They are both looking out the window. It looks so old, she says, which is something Anezka might say when she flies into Chicago, into New York. But Anezka actually remembers Prague. Better than Lukas, anyway. She was seven or eight when they left, and that's enough to have formed some of the most visceral, vivid memories a person has. If anything stirs in Lukas's memory, it is deep and subconscious; a tugging of familiarity he can't quite pin down.
His eyes shift to Danicka as she reassures him, gently. And his eyes meet hers, faceted and so very blue in the daylight their bodies don't quite expect. He smiles, slow-spreading. "It's okay even if I don't," he says. "We can learn Prague together."
The cabin crew picks up the remains of their breakfast. Lukas went with the traditional, hearty breakfast, which surely surprises no one. He keeps his little plastic mug of coffee, setting it on Danicka's fold-down table as he gets up. She washed before breakfast, but he washes up after, spending a little time in the tiny lavatory to brush and rinse, to scrub his face and his neck and his hands, to shave with a battery-operated electric razor that he sort of hates because it carries none of the subtle masculine artistry of his usual straight razor-and-brush approach.
When he comes back they're just about to make their final approach. Since he's already up, he stuffs their things back into their carryon bags. The climate in Prague is actually rather similar to Chicago, though the summers aren't as muggy. They don't need to pack away clothes, or bring extra jackets out. He buckles himself in. They descend.
A little while after that, they pick up their luggage. They have this day to themselves. Lukas, despite sleeping for a good half the flight, yawns repeatedly on the curb as they wait in line for a cab. They have a place in the historic heart of the city; they won't need the rental car today, and besides, it's not safe to drive in a strange land right after an eleven-hour flight. A cab is ready for them. They have more luggage now, and Lukas feels quite useful indeed putting it all into the back.
The airport, in truth, looks like any major international air hub. The ground traffic is a little different; the cars are perhaps a little smaller, mostly European, and there are skinny midsized commercial vans scooting about that they never see in Chicago. As they travel toward the city, though, the differences grow more profound. American cities spear toward the sky. These old, old cities of Europe are different. There's a sense of dignity and age in the architecture. Buildings are level, squared-off, symmetrical. Streets are narrow, and near the heart of the old city they begin to wind. Some are cobblestone. They pass a newer building that looks, at a glance, to be warped and swimming. The Dancing House, their cabbie tells them. He has opinions on it; he thinks it's very ugly.
They have a room booked at the Grand Hotel Bohemia. They are a short walk from the city center and the Old Town Square. There is a Versace store in their hotel, which Lukas, despite being rather fancily dressed himself on numerous occasions, is slightly leery of. There's a cafe called Milky down the street, which looks charmingly dingy, which interests Lukas. Getting out, they tip their driver well and unload their luggage; then there's the business of check-in, getting a room. They end up on the seventh floor. They have a small terrace and a western view toward the city. The room is small, but the bathroom is enormous, and while Danicka opens the doors to their terrace Lukas studies the city guidebook in their desk.
"Let's take a shower," he suggests, leafing past glossy pages of restaurants, museums, parks, "and then go walk around a little. We can come back here and take a nap when we get tired. The restaurant downstairs looks nice for dinner. Or we can just get room service."
A little pause. He realizes what he's doing: planning, planning, strategizing, organizing. He laughs at himself. Closes the book.
"Or," he adds, "we can just do whatever we feel like at the moment and see where we end up."
DanickaTheir eyes match when the sun is shining on their faces. It was a long time of knowing her before Lukas ever saw Danicka outside in daylight. It was a long time before he found out that like her expressions and her moods and even, seemingly, her personality, her eyes change as well. In the plane this morning, her eyes are a soft, pale blue, never as sharp or searing as his. Or her father's. Or her brother's. When her eyes turn that pale, shifting blue, she looks more like her mother than ever.
Danicka just smiles at him, softly. They finish breakfast, and he goes to wash and shave. When he sits back down, Danicka is buckling herself in. She leans over, grinning, and rubs her nose against his newly smoothed jaw. Just because. Because she can. Because he's there. Because he's hers.
Across the aisle, two passengers notice. One rolls their eyes, opens their book again, disgusted. The other smiles fondly, assuming they're newlyweds. Also assuming -- correctly, in this case -- that they're Americans.
Shuffled off the plane and down to baggage claim, Danicka waits with her purse and his messenger bag while Lukas goes to and from the carousel, lifting suitcases and bringing them to her. She buttons up her cardigan against a breeze when they step outside, one of the suitcases they packed wheeling along behind her. The tags from ORD to JFK to PRG flutter from the handles. Danicka stands close to Lukas, using him as a shield against even the slight breeze. Just because she can. Because he's there. Because he's hers.
Danicka settles herself into the back of the cab as soon as it arrives, beginning to tell the driver where their hotel is. She looks American. She speaks Czech. Her husband -- enormous, frightening, strong -- is behind the cab, loading suitcases. She doesn't even pretend that she wants to force him to let her help. It isn't necessary, and the truth is, they're both happier this way. He feels quite useful indeed after being cramped in a plane for half a day. He feels strong and helpful. When he gets inside and closes the door and says hello to the driver, Danicka snuggles up to his side. She's already engaged the driver in a conversation about the weather here and where her family is from and how many children he has.
Four.
"Chceme také tyÅ™i," she says, her hand on Lukas's knee. The driver begins to regale them with his advice on childrearing. He aims most of his advice in Lukas's direction. Danicka looks askance at her mate and lifts her eyebrows, rolls her eyes slightly.
