over some edge and start steadily losing control, a ball rolling downhill. This time, too. Danicka moans at the words, starts to ride him faster, gives it to him, fucks him until the slap of their bodies together starts to overtake the sound of their breathing. She grinds sometimes, squirming her hips down to get him deep inside her, muttering in his ear

I love that big cock. I love you fucking me. Making me your dirty, naughty, filthy...

and bouncing one, two, three, punctuating her half-mewled words with her cunt on him. It feels like it goes on forever. Like they've been doing this for days now. It might be hours since they got her panties off and she started working her pussy onto his cock. Neither of them know what time it is; neither of them care now. Danicka just holds his hair and keeps his head where she wants it, slipping her breast to his mouth and moaning for him to

suck it, baby. Suck on me -- you like that, don't you? You like how my body tastes. Like having me in your mou--

but she cuts off, gasping, moaning as he bites at her, lifts his hips and fucks himself up into her harder now, faster, slapping her ass just to feel it, just to pat her bottom and listen to the way she squeals and whimpers when he does it. Just to feel how she clenches down on him, just to see the pleasure in her eyes go white-hot with his cock filling her up.

"I'm gonna come," she gasps, suddenly, a note of the dizzied, drug-addled madness leaving her, a chord of vulnerability in her words as she wraps her arms around him, tighter, holds onto him. "Baby, you're gonna make me come --!"

[Lukas] It's that shred of vulnerability that spears right through him. Makes him grasp at her, wrap his arms around her, hold her close to him, pressed close to his chest, close against his heartbeat, even as her arms wrap around him.

Once upon a time she was so thin that his heart ached every time he embraced her like this. Because he could feel her bones; because he could feel how thin and light her arms were. She's stronger now than she was in every sense of the word. He's not so afraid as he used to be to do what he does now:

to plant his feet and lift his hips, to hammer up into her as she comes on him, over him, on and on, crying out.

The last of that noise she makes he catches on his tongue. Closes his mouth over hers and kisses her, hard, as some knot inside her seems to come undone. He's slowing. He's not fucking her so fast now, so hard: but he's fucking her firmly, deep, pistoning into her as he lowers his hips, little by little, lets her come down -- and rest -- on his body.

His chest rises and falls under hers, rapid. He turns his head and kisses her neck. His hand rubs over her back and he's still so hard inside her, hard and wanting, even as he's saying,

Shh. Shhh, it's okay.

When her arms start to loosen around him, he gets up. His slacks fall to the floor; he steps out of them, and his underwear. Utterly naked now, carrying her on his body -- and still on his cock, to be honest about it -- he takes her across the room to the master bedroom. The sheets are turned down. There are mints on the pillows. All they notice, though, is the way the bed simply envelopes them as he lowers her down on it, sliding out of her at last,

and crawls over her,

and takes his cock in hand and pushes himself back into her in one dizzying thrust. The sound he makes is half-sane at best. He kisses her like he can't help it, like her taste is an addiction because, yes, he likes how her body tastes, is intoxicated by the taste and the texture of her, likes having her in his mouth while he's in her cunt,

fucking her all over again, hard and insistent, pounding her into their soft, soft bed.

[Danicka] Her fingernails dig down into the flesh of his shoulders, rake over his skin, then gentle suddenly, cupping the back of his neck and head, kissing him quickly before she can't breathe anymore.

She's been waiting for this all night. She wanted to fuck him at the Adler, in the car, wanted to lay in the backseat and spread her legs and feel him come inside her right there, right then. She wanted to find some dark corner of the nightclub and suck him off, get on her knees and make him fight not to cry out loud lest they attract too much attention. She wanted to fuck him in the hotel hallway, banging up against the door until they made absolutely, mostly-clothed messes of each other. She's rubbed her ass against him, stroked his cock through his clothes, suckled his neck, run her hands all over his body, teased him, teased herself on him, ached for him all. Fucking. Night.

When she comes, she holds onto him like the world is dropping out from under her, dropping away like the bass of a song, leaving her soaring. She can feel him deep in her, throbbing, giving it to her faster right at the end, his cock stroking her clit quick, quick, making her

scream, tears coming to her eyes from this feeling, from the wild euphoria of everything right now. So much of the sound coming from her is gasping for air, trying to cry his name, moaning when he kisses her and slows down inside of her, slows,

gentles,

rocking nice and firm up into her as she rides out the last pulses of her orgasm on him. "Yeah," she whispers. "Yeah." She curls around him, her knees flanking his hips, her hands stroking up and down his biceps, her breasts to his chest, her temple and his sharing trickles of sweat as she rests their heads together. "Baby," Danicka breathes. "My beautiful male."

