things that needed to be said.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Simon leaves, and Lukas gets up - ostensibly to show the last guest out the door, but really to shut the door behind him and refill his plate.

Most of the Shadow Lords only picked at the food out of politeness. It's cooled now, but Lukas still lingers there, grabbing lamb and stuffed cabbage. When he comes back, he flicks the lights off behind him until only the floor lamp in the corner of the living room is lit.

He sinks down on the couch beside Danicka with a subdued breath that wants to be a heave of relief, pushing his feet out of his shoes and setting them up on the coffee table. As before, he puts the plate on the thigh closer to her, a quiet sort of offering.

"I never know what to expect from these things," he says. "Sometimes they're great. Sometimes I want to put someone's head through a wall. Tonight it was a little of both."

[Danicka Musil] The suite rented for the purposes of housing a group of Shadow Lords who may or may not be able to hold their liquor enough to call a cab for themselves is enormous, and it is now empty. As Lukas gets up to close the door, Danicka sits on the couch and looks through the dark, vast panes of glass onto the dark, vast city. She sips her second double of vodka as Lukas fills his plate, her legs crossed. She hasn't removed anything but her coat and lowered her bag, though there's no indication she intends to hop up and leave. Why would she?

As he comes back and turns her head to him, smiling at the way he sits, all breathy sighs of relief and shoes-kicking-off. They're dim now, their reflections living in a shadowland of those floor to ceiling windows.

"Whose head?" she asks, a trifle amused, as she reaches over to take a pierogi off of his plate.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] "Carter's. Who else?"

And then he falls quiet. Brooding, almost, which -- contrary to stereotype and expectation -- isn't really his style. His fork taps his plate. He eats lamb, then uses the side of the fork to cut the cabbage roll into bitesized pieces, dip them in sweet tomato sauce.

"For a moment tonight," he says then, the quietness of a confession, "I really thought I would kill him."

[Danicka Musil] Sitting beside him, Danicka eats a bite of pierogi, making a short hmm sound in answer to what he said about Carter. She wasn't here when Carter was, didn't see how he spoke to the others, only heard about him in hindsight. But she chews silently, listening. Lukas says what he does, and she tips her head a bit to one side.

"Why?"

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Lukas's brow is furrowed. He toys with his food now, pushing the cabbage roll back and forth until it begins to fall apart.

"Just... the effect he was having. It wasn't just insubordination. It was open and active subversion. Breeding mistrust, creating divides where there were none. It wasn't just that the two kinswomen panting over him were suddenly on his side -- it was the Garou too, turning against his kin. And he was deaf to all attempts at reason. Everything I said to him, he twisted into evidence that I was trying to oppress him.

"It reached a point where I'd decided if he said one more word along that vein I would silence him once and for all. The only reason I didn't do it sooner was because doing so would validate him as a martyr. To tell you the truth," and there's a pause, because he doesn't want to lay this burden on her, "if you don't convince him to stop openly breeding hate and division, I can't see this ending any other way but with his death. Even if I kick him out of the city, he'll just do the same thing somewhere else.

"He's worse than a liability. He's an active danger."

[Danicka Musil] Maybe it's the vodka, or the lateness of the hour, but Danicka doesn't ripple with tension suddenly, getting her back up or going pale. Nor is she offhand, unimpressed. She takes another sip, and she flicks her eyebrows upward and down once, her forehead flowing into a small frown despite the vaguely, dryly amused tone of voice she affects: "No pressure."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Lukas grimaces at that, unamused, perhaps wincing. He eats quietly for a moment. Then, "For what it's worth, I don't expect you to convince him. I don't think anyone can at this point. I think you might have a better shot than anyone else in the city, but at the end of the day it's still not much of a shot. Whatever was done to him to make him this way, he obviously didn't survive it intact. And the look in his eyes today -- he didn't just expect to die. He wanted to die for the sake of proving himself right.

"Fuck's sake. I just wish he hadn't chosen this city to make his grand statement in."