Driving through Prague, the pace slower here than Danicka is used to from any of her cities other than New Orleans, she peers out the window like a child going through Disneyland. She ignores cars and watches people, looks at buildings. The Dancing House fascinates her, and she bites her tongue when the driver states that it's an eyesore. She has pointedly put her phone in her bag. Takes no pictures. Hardly blinks.
Their hotel is one of the grandest and oldest in the city. Their suite is at the very top of the hotel. Danicka is wealthy. Danicka is as wealthy as a Silver Fang and spends far, far less than most of them do. She splurges when she wants to, and rarely does she want to. The dress she was married in cost less than the lingerie she wore underneath it. They upgraded to economy plus but not business. They are staying in a suite with a view that covers all of Prague, named for the founder of the hotel. They're greeted by the staff and served fresh fruit and mineral water from glass bottles. There are freshly cut flowers adorning tables and sidebars. Danicka thanks them all, gives small tips, and kindly ushers them out.
The first thing to do is open the terrace doors, breeze or no breeze, and air out the room. By week's end, even with a night or two spent elsewhere, it will smell like them. But to start, she thinks, it will smell like air.
Lukas sits at the desk, looking at the guidebook, talking about plans. He is a planner. Every battle, every moot. He's been planning things and seeing them go horribly wrong since he was a teenager. Maybe before. Likely he made similar plans in childhood and watched them go similarly awry. But sometimes: sometimes it goes right. Sometimes things are tight and perfect and the enemy is torn apart and his pack has not a mark on them.
He laughs at himself. Danicka turns her head over her shoulder and half-smiles, half-smirks at him, eyes glinting.
She leaves the terrace doors open and walks back to him as he's saying they can also just do whatever they feel like in the moment. Comes to stand at his knees, smiling down at him.
Her fingertips lift, and brush over his brow, moving one of those black, not-quite-long-enough-to-curl locks off of his forehead. Pushes it back, her fingers sliding through his hair over his scalp. And before his breathing picks up, before he reaches for her, before he leans into that hand or kisses the inside of her wrist, Danicka gets down on her knees in front of him and begins to unfasten his jeans.
Because she can. Because he's there. Because he's hers.
LukasThe truth is, something about the way she smile-smirks at him over her shoulder makes Lukas's pulse pick up a little. His words sort of trail off. We can do whatever we feel like, he says, and
...and that's sort of where he stops, because she comes to him, and he pushes back from the desk to make room. She stands between his knees, touches his hair. He smiles at her, his adoration so perfect and plain that it, in and of itself, is a kind of trust.
Their tribe is not a soft, gentle one. The politics and relationships within the tribe can be fraught with peril. That Lukas grew up quite poor in New York -- rather than rather wealthy here in Prague -- is in and of itself hard proof. There are plenty of Shadow Lords who would gladly use any sign of softness or gentleness against a man. Even those who do not do it out of intrinsic viciousness see, clearly, the danger of exposing one's underbelly. It takes a lot to trust another like this, to show everything, even if she is one's mate.
He doesn't think about that anymore, though. He doesn't keep even that last layer of defense wrapped close around him. And that, too, is a kind of trust. And a sort of blessing, a sort of peace, that few children of Thunder ever know.
She goes to her knees then, rather without warning. His eyes soften and spark all at once. His large hand combs tenderly through her hair -- that lustrous gold that will, in a month or so, utterly entrance a little girl whose hair was like hers and yet not quite like hers. She is not blonde the way Fenrir are, with thick hair like ash or cornsilk and bold, strong features. She is not blonde the way Silver Fangs are, whose hair can sometimes look like spun silver, like the crowns they believe they were born to wear. She doesn't look like a Shadow Lord the way Lukas does, either, black-haired, fierce-eyed.
She looks like herself. Like secrets, like warmth, like the hidden hearth, like the mountain valleys that catch the earliest spring. He loves her utterly; he doesn't know what he'd do if he lost her --
(He would survive. He would mourn, terribly. But he would survive, and carry on, and take care of the ones she left behind. He would make sure their children knew her, if only through his memories.)
-- but those are thoughts for darker days. He runs his fingers through her hair, and his mouth moves a little, somewhere between a smile and a twist, ache. He wants to tell her she doesn't have to do this, don't kneel for him, come here, be close. He doesn't. She knows. He knows she knows: she doesn't have to. She wouldn't do it at all if she felt obligated. She's rather feline like that, and just look at how much luck Lukas ever had in convincing Kando to do anything at all.
He's not wearing a belt. She gets the button open, draws down the zipper. He inhales with the hiss of those tiny teeth parting, lifts his hips to help her draw his pants down a little. He's half-dazed from their transatlantic crossing, from their sixteen or eighteen hours of travel time since they got up in the pre-dawn darkness to make their eight am to New York. He's half-dazed from a sudden want that leaves him a little lightheaded. His hand catches hers for a moment, capturing her fingers against the denim. He sits up and leans forward and kisses her, quick but not light, not even particularly gentle.
DanickaShe likes refusing to let him sleep, sometimes. He sprawls in bed, throws an arm over her, pulls her close just to sleep, and Danicka will sometimes find herself quite suddenly and quite overwhelmingly in need of him. This is, however, the woman who climbed into a shower with him while he was cleaning blood off, ruining a rather pretty brown dress, for little reason other than that the thought entered her head. He is excited to be in Prague, wants to walk around and eat and Be On Vacation like they are normal people and so she, who wants to shower and sit down to a real meal and nap and stretch her legs and nap as much as he does,
decides to suck him off instead.