Her arms don't loosen. She holds him, purrs when he stands up, murmuring in his ear: "You're going to fuck me and come in me now," which is true. "You're going to fill me up with hot cum," and that's true, too, but she nips his earlobe as he's getting out of his pants entirely. Her legs fold around him and she rides up on his cock a little bit while he's trying to turn around and not trip on anything and fall because that would be catastrophic and she's just purring at how hard he is, moaning softly, ready to go again right now if he'll

"Be a good boy and fuck me," she whimpers, kissing him as he finds his way to the bed, falls onto it with her, gasps with her at the way they sink into the cool sheets, the soft down. "Oh god," she says, rubbing her ass on the featherbed as Lukas pulls out of her, her pussy and his cock covered in slick. She doesn't watch him, anticipatory, as he grabs himself and climbs over her. She has her eyes closed, reveling in the feel of the bed, but when he pushes his cock back in her it elicits a hard, loud moan from Danicka's throat, making her clutch at him with her hands again.

Fireworks go off outside. They have a perfect view of the lake, the reflection of the colored explosions on the frozen surface, the way all the ice sparkles underneath the waning moon and the red and blue and green and purple and golden rockets erupting in the sky. Neither of them are looking towards the window. Danicka's eyes open at the thunderous noise of it all, her head tipped back, gasping at the window and the way it all looks, upside down. She can't cope with it for very long, closing her eyes. It's so beautiful. She can't remember what it means.

She moans, though, pulling Lukas closer to her with her legs and arms, whimpering as he fucks her, telling him to

"Pound that sweet pussy, baby. Give it to me. I want your cum in me. I want to feel you come."

[Danicka] [absolute. not absolutely.]

[Lukas] Fireworks paint the sky the color of the way Lukas feels when he moves into his mate again. All the way to the bedroom he had to fight not to plant her against the nearest hard surface and just fuck her, take pleasure in her, come in her just like she asks. All the way to the bedroom he was trying to stay on his feet, trying not to sway with the mindblowing feel of everything, everything happening in this one crystalline moment suspended in time, but now he's here and he's glad, so glad, that he's

well. Here. In this bed. In this hotel. On this night. With her.

His mouth is on her neck when Danicka tips her head back to look at the fireworks. That movement stretches her skin under his lips, his grazing teeth, so he lifts his head too. He's still fucking her. He doesn't remember how to stop. He looks at the colors blazing over the lake, reflected, and he gasps what it is she's thinking,

"So beautiful,"

and then he's kissing her like the fire in the sky is inside her and he has to devour it before it's gone. His hands are flat on the bed now, grasping at the covers, but he stays close to her: contact is not through their hands but through their torsos, their bodies sliding together. Every rock of his hips rides her thighs up against his sides. It's all connected; it's all connected, every strand, every thread, and it's so beautiful he wants to weep. Understands why she cried in the cab, even though all he could think then

was how lovely those tears, even, made her: reflecting the multicolored lights of the city off her cheeks.


When he comes into her, he's beyond sensation. He doesn't know if he's fucking her hard, or gently, or fast, or slow -- he knows only the clenching of his own body, deep inside, and the tightness of hers all around him. Her arms, her legs. Her cunt, holiest of holies -- he thinks irrationally of that shower, that red, red shower, her hands drawing fearlessly in his enemies' blood. He thinks of how fearless she really is, even when she was afraid, and his body knows her even if his mind knows nothing anymore: his body whispers to him, over and over, every pulse of pleasure, every shudder down his spine,

my mate.
my mate.
mine.

Lukas bites her, holding her shoulder in his teeth, groaning thoughtlessly, senselessly against her skin as he fucks his cum out into her. The rigid, powerful curve of his back is the same as it was that very first time she let him cover her. The way he moves inside her, as though unable to control his own body, is always the same, but the way he feels --

he can't stand it. When it's over, he drops his brow against the bed. He's shaking. "Drž mě," he's whispering, over and again. "Nepouštěj."