[Danicka Musil] There's still a finger of the wodka in Danicka's tumbler. As far as she knows, when she poured some for Stefan he never took a sip. She didn't see him drink any, at least. That may not have any significance; they were talking, after all. She watches the viscous clarity of the liquid move against the sides of the glass, cling and run down like a slow, more relaxed brother to the water it resembles. It's set down on a coaster on the table by the arm of the couch, the pierogi laid gently beside it.

Danicka turns on the couch, bending one leg across the cushions, her right foot still on the ground. She props her left arm up on the back of the couch, her fist loosely curled as she leans her temple against it.

"Stefan was telling me about how his healing works," she says quietly.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Lukas's black eyebrow simply flicks up -- something in between what's that got to do with it? and oh?

And he listens.

[Danicka Musil] She just watches him, the color of her eyes hard to discern by lamplight, Danicka sitting in the shadow of his body. Her voice is quiet, and -- as though she knows the sort of wolf he is, the sort of wolf he must be to lead this tribe, the sort of man who simply does not like to be argued with and occasionally sees arguments where there are none -- rather nonconfrontational. Not dodging, though, the way she might have once, skirting the issue or simply not addressing it at all.

She is, one might say, just talking to him.

"Apparently it's empathetic," she says. "He can heal physical wounds, but only by taking them onto himself." Danicka's quiet a moment after that, perhaps to let it sink in, not knowing if Lukas was aware of the nature of Carter's 'gift'. She shrugs one shoulder. "It was why I offered to try talking to him. I think... of what someone like my brother would have done with a Kinfolk who displayed such an ability. I wonder when it manifested in Carter, how young he might have been when the tribe learned of it."

She twists then, the couch whispering as she moves, and picks up her glass again, bringing it back towards her lips as she turns to Lukas once more. "I've never met the man," she acknowledges, "or heard or seen his influence. I've only heard Garou speak of him, through whatever lens they may each have. But when Stefan told me that, I thought... well of course. There aren't many Kinfolk I've ever met who don't, on some level, equate their 'usefulness' to the tribe with the abuse and degredation that usefulness entails."

Danicka finishes off the vodka. "Though I suppose in Carter's case, if I'm supposing correctly, the line connecting being 'useful' with being 'hurt' is rarely so obvious and direct."

The glass is set down again. Her eyes slide slowly to Lukas's, her voice little more than a whisper. "It's why, when Simon called me useful, you smiled and I didn't." She's quiet for another moment, reaching out with her previously cocked arm and touching the backs of her fingers to his cheek, feeling the faint stubble there, feeling a subtle, unseen thrill through her at the simple sensation of touching him. Loving him. He can feel her ring touch his skin. "Hearing you talk about him just now, I just wonder if that's really the truth. Maybe beneath all the bitterness and resentment and down-with-the-oppressors rhetoric, all he can see is that when you are a Shadow Lord, no matter how much you can help other members of the Tribe -- Garou and Kin -- and the War effort at large, all it means is that you'll be given pain for it. And if that's how he sees it, if that's the damage he's carrying around, then why would he do anything but prove himself -- not useless, since his ability keeps him from claiming sweet, inoffensive, easy-to-ignore and be left alone uselessness -- well.

"Detrimental." A beat. "If he can prove that he's not just useless but a liability, then maybe he'll finally be set free."

She lets her hand drift to his shoulder, rather than pulling away and ending their contact. She smiles faintly, warm if a little somber. "I'm not arguing for your leniency or his mercy, láska. But I do see things differently than you. And I thought you might want to hear it."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] He didn't know that. She can see that because awareness, a sort of realization, sparks in his eyes. Which is not to say tenderness and mercy washes through him now, that all is forgiven and put aside -- because it's not. It only makes him look...

a little more aching, perhaps. A little more troubled.

"I can imagine a little better, then," he says, low, "the sorts of things he may have had to do. For the Tribe. For Garou. For some selfish bastard to save himself a pittance of Gnosis in healing one of his own.