He's just sitting there, adorable, and it flits into her mind that he isn't even remotely some huge puppy stumbling over his own paws and wagging his tail when he's happy. She's seen him lunge in front of her in hispo, his teeth ripping in half the vampire that was grabbing at her. And she has seen him sitting across from her, cold and silent and right on the edge of hateful, and could not remember at the time ever wanting to fuck anyone so badly. Danicka smiles at him like that, fond and amused, and at the same time she is reminding herself that he is not her pet. No matter how many times he rubs his head into her palm, there are also the nights when he rolls her under him, digs his teeth into her shoulder, and fucks her hard enough to nail her to the bed, making little noise other than grunting, snarling, his eyes glinting with rage and lust and savagery as much as adoration.
Still, she trusts him. He lets her see that side, animal and violent, which is just one of many sides he hid from her early on. He never wanted to make noise. He resisted the urge to set his teeth in her. He couldn't bear to even look her in the eyes when they came, even if they were coming at the same moment. There's also the side of him that held Irena on his lap and looked over the journal she's been keeping with her, accepting it as a gift from cub to mentor as much as child to uncle.
Danicka sinks to her knees and wordlessly, easily begins to unfasten his unbelted jeans. She does this with the grace and practice that so turned him on even from the start. She's careful, but deft, with the drag of the zipper downward. Neither of them need to tell each other up, baby anymore. He lifts his hips and she drags his jeans down, drags his boxer-briefs down, and doesn't even get them to his knees before she's on him, hand around him, mouth engulfing him. Danicka wastes no time and it's as though she's been waiting to do this since god knows when. She lets out a low groan as her lips slide down his cock, her mouth tightening, sliding even slower back up
like
she's tasting him.
His thoughts spin out in a hundred directions. The city, her hair, their blood, secrecy, spring, and then... they all tatter apart. Danicka, for her part, is singleminded. If anyone is submitting right now, it might be him, but that isn't exactly how it is, either. He lets her suck him like this only inasmuch as Danicka lets him bend her over, tease her until she whines, fucks her til she forgets how to talk properly.
Danicka does, it should be mentioned, let him kiss her. Just for a moment, maybe before she gets his clothing out of her way. She closes her eyes into it, her hand caught, but it is all the quicker because she pulls back only a moment into it, eyes glazed but entirely focused. She wants this.
The open terrace doors let a breeze in. Prague isn't so loud as Chicago or New York, but it's still a major city, full of its own sound and fury. The air touches their skin, moves her hair. Danicka slips her hand up Lukas's shirt, strokes his side and his chest. She knows this is likely the last thing he expected her to do, right off the plane and for no reason at all. That is, in its way, part of why she does it.
LukasThat kiss doesn't last very long. Neither does the coherence of his thoughts. She doesn't let either of those things survive for more than a few seconds. She pulls away. There's a glaze to her eyes. He's reminded of hunting animals, the intensity seconds before the rush begins. No; he's not merely reminded. He recognizes it.
Then she pushes him back. His shoulderblades thump into the chair, makes it rock gently on its reclining mechanism. He laughs under his breath, but the sound falls off a cliff and crashes into a groan. His head hits the chair; a second time, it rocks. That's before she slides her mouth up again, because
when she does that, he loses track of who he is. His eyes are closed. His mouth opens, but he doesn't make a sound; can't for a few seconds. The muscles in his abdomen contract on themselves, jumping, spasmodic, quivering under her palms. His hand catches hers against the lowermost rung of his ribs. Pulls it up, bunching his shirt in the process, lays it over the broad span of his pectoral, his tightening nipple.
His eyes are open again. He was half-hard when she got his pants down; he's hardened so quickly that he's lightheaded and euphoric with it. Or maybe that's just the time change, the distance, the flight. Or maybe it's her: as mood-altering as any substance. He's watching her mouth, fixated, fascinated. His eyes look drugged, dazed, darkened. His hands move slowly, as though sifting through viscous fluid, pawing his thin sweater up out of the way, undoing the buttons of the shirt beneath haphazardly. Halfway through what she's doing makes him lose track of what he's trying to do. He finds her hand, brings it to his mouth, hides a groan in her palm, sucks her taste off her fingertips.
"Come here," he mutters. He's sitting up, gripping the arms of the chair, fingers digging in. "Oh, god, stop, come here."
His sweater gets whipped off. It lands -- somewhere. Neither of them care where. He's tugging at her hands, urging her up, but the moment her mouth leaves him his hand is on his cock, stroking off as though even a second without stimulation might cave his head in. He kisses her again as she rises. If she rises. He wants her to rise. He wants her to get up and --
"Let me bend you over the desk, baby. Come on."
DanickaHe never. Lets her. Finish.
Once definitely, maybe twice. Danicka can't remember, in fact, how long it's been since Lukas has left her on her knees or bent over to his lap without pulling her off, pulling her up. She doesn't ever really mind. She knows what he wants from this. From her. From what happens when the two of them are together.
She doesn't know what it was like for him, really, growing up in Stark Falls. Being an adolescent and driven slowly, slowly through his fosterage even as he watched younger wolves advance ahead of him just because their mentors let them. Surrounded by females he wasn't allowed to touch and, perhaps by some instinctive aversion, didn't want to touch. He wasn't supposed to interact much with kin, because they weren't his. There weren't many of them around, anyway, and most of them were not his age, and then only a little more than half of those were girls. Danicka has no idea what Lukas was like as a teenager, or how the first time a girl touched him she did this,
got up,
left him, laughing.