[Danicka] God, she loved him so much, so much earlier than she realized til --

maybe just now. Danicka remembers all the hotels, all the beds, all the times they came to the W, visited the Shedd, met at a cafe and why she put up with so much and why she tried so hard even though he scared her and even though this scared her and why she kept coming back to him over and over again. She doesn't know when she first started to fall for him, love him. She doesn't know when she was so deep in it there was no going back, no forgetting how it felt to be with him.

So beautiful.

At human weddings they lift up the bride's skirts and petticoats and make a production out of taking off part of her lingerie. It's a repulsive custom, in Danicka's mind, one of the many nuptial rituals that proves how fucked-up mortal marriage is. It's usually white, lacy, hinted at with baby blue or pink or whatever the 'wedding colors' are.

Danicka's black silk garter is the only thing she still has on now. And every time she looks at it crossing her thigh, her thigh crossing Lukas's body, it turns her on. Every time she looks at Lukas's body, it turns her on. Every time the force of his thrust moves her on the bed, it turns her on. Every time she feels his chest brush over her tits, stroking her nipples with his own, she moans. She looks at him and sees the way the fireworks subtly change all of the colors he is, light him up in an aura, paint him with splashes of light.

It makes her whimper to look at him.

They writhe on the bed after Lukas comes, or at least Danicka does. She can't stop sliding her body against the sumptuousness of the bed, and she can't stop touching him, even though she knows he might not be able to stand it. She wants to tell him so many things she's realized but she realizes, too, that none of them are all that important, except for these two things:

"Nebudu," she whispers in his ear, holding him while he trembles. "Lásko, nebudu tě nechat jít."

The undertone, there: silly male. silly, silly man.

She kisses his temple, the sweat on it. She nuzzles against him, rubs her face on his, exhaling slowly. She's still horny, tell the truth. She doesn't want to stop. She doesn't plan to for very long. But right now she holds him. Warm. Close. And she tells him this, too:

"Miluju tě tak moc,"

like he said it in the car, only with tears in her eyes, overwhelmed by it, by how big a feeling it is, how beyond her it seems, how transcendant. She holds him tighter, gasping as she runs her hands up his back, feels him in her, his cock still jumping.

She's quiet for awhile. Only a little while. The fireworks are still going on outside. Danicka licks her lips and turns her head a little, nuzzles him up so she can see his eyes. "I want to do it again," she says, so soft it's almost hard to hear past the crack and boom of celebration. This, like a secret he's not allowed to tell himself, so that it'll still be a surprise later: "When you pull out of me I'm going to turn over and I want you to fuck me like that. Grind against my ass like you do and just... nail me to the bed. But don't worry, she's adding, smoothing his hair back and drawing his head back down to nuzzle against her neck. "I'll turn on my belly when I'm ready to get fucked again. You just stay here for now. Okay? You just stay. Here."

She exhales, a long and quiet sigh, stroking his hair with her fingernails. "I bought so much awesome lingerie for this week, baby. You don't even know. You're going to lose your mind."

[Lukas] As though he -- dosed up, flying high on a drug that he so very rarely samples -- actually needed that reassurance, Lukas relaxes tangibly as Danicka tells him she's staying. Of course she's staying. Silly male.

He's heavy against her then, heavy and so, so very hot, holding himself on his elbows so he doesn't crush her into the bed. The soft, soft bed with its shadows and textures changing colors as fireworks self-destruct over the lake. Lukas feels destroyed right now, stripped apart, put back together, and he knows his mate is going to want more, soon; he knows he's going to want more, soon.

But not yet. She moves under him and makes him gasp and shudder and twist over her, flex into her. She starts whispering to him, nuzzling him until he lifts his head and opens his eyes, and his hair is damp and his eyes are so blue, so blue as the light from the fireworks hits the rim of his irises and sets them alight.

"Okay," he whispers. Dazed, agreeable, gentle, laughing. "Okay."

Then she's talking about a week. And his mind is spinning with the sheer joy of that: a week. Not quite the traditional honeymoon, no, but more than he'd expected. More than he'd imagined. A week here, in this suite or perhaps at the den, living like there was nothing else in the world. Seven days. A hundred sixty-eight hours. More seconds, precious endless suspended seconds, than he knew what to do with...