"But for god's sake, Danička, the things that were done to you. The -- "

he has to turn away, abruptly, her hand falling from his cheek only to be caught in his fingers. He doesn't even had to look to know where she is. He holds her hand for a moment, tighter than need be, struggling against some internal outrage, wrath, bearing it down like prey, wrestling it to submission. When he's finished he brings her hand to his mouth and kisses her knuckles, softly.

"It is possible," he says, "to survive just about anything with your mind and spirit intact. I believe that. It just takes strength. And if he fractured, if he can't trust a single Garou anymore because of whatever happened in his past -- " and perhaps he hears the echo of his own challenge there, " -- then he's weak.

"Worse than weak -- blind. And willing to turn others to that same sort of blindness. That's the worst of it. You didn't see him when he came in here; on his guard from the first instant. Reading the worst possible interpretation of every word out of a Garou's mouth. Doing his best to convince his fellow kin to reject the protection of their Garou, because obviously it was just oppression in another form.

"I don't need his respect. I don't need his obedience. But I need him to stay out of my way, and I need him to not corrupt and endanger his own."

[Danicka Musil] Something inside of Danicka flinches faintly when Lukas holds her hand like that, holds it while he fights his own anger. She takes a steady breath, letting it out near-silently. He doesn't crush her fingers; truthfully she didn't believe he would, but there's always as much chance of that as anything else he's capable of. He kisses her as though he might have hurt her anyway, kisses her like he needs to Make it Better, though that may be for himself as much as it is for her.

She lifts her eyebrows faintly as he says that you can survive anything, you just have to be strong enough. That Carter is weak because he's bitter, because he's corrosive, that these things mean he's broken. Danicka is quiet, listening to Lukas, watching him. He can almost feel her disagreeing with him, almost hear her broadening the scope of conversation, but

none of it ends up said.

"Like I said," she finally murmurs, "I've never met the man. Everything I've said is just supposition -- possibilities based on a single fact I learned about him and hearsay. And everything you say is based on how you see things." She gives a small shrug. "I'll talk to him. See what I can learn, if I can help at all. I would rather you not kill again."

She doesn't mean fomori, spirals, monsters, bloodsuckers, the dark things whose heads he sticks on the Wyrmpole occasionally. She means -- Fons, perhaps. And Danicka leaves it at that.

"Try not to judge other Kin by what you know of me," she goes on, a slight change of topic, her voice soft. "You know me too well. You've known me too long. Others have had it better; others have endured far worse. Besides. I'm special." A pause. She smiles, a gentle, aching thing on her lips.

"I need to talk to you about Stefan," she says then, most definitely changing topics now, her soft voice taking on a slightly harder note of seriousness.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Perhaps Danicka doesn't even get so far as to tell Lukas not to judge others by her standard. That she's special. That she needs to talk to him about Stefan.

Perhaps as far as she gets is that she'd rather he not kill again, because that's when Lukas lifts his head and looks at her and says, sudden and hushed,

"I'm afraid if I kill him you'll hate me for it. Or fear me. Maybe not immediately, not at once, but -- it'll plant some seed that I won't be able to uproot."

[Danicka Musil] She does, in fact. Tell him all that she does. Because when Lukas looks up like that, tells her he's afraid, tells her he's worried she'll be afraid, that it'll --

Danicka's hand is still on his shoulder. She holds him there, and shakes her head once or twice, quietly. Her eyelashes drop, then lift again, as she does so. No, she may as well be saying, gentle and firm. No.

She finishes what she has to tell him, still close to him on the couch, touching him as though to comfort him by simple maintained contact. After she tells him she needs to talk to him about Stefan she's silent a moment, then adds: "Unless you need to talk a little more about Carter." She's gentle, but calm, and this may be why: "I only moved on because... well. We can't sit here fearing what happens if you feel you need to kill him. I don't think you'll need to. I'd rather you not. It will be something we have to deal with." That's putting it mildly. "But we have dealt with worse."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] There's a pause, a moment of thought. Then Lukas shakes his head, and as he does, leans to put his elbows on his knees, resume his meal. It wasn't merely greed or not wanting to let things go to waste that has him eating. Lukas eats like he's actually hungry; like he hasn't eaten otherwise, tonight.