Not that it would matter, really, or make much of a difference to her. It might help her understand further why he doesn't just lean back and let her suck him off, his hands laced behind his head and his eyes watching her with predatory appreciation. But in the end, it wouldn't be why. If there's been anything about him she's understood from the start, it's what he needs from this, what he gets out of it other than a bit of physical contact, an orgasm, release.
It's the way he looks when he's let himself go with her, like he's been stripped down and opened up. It's the way he holds her after sometimes, gasping, pressing her to his body as though her presence staunches a wound. And it's the way he kisses her, hungry like this, starving, aching. It's as though, as much as he likes it, as good as it feels, sometimes she's just too far away.
Danicka likes it though. Hearing him gasp even when she can't see him. Feeling his breathing shudder when she runs her hands over him. Stroking him just like that, making his voice hitch suddenly as he tries to maintain control over himself. The taste of him. She knows he's undressing, or trying to, even though her eyes are closed. She looks up at him when his head falls back, his hands useless, and sucks him harder, tighter right then, til his thighs quiver with restraint. She watches him, flicks her tongue along the underside of his cock without letting him leave her mouth, traces his lips with her fingertip when he can't make his mouth do what he wants to do anymore.
He throbs in her hand, against her tongue. She could get him off just like this -- quickly. Soon. He's so hard he can't think, and she wants to smile but she's busy. He's begging her to stop, to come up to him, and she ignores it. He strips his sweater off, holds her hands, tries to pull her off of him, and she actually bats at his hands, groaning around his cock. There's just a few seconds of that, though, that gentle fighting between them. Just one more, she seems to be saying. Just another suck. Just another second. Or ten. She lets him go when she's ready, licking her reddened lips, her hand still wrapped around him, stroking him,
as though she knows not to leave him. She wouldn't. Danicka keeps touching him like that as she gets up, meeting him halfway, kissing him far less neatly than this morning, or on the flight, or while they waited for a cab, or any of the others over the last sixteen, seventeen hours of travel. Her tongue licks his. Her free hand is guiding his hand to the buttons of her cardigan, even before he's breaking the kiss, gasping, telling her what he wants. She just nods, breathless, kissing off the last... four, five words from his mouth, groaning into his mouth.
LukasJust another second. Or ten. And it nearly undoes him. It's ridiculous; it hasn't even been that long -- not since she went down on him; not since the last time they had each other. The night before they left, they fucked, coupling like animals under their covers, both of them on all fours, kissing messily, inexactly over her shoulder. She reached back and gripped his hair, the back of his neck. He bit her as he came.
Those memories are in his mind too. Blurry, vivid. Everything in his mind right now comes in the form of imagery, scent, touch-memory. No words left. Nothing coheres; by the time she finally, finally decides to let him go, he's flopped back in the chair, his thighs are tense, his hips are cantilevered off the seat and he's reaching back to grab the back of the chair.
His toes are curled in his shoes. Which is such a stereotypical detail, but the truth is: it's also mammalian instinct. Dig your claws in. Hold tight. That's what you do, when gravity's lost meaning, when you're afraid you might lose your grasp on the very ground beneath your feet.
When she takes her mouth off him,
it makes him make this short, rough sound, somewhere between a pant and a snarl, somewhere between relief and disappointment. Her hand strokes. A jolt goes through his entire body. She comes up to him, and he surges up off the seatback, and they tangle in the middle. Her buttons don't make a lot of sense right now. He gets them open half by pulling, half by threading the button through the hole. He peels the cardigan halfway down her arms before he forgets about it, runs his hands over her blouse or camisole or whatever she might be wearing under it, he can't even remember, he saw her get dressed a little over sixteen hours ago but it's no longer in his mind.
He told her to bend over the desk. He seems to forget that now; he bends her back over the desk, his arm coming around the small of her back and lifting, sweeping her quite literally off her feet. Her back is on smooth wood suddenly: she's on her back atop the desk. Something goes thudding to the floor: the book he was reading, shoved rudely aside. Her mate descends on her with his pants around his knees, his shirt undone: he pushes her shirt up and growls like the animal he is, tears that ragged kiss apart to put his mouth on her on her stomach, the smooth skin there. Yoga pants: they get stripped right off, he's briefly standing upright, yanking those stretchy slacks off her legs, one catches on her shoe, it takes her shoe with it. He tosses that on the floor too,
and here: he has a moment where he's reaching for her panties, and his eyes meet hers, and he gives her this carnivorous grin.
He tosses her panties on the desk. The sight of them there is incongruous, naughty; he likes it. He opens her legs and she knows what he's after; her legs are sliding over his shoulders, he hooks her knees over her shoulders and lifts her hips bodily, he's so ravenous she might think for a moment he's going to bite her, devour her. He doesn't: he licks her instead, warm and heavy and slow that first time, all over, from her slit to her clit, pressing there at the end, pausing.
He looks at her. Then his eyes close. His mouth is on her; his arms lock her in place. He has his face shoved between her thighs and she can't see what he's doing, not really, but god she can feel it: his tongue, his lips, sucking, fluttering, flicking, lapping at her. Every time she moves he growls, a low vibration of a sound coming up from the pit of his stomach to dissipate in her flesh.