"We need to go rescue your car tomorrow," he whispers back, and then he laughs. It's so funny to him right now. Everything's so good and happy and -- "I hope no one steals it. I'd have to track it down."

He's tracking down, lips lingering on her chin; down to her pulse, then.

"And hunt it," he adds. He nuzzles her collarbones. Noms her upper chest. Pauses just long enough to add, "Catch it. Bring it back for my mate."

Then he's closing his mouth over her nipples. And inside her, she can feel him -- halfhard -- moving again, stirring lazily to this new stimulus.

"Claim a reward," he adds. "Mmm."

[Danicka] It's a good thing they didn't touch the heater when they got in. Sleeping in this bed -- fucking in this bed, holding one another in this bed -- is enough to work up a sweat. They're going to be obscenely warm even without the duvet covering them, even if they just wear sheets. Danicka keeps moving under him, shifting against the bed to feel it on her back, her shoulders, her ass. She rubs her leg against his side, sweeping that silk bow over his hip again and again, fascinated by his body lying heavily between her legs.

She flops her arms upward, though, stretching out as he agrees that in a little while they can turn around and fuck some more, maybe harder this time, maybe grunting and biting her and just fucking [i]plowing[/i] her into the bed. For awhile, at least, they'll just rest. Enjoy the texture of the bed, the fireworks, each other's skins.

Lukas flexes his hips. Danicka meets him, accepts him, squeezes him inside of her. She exhales, sighs, murmurs wordlessly as her stretch relents. A week here. It isn't very far -- they could walk to her apartment, probably. They could catch a quick ride to the Brotherhood. They could go get her car and drive to the den and really hide away from everyone but they have this suite for a luxurious amount of time, soaring over the city, hidden away above it all.

Her car, he mentions. Tomorrow. Danicka opens her eyes, looking confused, staring at the ceiling as colored light bursts across it. "My car?" she says, then barks a laugh. It's a sudden, unexpected sort of sound from her throat, and she laughs again, lighter, at the tenor of it. "Oh, god, we left it at the club."

Lukas is kissing her body, muttering about hunting down her car, dragging it back to his mate, all but purring as he starts to stir inside of her. She gasps softly, then moans when he caresses her nipples with his tongue. "You should go get it tomorrow then," she murmurs, rubbing her calves over his ass, marveling at soft skin on soft skin. "And when you come back with it I can put on more of my pretty things and have [i]sex[/i] with you again."

[Lukas] This makes Lukas laugh - quiet, happy, lifting his head from her breast briefly to smile at her.

"Okay," he whispers. His eyes close. He lowers his head, rubbing his face on her body, as fascinated by the texture of her skin as she is by his. A moment later he opens his eyes again, as though something vital just occurred to him. "But you should totally have sex with me again before then, too. Because. Well."

Lukas pushes himself up on his elbows. He smiles at his mate. He looks so pleased:

"We just got married."

Another burst of fireworks -- the finale, or close enough not to matter -- light up the bedroom. Lukas looks toward it, eyes wide to take it all in. To hold it all, when he can barely stand it. He watches light burst in the sky; he watches trailing streamers blaze toward the frozen lake below. [i]Oh, wow,[/i] he whispers, dazzled as a child, or some country bumpkin who's never in his life seen fireworks before.

"Look, baby." He dips his head, nudges her with his nose, like an animal. "Look."

[Danicka] It's possible that tomorrow they're going to feel very different. Lukas can shift, snap to another form and back, and in that instant remove all traces of the drug from his body. Danicka may be fatigued, distracted, anxious. She might be ill. She might be sore from fucking hour after hour. But the truth is, her experience with MDMA has never been so extreme that she's felt much suffering afterward, no worse than a hangover, and she's stronger than a mortal. Heals and recovers faster, though it will be more than an instant.

She knew all that when she put the pill in her mouth and kissed Lukas. It doesn't really matter. And it doesn't affect how she feels right now, so close to him. So in love with him. So ready for him.

Danicka is playing with his hair now, her arms half-limp, just barely strong enough to touch him like this. She smiles at him when he says they should fuck again, they just got married. She nods, eyebrows hopping up, in utter agreement: they [i]did[/i] just get married! They did!