"I don't need to," he says. "Tell me about Stefan."

[Danicka Musil] Her hand slides down his back, over his shoulderblade, as he leans forward to proceed with eating. Danicka takes a breath, rubbing his back for a moment before she returns it to herself and leans against the back of the couch once more.

The issue of Carter isn't really resolved. She needs to talk to him. She tries not to think about the possibility that Lukas might kill him no matter what she says, does, finds out, manages to convince Carter of. In a few days she'll drop by the Brotherhood and see that Carter has signed up to help get the Kin organized. She'll go to the meeting if she can, listen to what he says. See if he's really there to help, to train others to protect themselves, chip on his shoulder or not.

She might come back and say: he's a threat.

She might come back and say: don't make any rash decisions yet.

She might come back and say: killing him would be selfish and petty.

For now, though, they move on to something else that's been bothering her for almost a week now, bothering her more since she poured her first glass of vodka. Right now she's calm -- thanks to that vodka. "I first noticed something off a few days ago at the Brotherhood while you were downstairs talking to the little dark-haired girl. I was working on the thumb drive and... Adara, I think her name was? Was prying about how things were going with some pack he was working with, or something. Sort of laying it on thick, in my mind, all this 'are you okay' and 'maybe you need a friend to talk to about it' bullshit. He just seemed resistant to talking, which wasn't all that surprising, but... I don't know."

She thinks a moment, trying to decide how to phrase this. "I just got the sense that being this polite, friendly individual isn't really who he is. That alone wouldn't mean much -- he's a Shadow Lord. I got the same sense from you when we first met, only in your case I think it was about controlling your rage, acting like a civilized creature or something. With Stefan I got the feeling that it was a much more... constructed thing, if that makes sense.

"And tonight while you were dealing with one of those women that were here -- Neda, I believe -- I was watching him again, trying to see what he thought of what was going on, Simon going off to come back and kill her. He was watching it like he was observing it all from a distance or through some wall. Not even analyzing something in a microscope, just... not personally invested whatsoever. There was hardly even any emotion to pick up on."

For a few moments she's quiet, and then shrugs. "He respects you a great deal, I gathered that strongly. Maybe even fanatically. He would have done the same thing Simon did, I think. But his thoughts on Neda were nothing more than amusement and disdain." A beat. "It isn't a lot to go on. He's a Shadow Lord Theurge and to say that they're a particular brand of fucked up is putting it mildly. But he gives me chills. I think..."

A breath. "Baby, if you had to kill Carter for one reason or another, even if you believed wholeheartedly it was the right thing to do, it would still bother you that you had to do it. Weigh on you, even if you only showed it to me. With Stefan, I just get the feeling that put in the same position, he'd kill his Kin and then go back to working on his crossword puzzle."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] There's an intrinsic easing in Lukas as Danicka's hand slides down his back. He's somewhat casual in his dress tonight, though she's seen him much more so -- saw him sprawled on the Brotherhood couch in loungewear the second time they met in Chicago, after all -- as through his sweater is only one more thin underlayer before his skin. His back is broad and warm beneath her palm. His shoulders hunch and his spine curves in silent enjoyment, animallike, as she strokes him.

He eats. She's finished her vodka, so she thinks of how to phrase it. They're quiet a while, and so is the suite, and so is the city seen behind the glass.

When she speaks, he turns to look at her, thoughtlessly wiping a drop of tomato sauce off the corner of his mouth with a swipe of a napkin. He listens, and she knows he's attentive. She knows it's not to placate or patronize her, to make her feel important and listened to so she'll suck his dick later like a good little kinswoman, but because he respects her opinion. No, more than that. Trusts her opinion, and her insight, and the fact that she sees so much more, and so much deeper, than he does.