DanickaNever lets her finish. Never keeps his word. He wanted to bend her over, just like the other night, mount her like a fucking beast again. Danicka's mind, when he said that, flicked back to a tax day years ago. A pencil skirt. Lukas snarling, trying to get her to lift her damn hips so he could get her panties off because he had somehow not learned yet just how often she chose her undergarments for the sole purpose of being seen in them. Fucked in them. If she remembers correctly,
and while she is remembering, she's jerking him off, he's tearing at her buttons, she's gasping a kiss into his mouth,
he pulled them aside that afternoon and bent her over his desk in that tiny room of his, fucked her, wished on some level to be quiet and wished on another level for the whole damn building to hear her screaming for him.
Danicka lets go of him. Horrible. Reaches down and pulls her sweater up and off over her head, the buttons only half undone. Lukas is busy touching her, pawing at her breasts,
lifting her up and putting her ass on the desk, getting anything and everything out of his way. Danicka finds her camisole shoved up, her yoga pants stripped down, her mate grinning at her. She's in a rumpled camisole now and the same cotton thong he saw her put on this morning that nearly made him pull her down to bed then, nevermind how often she wears thongs. Danicka can hardly get dressed some days, get undressed some nights, without Lukas getting that smile in his eyes.
"Like hell," she mutters, breathes, when he lowers himself under her knees, twisting her hips and wiggling back. "Nemusíte dostat n jakou," she tells him, half purring and half threatening, grabbing him by the hair. She never would have done this when they met. She clenches her hand, though. He licks her the way he does, long and slow, pressing his tongue to her clit. It pulses under his tongue and Danicka shudders, one long ripple from shoulders to toes. Her head tips back. Her fingers don't let go.
Danicka doesn't say anything for a while after that. She breathes. Pants. When she does speak again, it's soft, almost a whisper, gasping far gentler than her last three words.
Kurva m , she tells him. Over and over.
LukasLet's be honest. Let's be very fucking plain about it: Danicka turns Lukas on. It can be attributed to a certain look in her eyes, or a certain way she smiles, or a certain way she combs his hair back from his temple or scritches her fingers over his scalp. Or how she looks at him over her shoulder. Or how she draws her panties on in the morning. It can be attributed to any number of things, but the truth is:
she just turns him on. She does it for him, inexplicably and utterly. Long before he even liked her, and long long before he ever figured out he was in love with her, and long long long before it occurred to him that his soul had always been in love with her, he wanted her. From the moment they shook hands across Gabrielle Bellamonte. From the moment she climbed out of the car, telling him good morning in the language they shared.
So yes. She can hardly get dressed some days without him -- a great warm tousled sprawl on the bed -- trying to tug her back down into the comforters. She can hardly get undressed some nights before he's coming up to her, crowding into her space, wrapping his arms around her and getting terribly in the way because he's kissing her ear, sniffing at her neck, taking her shoulder gently in his teeth as though to remind her,
mate. mate. time to mate, mate.
It's time to mate. Right now. He knows that; can smell her readiness, can feel the rush of his own blood running high. The sight of her panties makes his eyes gleam. He yanks them off and tosses them on the desk and frankly they could be bloomers for all he cares, he'd still be ardent. He comes down over her and she slithers back, he has to grab her and haul her forward. She grabs his hair. He's already buried his face between her legs by then, and she'd have to really yank to get his head back up, but she doesn't really yank. She clenches her fingers. His hair is silky and thick, black as ink. It's a little like grabbing the fur of some sleek, wild thing, and he
is a strong, wild thing, growling ferociously in protest, refusing to be deterred. He licks her. She shudders, her head goes back. In their gentle war -- which is becoming a savage war -- she's managed to retreat a few more inches up the desk. She can feel the far edge of the desk. She could probably put her heels on the near edge if she wanted, but he likes her legs over his shoulders, he likes her body tangled up with his, he likes his hands pushing up her torso, his fingers spreading wide.
He rides the motion of her body with his hands. His eyes are closed now; his senses are open, greedy, he's ravenous for the taste and smell of her, the feel of her stomach quivering, her breasts lifting into his palms. Her fingers don't let go. His mouth never stops.
Not until she's whispering, anyway. Not until she's gasping the words, and they're finally penetrating his consciousness, the shell of his concentration. Fuck me, over and over. Let's be honest about this, too: she could whisper that in his ear anywhere and he'd be hard for her so fast he might just rupture his zipper. It hits him like a whipcrack, makes him go at her clit like a dog on a bone, fierce, intense almost to the point of discomfort. Whatever sound she makes hits the air with his. Then he's letting go, putting his palms on the table and pushing himself up, sliding his palms under the arch of her back.
And she's airborne again. He picks her up. They simply collide. He kisses her with his face messy from her cunt; he doesn't care. He snarls into that kiss. She can feel his lip curling, his bared teeth. He's kissing her neck, kissing her pulse, tossing her a few inches higher in his arms so he can yank up her camisole and put his mouth on her tits.
It's not what she asked for. Maybe she asks again. Maybe she yanks him back by the hair. It hardly matter; it's only seconds. He turns her around in his arms. He sets her down, bears her down, she's on her stomach now, bent over the desk. He keeps his word after all. His fingers touch her where his mouth made her wet. His laugh is euphoric, predatory.
"Tak mokrý," he says. He has the other hand on the small of her back. His pupils are blown when he meets her eyes over her shoulder. She can feel him at the opening of her cunt, the head of his cock nudging, slipping. He's teasing her, the monster. "Zeptejte se m znovu," he coaxes.