He looks past her at the window, his eyes widening slightly, a smile on his face that makes her laugh. He looks like a boy, the shadow on his jaw notwithstanding. "My baby," she whispers, but the words are stolen by the crash of fireworks outside, one after the other after the other after the other. She pushes herself up on her elbows and kisses him suddenly, stealing that [i]oh, wow[/i] from his lips. She wants to look at the fireworks. She does. But she can't stop looking at him. And now she can't stop kissing him. Kissing him harder, pushing him up, putting her hands on his shoulders to urge him to roll over.

When he does, she breaks her mouth from his, her breathing escalating again, her eyes locked on his with something of a new fever in them. Danicka is on one knee, half-crouched, her hand on his chest as she draws herself off his cock. The feel of it makes her gasp, her eyes closing for a second, hand flexing on him. Her thigh tenses within the garter, relaxes again, as she climbs off of him.

Danicka lounges on her side. She doesn't, as she suggested earlier, roll onto her belly just yet. She watches him as the fireworks outside fade to darkness, and crooks her right leg over his waist. "You forgot to take this off," she tells him, fingering the satin garter herself, stroking one end of the ribbon between her fingertips.

[Lukas] Lukas goes easily to his back, not so much rolling as tumbling -- athletic and playful, the huge, soft bed receiving his weight without so much as a creak. He draws a slow breath in between his teeth as she eases off of him, eyes falling closed, one hand closing on itself. Then she's lounging beside him, and he's sliding off his elbows to lay flat on his back, his hand coming easily onto her leg as she slides it over his waist.

"Mm," he agrees, a thoughtful sound. His palm glides up and down her thigh. He's transfixed, transformed by the very experience, the molecules of his body moving against hers. When his fingertips brush hers they halt, as though jolted out of their reverie by this new and fascinating encounter. His eyes find hers.

He steals another kiss from her, softer than the ones she gave him when fireworks lit up his face, lit off his amazement, and made her want him so much she felt she had to all but devour him whole. This is different: gentler, musing, his lips pausing against hers before moving again.

"I did," and this is another agreement. He catches one of the ribbons between his knuckles, fore and middle. Lightly, and rather gently, he draws that knot apart -- one trailing ribbon, then the other, then the base knot flicked deftly apart by the tips of his fingers.

Lukas slides the garter off, slipping it undone off her thigh rather than pulling it all the way to her ankle, her heel, her toes. Nothing traditional about any of this: not the wedding, not the rings, not the colors they wore and not the way he's taking off this last little piece of her lingerie.

He seems entranced by this object for a while. He rubs the silk between his fingers; trails the ribbons over his own torso. When he loses interest he drops it across his stomach, a scrap of deep black that his darker, warmer skintone doesn't contrast with quite the same way as Danicka's winter-pale skin had. He reaches for her instead, putting his hand on her face, combing her hair back from her temple over and over, hypnotically.

"Tonight's so happy," he whispers. "I think ... we've had to fight for so much of what we have. Being mates. Belonging to each other. Excepting maybe our thirteen-month dinner, I think this is the first time we've really had a chance to just ... celebrate [i]us[/i]."

[Danicka] Talking coherently is no trouble. When they aren't, of course, giggling. It takes time for the words to form, for the thoughts to support the words in the first place, but they do come. And nothing makes them more patient than a little satiation, a little satisfaction to the desire that's been raking its nails down their backs all night. Danicka arches against his side, pressing her cunt gently to his hip as he undoes the bow of her garter. She gasps at the fabric on her skin, groans as he touches her.

Even something as simple as fingertips on her flesh makes her want him again. Want him more. Makes her want to say [i]please, baby[/i], though she doesn't know what she'd ask for except for him to take her again.

She sucks his nipple softly, gently, while he's playing with the garter on his chest. She's reaching for his cock, doesn't matter that they're wet, that they're sticky, that they've already fucked each other filthy. She outlines him with her fingertips, strokes him with one, two fingers, barely touches him at all. Moans when he says that tonight is happy, because wanting to play with his body doesn't stop her, for a moment, from understanding the feeling he's speaking of. Doesn't stop her, for a moment, from wishing she could find words to tell him she feels the same way.

Danicka lifts her head from his chest, her hand on his heart, her lips red. She's breathing fast, still, her forehead furrowed in ache -- or lust, maybe. She whispers his name, leaning over him and kissing him more softly this time.