He listens to her after-the-fact assessments, gauges, whenever they meet someone together. He's never asked her to read them for him explicitly -- never would, because he doesn't want to make it an obligation, a duty, a Job she does for him to be Useful -- but recently he's started inviting her along when he meets new tribesmen. If she has time. If she wants to.

So: she speaks. He listens. When she's finished, he's quiet, thoughtful, faintly frowning. He eats the last of the lamb off the plate and sets it down -- a pierogi or two left.

"He's ... empty inside?"

[Danicka Musil] "I don't know," she says immediately, though unhurried in her delivery. It's just the plain truth: she doesn't know. "I could be reading too much into it. I could be seeing him through the lens of my brother. But I think I'm grateful that he has so much dedication for you, and that he seems to think well of me, also. I just think you should keep an eye on him."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] "He does keep alluding to some issue or event that may prevent Defiance from accepting him," Lukas mulls. He sits back too, now, putting his feet back up on the coffee table. When his weight settles in beside Danicka, she can feel the back of the couch cave under him -- can feel herself sliding a little closer from sheer gravity. "I wonder if someone over there saw or heard more than they cared to."

He turns his hand palm-up on his thigh, opening his fingers for hers. "I'll keep an eye on him," he promises quietly.

[Danicka Musil] "You may want to ask him what happened," she says quietly. A moment. "Or ask them," she adds, knowing exactly how that sounds, exactly what it entails, exactly how delicate that sort of thing would be from a political standpoint -- from a point of honor, too. Going behind Stefan's back like that. Asking questions of Gnawers and Fenrir about his own tribesman. Tsk, tsk.

She shifts a bit closer on the couch. It always bemuses her when he offers up his hand like that, just waiting for her to come and take it. Danicka rarely does what he seems to expect, rarely slides her fingers into his hand. It bothers her, in an odd way, him holding out his hand and her taking it. It makes her feel like she's in a story, and someone else's.

Usually, she does something like this, instead.

Ignoring his offered hand, she just comes closer to him, crawling onto his lap and putting her hands on his shoulders, using him for balance as she turns her body around. Laying her right side along his torso, she curls up with him, legs draped over his lap, tucking herself into the curve of his arm. She smiles at him, and for awhile, she's quiet. They're quiet. The heater clicks on, for the first time since the room was filled with Garou. It's cooled off since Simon and the others left.

"There was something else I wanted to tell you," Danicka says finally, under the soft, luxurious hum of the air scorching through the vents. "About that night in your room awhile ago." Tilting her chin up, she looks at him, her hand resting lightly on his chest, her other hand on her own lap. As she speaks, that hand moves up his chest, one fingertip briefly tracing a line over the side of his throat before her fingers go into his hair, massaging the base of his scalp. "About the way you talked to me. Calling me a slut. Talking about my wet little cunt.

"I don't want you to think that ...wasn't okay," she says after a moment, her fingers moving in hypnotic circles against his skin. "It didn't feel right that night because of everything we talked about after. I was in a strange place. I needed you to ...be protective, then. Take care of me. But I didn't know how to ask you for that while you were tying me down."

Danicka lifts up a bit, kissing his chin, his jaw, his cheek. "I don't want you to think I don't like it." Her mouth moves to his neck. "I like it when you talk dirty to me. Hear you tell me how fucking good it is, how much you love it." Danicka moves then, rising up and changing how she sits on him, going from sitting crosswise over his lap to straddling him, up on her knees, looking down at him. Her eyes stay on his, a mixture of vulnerable and thoughtful, serious and light. "To be honest, I like it less than I used to when you call me names. I don't know why. I think I just feel differently about myself. But I like it when you let me know how much you're enjoying me."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Lukas doesn't mind that Danicka doesn't take his hand. He doesn't mind that he asks for just the contact of her palm to his and gets instead his mate climbing into his lap. He laughs a little, delighted, gathering her up in his arms as she knew he would.