DanickaFor as often as Lukas makes Danicka late in the morning, and for as many classes as he makes her miss, it's a good thing she's as smart as she is. And she is smart. He's seen it blossom over the past three years, seen how a keen intellect has become razor-sharp and merciless. She used to run circles around fools and hold her own against intellectuals. Now she runs circles around everyone and holds her own against geniuses. Ninety percent of what she studies is already so far over Lukas's head that it's like she's speaking another language, one they don't share.
Of course, then there's this language. They've fallen into practice with the Czech today, from the airport gate to now, and she's purring filthy things as she arches her back and rubs her pussy on his face, grinding her clit against his tongue, and if they weren't on the eighth floor and separated from nearly all the rest of the hotel guests, and if the walls weren't so sturdy and thick, no one would have any doubt of what she's saying.
Then again, even if she were speaking English, no one would have any doubt.
Danicka licks his mouth, his lips, his chin, animal and heedless, tasting herself off of him when he picks her up like that. The desk has jostled and rattled under them as they've abused it. Her camisole is all pushed up, a blue band across the tops of her breasts, the rest of her bare to him. She's wrapped around him, all arms and legs and kisses, rubbing herself on his abdomen, biting his earlobe, slapping his shoulder when he starts to suck on her breast.
And she's turned again, disoriented again but recovering, grabbing the edge. She expects him in her. Hard, rough, sudden like he is sometimes. And he's not. He laughs.
Danicka whips around while he's purring, reaching for her, starting to tell her to beg, and she just starts slapping at his arms, his chest, swearing at him in two languages, neither of which is English, calling him all manner of horrible names.
Lukas[THIS MANY DICES.]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 5, 5, 6) ( fail )
Lukas[SHADOW LORDS DO NOT FAIL.]
Dice: 4 d10 TN7 (1, 4, 6, 9) ( fail )
LukasInstincts have saved his life on more than one occasion. Instinct jerks his head back now, brings his hands up. She doesn't claw for his face. She smacks him instead, raining a small torrent of blows on his shoulders, his chest, his forearms as he blocks and then
catches her by the wrists, captures her hands in a grip both gentle and inexorable. There's a beat of pause. This is the first time his eyes flick over her.
Then there's another flurry of motion. He gets her arms behind her. Pinned at the small of her back. Her breasts press to the lower rungs of his ribs. His erection is caught between their bodies, pulsing with the hammering of his heart. They're inches away, and this is the second time he looks at her and doesn't understand what he sees. He genuinely wouldn't be surprised right now if she spat in his face, bit him when he kisses her.
Because he does kiss her. Right then, right now, no hesitation, crushingly.
DanickaDanicka, bent over and twisted in half at the waist, is panting from exertion and want when he grabs her. She shudders when he pins her, and groans when he kisses her. She doesn't bite him. She presses closer to him, turns so she isn't breaking her back, starts wrapping her legs around him again, pulling him closer. His mate,
his wife,
is still grinding against him, a fine sweat breaking over her skin now, her mouth hungry on his.
LukasShe doesn't spit in his face. She doesn't bite him. She shudders, she's every bit as ferocious as he is, they kiss and it's like a live wire in a thunderstorm; it jolts right through him. She starts climbing up on him. It's not easy, the way she's situated, but he helps her; he grabs her by the ass and hauls her up even as she's stepping off. Those smooth long legs of hers fold around him. He still hasn't let her hands go, keeps her pinned like that as he steps into the table, blind, hitting it with a thump that rattles the lamp.
And then she's on her back again. He's pressing her down, she's rubbing against him, she's leaving wetness on the definition of his abdomen. He grinds out some muffled curse, not quite so scalding as the things she called him a moment ago, and he's grabbing her hip and pulling her down and there's a struggle even here. Then he finds her.
Fills her, slamming into her. Hard, rough, sudden like he is -- right now. He roars past her ear at the feel of it, kisses her neck furiously; lifts her hips against his so she doesn't slip loose, he doesn't slide out. The table's a sturdy thing, a heavy hardwood piece of furniture designed for serious work, but it creaks under their combined weight as he climbs urgently atop. They pivot ninety degrees. That lamp slips off the edge, joins its good friend the guidebook on the ground. Danicka slips too -- slips an intolerable inch or three off Lukas's cock, and he's kneeling atop the desk, sitting on his heels, grabbing her and angling her and thrusting back into her with a stroke so firm that his head falls back; he groans loud enough that
it suddenly makes sense why they didn't get a smaller, more modest room on the seventh floor. With neighbors.
He's let her hands go sometime in the rush. But as he comes down over her, folds over her and cradles her head in his hand and kisses her so deep and tender and warm while he -- quite frankly -- starts pounding her senseless atop the hotel desk: as he fucks her he finds her hands again, gathers them in his, pushes them over her head, guides her fingers to the edge of the desk. Pins her wrists again.
DanickaCombined, they are several hundred pounds. Most of that is Lukas. Almost all of that is muscle, densely layered and packed onto a frame that was made for it, built to carry it. When they met, he wasn't quite so... strong. He wasn't quite as large. Danicka wasn't, either. They've both grown into their bones. And as a result, that table creaks under them when Lukas climbs fully onto it, kneels on it like that. It's sturdy, and made for real work, but it creaks. It groans.
Danicka's arms are free. Pulling at him, touching him, grabbing at his hair, all but yanking his head to the side to kiss his neck while he pushes into her. They're already fucking, sweating, breathing as raggedly as if it's been weeks and not hours. She's moving on him, her savage gasps crackling apart into little noises of need every so often. When she makes those noises, her hands clutch at his arms, leaving red weals on his skin from her fingernails. Her cunt grinds down on him, wiggles, clenches.