"That's not true," she whispers on his mouth, kissing his chin, licking his jaw to feel the stubble on her tongue. She curls her face to the side of his neck then, rubbing her body up against him mostly -- at this point -- just fo feel him, as though by creating enough friction they could somehow fuse together. "Okay," she gasps. "Maybe it's kind of true. But... we're always celebrating us."

She nuzzles his shoulder, wrapping her arms around him now, one crossing over his chest, her hand on his arm as though to keep him warm. The fireworks have quieted outside. Chicago, thirty-one floors below, seems silent. "I don't know what I mean." She laughs at that. "I know what you mean." Her teeth gently, gently tug at the skin over his shoulder. "Mine."

[Lukas] Beneath her arm, the muscles of his shoulder, his chest, shift as he brings his hand up to curve over her forearm. She holds him like she's keeping him warm. He holds her like he's keeping her near.

"I know what you mean," he answers softly, eyes closing as her teeth lay a gentle claim on him. "And you're right. We're always celebrating us."

He pulls her atop him, then. His arms wrap around her waist, fitting easily across her slender back. It takes her a lot more effort to wrap herself around him, but that doesn't mean she doesn't try. It doesn't mean sometimes they don't sleep with Danicka holding Lukas, her much smaller hand shielding his heart.

Leaning up, he kisses her, nips at her chin. When he lowers his head he tilts it back, also -- looking out the window at the quiet night, the traceries of smoke still in the air. New Year's Day. When the sun rises again, it'll rise from over that frozen lake, across this frozen city with its night-dark towers, its lights.

"[i]Miluji tě, můj lodní důstojník,[/i]" he murmurs. When he brings his hand up to stroke knuckles across her cheek, his wedding band is vivid across his fourth finger -- as solid and dark as he is. "[i]Moje láska.[/i]"

[Danicka] They move easily tonight between livid arousal and softness, sex and tenderness, an effortless comingling of everything they have for each other. Danicka slides on top of his chest and breathes in the scent of him, all sweat and lovemaking and Lukas, and she rubs her face on him as though to cover herself in the smell of him, the essence of him. It takes, truthfully, no effort to wrap herself around him, hold him, keep him near. She does not engulf him, cannot envelope him the way he does when he puts his arms around her,

but that doesn't matter. It doesn't matter that he's larger. That he's stronger. That he's always going to be so. It doesn't matter that her upbringing was a horror. It doesn't matter that even now they are both having to work to rebuild a sense of family outside of their own partnership, Lukas with his parents and sister, Danicka with her half-sister, her father, her nieces and nephews. It doesn't matter that when it so happens that they have their own children it will be more work than just finding each other and loving each other had been. It doesn't matter that every day, if they are honest, has enough troubles and tests and struggle of its own.

Once upon a time he stood with her in front of icy water, almost two full years ago, and he wanted to know if she was capable of loyalty. If she was capable of loving. Loving just one. Loving [i]him[/i]. And she knew him, or was so much like him in this way, that she knew how the world was divided in his mind: worth it and not worth it. Worth the pain and effort and war and work,

and not worth sweat, blood, heartache, risk.

They know exactly what this is worth now. How much they'll give. How much they'll risk. How much they'll fight. How much they'll sacrifice. It isn't a question anymore of whether or not they can do this, day in and day out, night after night. They can. And a handfull of hours ago they both said

[i]I will.[/i]


The wind outside moves the residual smoke across the stars. Lukas feels her heartbeat through her back, and Danicka lies finally naked atop him, his heat radiating into her, filling her like light filling a room as the sun goes up, as the sun goes down. Mate, he calls her. And love. And [i]mine.[/i] Danicka smiles, listening to his pulse, and without opening her eyes murmurs:

"I called you mine first. That means I [i]won[/i]." She sounds incredibly pleased to be sharing this. She sounds utterly unconcerned with what, exactly, she 'won'. She sounds, simply, happier than she quite knows what to do with.


Eventually, Danicka lifts herself from his chest and kisses him, rises up over him in the cool, dark room and informs him that she's going to make love to him all night. Something about her voice, something about the words themselves, something about the way her lean thigh strokes between his makes Lukas groan, his hands coming up as though of their own volition to open over her ass, palms smoothing again and again in fascinated circles over her skin. She hasn't forgotten what she said earlier, so when she climbs off of him and lays herself out on the bed she's on her stomach, her back arched, her hips slightly tilted: wantonly, animalistically inviting him to her body.