For a while they sit together like that, his arm behind her back, his other arm laid over her lap. It's still winter outside; the heater clicking on reminds them of that, and his head turns toward the minute sound, alert and curious out of instinct.

When she speaks again, he doesn't immediately turn back. His attention is caught on the city outside. It swings back only when she adds, about that night in your room. He listens then, and when she speaks of the way he talked to her Lukas shifts a little, uncomfortable, the words so harsh now even though she speaks them quietly.

Which might be why she touches him like that. Soothingly. Speaks to him like that. Softly. Show him in all the ways she can -- all the ways he understands far better than words -- that it's okay. It's still okay. Don't be alarmed, don't think she's angry, don't pull away and close up and raise his proverbial hackles, bracing for some sort of attack.

He's still frowning a little, brow furrowed, as she moves up to straddle him. He moves with her, slouching down a little, letting his knees bend upward until his thighs align to hers, give her a surface to sit back against. And Lukas reaches up to his mate then, touching her lips gently with the ball of his thumb, caressing her.

"I don't think of you as a slut," he says quietly, frowning. "I never did. I wanted to for a while, early on, but ... I never did." A pause, a flicker of shadow in his eyes, then gone. His hand slips down her body, rests gently over her stomach for a second before wrapping over her hip. "I just call you that sometimes because I don't know how else to express all the intensity of the moment.

"Baby, if it bothers you, I'll stop."

[Danicka Musil] One can never say much about Danicka unequivocally. That she is all-or-nothing is sometimes true; that she sees the world in shades of gray and gradients of color is also true. That she is this sexual, carnal, primal, wyld-borne thing is true; that she is also restrained, cerebral, and deeply emotional is also true. He knows her moods and her attitudes do not change to please him or match him, and it's part of what draws him to her -- that evident internal strength of will, that she is herself and she belongs to herself before she gives anything of herself to him.

But it does make her complicated. It does make it hard to know what to expect at any given time from her. It makes it hard to know what it means when she does one thing or another, or if sometimes her behavior has no meaning at all. Sometimes it doesn't; sometimes she follows her whims with dizzying indifference to the consequences -- if not ignorance. It isn't as though Danicka doesn't know what could happen, what is likely to happen. What's occasionally stomach-clenching is how clear it is that she sometimes simply doesn't care.

The whole time she's speaking to him, though, that she cares at least about him -- a great deal -- is impossible to miss. That she knows him, understands him, is undeniable. The way she touches him shows it, and the way she strokes him and keeps him close so that he understands, too, that yes

it's okay. It's still okay. Don't retreat, bare your teeth, prepare for the brutality of some kind of loss.

Her eyes close slowly for a moment when he touches her lips, her lashes barely touching her cheek before they lift again. She meets his eyes, something she'd never do for more than a couple of seconds early on. And early on, how infuriating it must have been to get the sense that she wasn't so much afraid of him, wasn't just showing respect to a Garou, but that she was keeping herself from him in that, not so much afraid as untouchable. Unassailable. How maddening.

Now she meets his gaze, though, hers round and open and dark in this light, the amber tones around her pupils lost because of their dilation in the dimness. Her brows draw together gently, creating a thin line between themselves.

"No, baby," she murmurs. "I know you don't think I'm a 'slut' or anything like that. I don't even worry about that." Danicka leans forward, her fingertips light on his cheeks, and kisses his forehead. Drawing back, she finds his eyes again. "I like it when you show me how much you're enjoying me," she repeats, softer. "I'm not telling you it bothers me, or that I want you to stop." A faint smile, her brow smoothing. "You didn't used to talk dirty to me. I always wanted you to."

She sinks down a bit, settling her hips onto his lap finally, resting her forearms on his broad shoulders. "I don't want every time we make love to be the same, or to follow certain rules, or something. I think the other night, I didn't want it like that. And when you noticed, you... changed how you were with me. We didn't have to suddenly full-stop, about-face, melt down and panic over it.