When Lukas pins her again, folding her arms up and holding her down, Danicka doesn't spit in his face or bite him. She doesn't swear at him or call him awful names. She tilts her head back til that kiss he's searching her with slips away and his mouth falls to her throat. Bares it to him the way she does because he's not just an animal, he's not just a monster, he's her mate.
The desk creaks at its joints. Danicka murmurs while Lukas slams into her again and again: kurva me. kurva me, laska.
LukasOne could read something unkind into the interplay here. One could, if one were inclined to believe those ugly rumors, look at the way they nearly fight, look at the way he overpowers her, pins her, forces her down, and see something quite dark there. One could look at the way she bares her throat and takes him, and one could nod to oneself and say, yes, of course, they're Shadow Lords.
Then again one could also look at the interplay here and read it quite the other way. Hadn't the male wanted to wash, to wander, to explore, to eat, to sleep? And hadn't his female come to him and reached into him to flip that lightning switch only she could find? Hadn't he quite lost his mind for her, been reduced to little more than a rutting beast for her, ran to service her at a snap of her fingers? Kurva me, she said. And: he does.
There are ugly lenses all this can be seen through. Some of their own history is ugly in truth. It's not about that right now, though. The lines of force between them are electric and capricious and ever-changing. Sometimes she speaks to him so viciously; sometimes she's so unapologetically dominant. He still remembers the way she looked standing over him at the W, the city lights painted on her skin. He still remembers how she chained him on his birthday not quite half a year ago, pushed him to the edge where comfort and arousal and uneasiness intersected, held him there until he let himself go.
Sometimes she makes him work for it. Earn it. Earn her, and the right to put her under him, mount her. It makes sense to him. Resonates on an intrinsic level. It is spring, the mating season; it is right that he should fight for the privilege. No other male would dare challenge him for her now, but it was never about winning her from them. She alone stands guardian at the gates of her heart. Of course he should have to fight to earn the right.
He's earned the right. He knows it, understands it in the core of his spirit when she tilts her head back and says it to him like an incantation: kurva me, kurva me, kurva me. And he does, savage with the overwhelming tenderness that suffuses him; sliding his free hand under her body, lifting her against him to seal every last inch of space.
He wasn't quite this way when they met that second time in Chicago. He wasn't quite so strong; he wasn't quite as large. There's an elemental, churning power in his body now that would have terrified her at the start. She would have been right to be terrified. He was so far from ready then, so far from the sort of maturity and wisdom it takes to genuinely control that kind of might. It took him years to understand that it's not always about the lines in the sand, the distinct and easily separated piles, the rules that can never be broken. It took him years to understand that
between them, it's different. It's safe, and primitive, and sheltered.
He doesn't have to struggle, here. He doesn't have to control, and suppress, and seize. He can let go.
So he does. He puts his mouth to her throat; he can feel the vibration of her voice there. The thrum of her pulse. His eyes are closed and sweat sticks his hair to his brow; makes his back slick. Her thighs lose their grip on his sides. She crosses her ankles higher. He tilts her hips, shifts the angle, and then all at once there's a freight train of pleasure running off its tracks. There's a desperate edge to the groans he's loosing against her neck. They run together; he seizes her in his teeth. Slams into her with all the momentum of his motion, slides her an inch up the table, nails her in place. His roars are muffled against her shoulder.
His hand is clutching her back. His hand is clutching the edge of the desk, because at the last moment he let go her wrists; wouldn't dare grip her like that. Afterward he's heavy and suddenly boneless, his brow against her lips, his lips against her breastbone. "Oh, kurva," he gasps. "Oh, god, baby, fuck."
DanickaSomeone, anyone, could read ugly and dark things into what Lukas and Danicka do to each other, if they were only looking today, or the night of his birthday or that night at the W in Times Square or that night, so long ago, against the door in the Affinia. There are, however, the nights when she is not at the den but at her apartment in the city and he finds her there, tracks her down there and quietly slips in with his card swiped at the door, his key turned in the lock. Those nights when he opens the door to her bedroom and hears her intake of breath as his rage overtakes the room, fills it, makes it tight and small by its force. Those nights when he tells her
To jsem já, láska,
before she even wakes completely to her own fear. Hears the soft, tired exhale she makes then, feels in the darkness her body relaxing before he even crosses all the way to her bed. There are those nights, Danicka sleeping shallowly while Lukas undresses as quietly as he can. There's something different to be read in the way he pulls back the covers and climbs in with her then, habitual and comfortable, wrapping his arms around her from behind and resting his brow on the back of her neck. It isn't ugly at all. It isn't dark. Sometimes even when she wakes like that, moves against him, lets him know he's welcome, makes him gasp, there isn't anything savage about it at all. But primitive... yes. In its way. In their way.
Outside, in a city on a river, spring is wet and yet not quite humid, not warm enough yet. Rain comes often, drenching and only temporarily veiling sunlight. It's not so different from their city. Danicka is wet, too, sweat on her temples and under her breasts and in the small of her back where Lukas puts his hand to lift her against him. She groans, lifts her legs higher around him. The desk shivers and Lukas pants, bites her, slams into her again and again until he's coming, bearing her down, making noises he never let himself exclaim when he first loved her.