When she comes, she's grasping the sheets and comforter in her hands. She's shaking, making plaintive little cries as one orgasm rolls out into another, picking her up just as the first is starting to let her down. She sounds tormented, and overcome, and when Lukas comes he puts his teeth in her shoulder with a growl, trying to simultaneously comfort her, protect her, [i]take[/i] her, lose himself in her.

And he does.


It's a long night. It's still hours from dawn when they collapse, too exhausted to bother showering, to bother [i]moving[/i]. The drug is still in their system, fading though. And they've been going nonstop for almost twenty-four hours when they finally relent, when they finally let go of the day. They won't wake until New Year's Day is almost over, and Danicka will be ravenous, sore, remembering his coat and her shoes and her [i]car[/i] and they have no clean clothes because the bag she packed for Lukas and the bag she packed for herself are in the [i]car[/i].

And some part of him, secret and only glinting in his eyes, is thrilled at the numerous opportunities he is suddenly presented with to provide for her. Take care of her. It isn't weakness in him, it isn't seeing weakness in her. It is the joy that overtakes him when he offers her food and she eats not a few ritual bites to appease him but devours what he puts in front of her. It is something inexplicable, unspeakable, and happily sacred.

So she showers with him. So he fills the enormous tub with hot, hot water and kisses her and tells her to soak there until he gets back with their things. So he comes back in about two seconds after he throws on last night's clothes and heads out the door and beams at her from the bathroom door:

"I found your shoes."

They kiss again, her wet hands on his cheeks and their lips barely meeting because Danicka can't stop [i]laughing[/i]. Even in the bath she hasn't taken off her ring. Probably won't for a very, very long time.

A week here. And it's full of wonderful little treats, to be sure. They eat incredibly well, sometimes food delivered to their room, sometimes at the W's restaurant, sometimes out. At some point they go to the airport to get Lukas's car as well, since there's no sense in paying for airport parking all this time. They go to Spring. They go to that Polish place that's miles away. They order Chinese. Crispy banana rolls. One night, Danicka cooks in the suite's kitchen -- lamb. [i]Lamb.[/i]

She gets massages. They shop, a little, and Danicka brings back some thin ribbons that she braids and weaves into a stronger cord, affixing them to a little clasp: she explains, doing this little craft project at the coffee table while they watch a movie, that it's for wearing her ring when she's in the lab and doesn't want it on her finger because something might happen to it or because she's not sure how the materials and energies she's working with will react to the gold.

She turns on the stereo and dances with him in front of those vast, lake-looking windows. He discovers in his bag a few pairs of silk boxers that [i]he[/i] never bought, and Danicka won't admit a thing. Night after night she comes to him, or waits for him, in some new scrap of insanely expensive cloth meant for no purpose other than igniting him on sight. One time it's a slip that is little more than black lace front and pack, tied at shoulder, breast, waist, hip with tiny ribbons.

One evening she even wears what she calls 'real' bridal lingerie. And Lukas can't decide whether to remove the much fluffier, fluttering garter and silk stockings first or unlace the corset and he tries to do everything at once, finally just pressing her into the bed and moaning, tugging aside the pristine lace thong to just get [i]inside[/i] her.

They don't let housekeeping come very often. A couple changes of the sheets. Some new towels. The scents in the room are richly, thoroughly theirs. They sleep a great deal, and deeply. Lukas brushes aside the voices of his packmates in his mind. The only ones who know they're married, and essentially honeymooning, are their parents -- and their parents are all of a generation where one does not contact a honeymooning couple. At all. They are left alone.

Danicka mentions one night, lying on her back with his head on her breast, her fingers stroking through his hair, that she can't believe how lucky they are. He kisses her heartbeat in wordless agreement.


Tonight when they sleep, she starts to wriggle away and he mumbles no, [i]I keep you warm[/i] as he wraps her back up against his chest, burying his face against her shoulder. She smiles. She relaxes into him, and tucks her feet underneath his calves. She sleeps.


Dawn comes through the windows and her eyes flicker half-open briefly. She covers his hand with her own, but her eyes are closed again and she is drifting back into sleep before she sees the way her fingers entwine with his, how their rings touch.