"That's why I brought it up again," she says, close to a whisper. "I don't want you to think that every time I'm bothered by something or it isn't just right that something isn't allowed anymore. I don't want you to feel nervous every time you get into bed with me that you're going to Do It Wrong or I'm going to get upset over something." She kisses him, this time his mouth, still soft. Light. "There are no rules," she murmurs, which is perhaps one of the most honest things she's ever said about her entire worldview, though at the moment she might only be talking about sex, "and I know you're with me. I know you're paying attention to how I feel when I'm with you. I trust you."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Maybe it's the fact that she's been so close to him all night. Maybe it's the fact that she's gone from sitting across his lap to straddling him. Maybe it's that she's settled onto his body now, her arms around his shoulders -- or maybe it was just the feel of her lips beneath his thumb, the way her eyes closed

and open again, verdant, earthy green.

When she kisses him, he kisses her back. He lifts his chin and seals that contact more firmly, takes her lower lip between his, kisses her. When she draws back, his eyes are close to hers, catching and reflecting what ambient light remains.

"Teď chápu," he says, and he does. She wasn't telling him don't do this again, ever. She wasn't telling him I hate this, forever. She was telling him: I didn't like it then. But you heard me without my having to say it. And you came back to me. Just like I trusted you to.

There's a world of difference in that. Lukas could try to explain it, but it's not necessary. He puts his hand on her face, his fingers into her hair, instead. He kisses her: a little deeper, a little more insistently.

[Danicka Musil] When she first sat in his lap, stroking his scalp and saying cunt, whispering slut like she did, the words felt harsh to him. Like they didn't belong with her clothed, sitting there reminding him of a moment when he felt he'd somehow done wrong with her, forgotten her, maybe -- worst of all -- hurt her. And she was murmuring them, her voice like a caress, the sound trying to reach into him and tell him it's okay. It's still okay.

He understands now. Things are changing between them, are always changing. Danicka is changing, sometimes so fast it might make him think she's going to turn around one day and she won't recognize him anymore, won't love him anymore, will be some different, new woman disinterested in what he has to offer. She hopes he doesn't think that. She hopes, leaning forward and coming closer to his chest, pressing against him as he kisses her, that as she changes he's still there, still trusting her, still willing to accept her.

The kiss deepens. Not just deepens but alters in flavor, Lukas pushing his mouth to hers. It's very different from his hand turning on his leg, palm up, not even an invitation but just... there, in case she wanted it, or something. When he kisses her like this it's so clear, it's no question, it's I want you. Danicka never minds having to tell him no, or not right now, or wait. She never fears going to him first, climbing onto him, touching him, telling him she wants to use the manacles or wants him to come over in the middle of the night and kiss her pussy, never hesitates to reach out first.

But she loves it when he pursues her, after all that time she spent trying to get him to receive her. And she loves being able to say yes.

Like now, their mouths melting together, the only sound in the room the heater and their breathing and the soft, wet sounds of their kissing. The rustle of denim and cotton when she presses her hips harder onto his lap, rubbing herself against him.

Danicka reaches up and, trying not to lose his mouth for more than a moment, half a moment, unwinds the scarf from her neck. The sweater she has on over her camisole is V-necked, cropped so that her waist covered by just that gauze-soft, lace-edged undergarment. The pashmina is dropped behind her, falling not on the floor but across his knees.

She draws back a moment to take a breath, meeting his eyes again for a moment. "It's been awhile since we've fucked in a hotel," she says with some kind of vague, breathy amusement. Considering that they used to only go to hotels, sometimes two, three times a week just to have a place to fuck each other when he wouldn't have her at the Brotherhood and she wouldn't ever invite him to her apartment, considering that now they have his room and her apartment and their house and either car --

Danicka kisses him again, firm and hot. "Let's do it against the wall," she mutters, pulling his hands to her ass.