Danicka arches for him then. It's instinctive, some thoughtless attempt to take him deeper, take more of him, take all of him. They are no longer going through motions, the goal held in check by a tiny hormonal pill that fits on the tip of her finger. Every single time, perhaps even from the start, some part of him was thinking of cubs, but Danicka doesn't know if that's true. Many of Lukas's thoughts have been hidden from her, secreted away in his mind the way that most of her thoughts are from the world. On some level now, both of them must know, must be aware of, the stark reality, the imminent possibility.
She's his mate. She makes him fight, sometimes, to earn the privilege of mounting her. He likes that. She likes that. It's right that he should have to work for it. It's right, too, that they should have cubs. A whole litter. A billion, he said, pawing at her clothes and feeling her breasts even as he harried her into bed, eager for her at the thought of it. It's right. It's good.
Lukas is clutching at her. Danicka is sweating, and her cunt is clenching, pulling at him, still needful, unsatisfied. She is grinding on him gently though, while he mutters against her body, gasps for air. Not the way she rode him once, blowing his mind, making him swear at her. She just moves, slow and rolling, her arms still over her head though he isn't pinning her down anymore. Her eyes look at his hair, look at the pieces of his face she can see from how they lie together. He's muttering filth. She huffs a soft laugh, lowering her arms to wrap around him. Her fingernails gently scratch between his shoulderblades.
"Laska," she murmurs, like she's naming him.
Nuzzles him.
Kisses his brow.
"Moje laska."
LukasHe is, in fact, muttering filth. Tattered, incoherent little scraps of filth, which incinerate into groans every time she moves on him. It's not terrible. It's not overwhelming. He can handle it, he likes it, but it still makes him shudder, still makes the muscles in his entire body twitch and tense involuntarily.
Just like the wrap of her arms makes him relax. He makes a low, happy sort of sound, almost a whuff. He doesn't so much roll to the side as he collapses, bringing her with him. They're a loose collection of limbs atop the desk, which in truth isn't a terribly comfortable bed, but he's suddenly so tired. All that distance, all that time,
all that subconscious, baseline vigilance that he doesn't even realize he's kept up until he lays it down. This is the first time in nearly a full day that they've been alone, in a place that can serve as a den. This is the first time they haven't been surrounded by strangers with no real privacy, no real territory of their own. Even though they rested together on that strange metal tube hurtling through the air, they could not have done this. They could not have stripped bare and crawled into the blankets together.
The scritch of her fingernails makes him shiver with pleasure. He kisses her wherever he can reach her, and then he opens his eyes.
"Vase láska," he agrees. His palm runs a slow warm path up her arm and down. Up her back and down. The windows are open. He wonders if she's cold, and draws her a little closer. "Sorry," he whispers, smiling. "I was ... more eager than I thought."
They nuzzle together. A breeze flaps the pages of the tourbook on the ground. The lamp hasn't broken, thankfully, but the shade is all askew. Lukas's hand has found its way around Danicka's waist; now he's exploring the skin below her navel.
"Chces, abych se starat o vás?"
DanickaShe makes a noise when he rolls, collapses on the desk. It thuds a bit. It isn't a bed, and if anyone knows the limits of its comfort right now, Danicka does. She feels a soreness in her shoulderblades and hips that wasn't there before, that she didn't even notice before, but it's dull and mild. Her arms and legs stay around him, her nose and cheek nuzzle him, sweat or no sweat.
It makes her smile when he agrees with her: her love. This is the picture of themselves that would make their very blood suspect: what kind of Shadow Lord belongs to their kin? What kind of Shadow Lord would snuggle and whuff for their mate, leaning into any trace of affection like a common dog?
Clearly not a common Shadow Lord at all.
Danicka kisses the top of his head. He pulls her closer, smiles through an apology. She shakes her head. "Ne, díte. Nerikej lito." Kisses him again, while he regains his mind and begins to touch her, ask her if she wants --
Her brows tug together a little, more tender than aching. Her fingers move into his hair, pushing it back. "Oh, laska," she murmurs. "Jste."
That hand trails down to his jaw, lifting his mouth to hers. She kisses him, still tasting herself on him, and lingers there for a while. When she departs, her nose touches his. "Sprchovy nyni, ackoli," she says then, breathing in deep and putting her arms under herself, preparing to get up. "Pak potravy," she goes on, right back to planning the way he was before she stalked over to him and got on her knees. She snaps her teeth at him, playfully, when she never would have dared a couple of years ago. "Krmivo lodni dustojnik."
LukasShe would have never dared to snap her teeth at him, even in play. She would have never dared to grab him by the hair, to snarl at him, to withhold something he wanted.
She wouldn't have been okay with it, either, if he'd mounted her and gotten off and left her unsatisfied. She would have considered it his task -- his very purpose, if he was going to get in bed with her -- to finish her off however he could. Multiple times. Otherwise, what use was he?
It's different now. They've changed. She's changed, in ways so deep and abiding it's hard for him to even put his finger on it. He knows she's changed, though, as much as he has, when she stops him from touching her. When she puts her hand on his jaw and kisses him, lingeringly. His fingers relax where they are, half-forgotten until she moves. Then he holds her by the hip a moment, instinctive, panting out a breath just barely laced with a groan as he draws out of her.
She's planning. He's rolling on his back, as lazy as Kando ever was; as lazy as a tiger sprawled in the sun. The desk isn't quite enough to hold all his length. His knees bend over the edge, his hands and feet dangle off the sides. His eyes are closed and the sun hits his skin, iridescent where he's sweated. She gets off the desk and his fingers trail after her, grazing her flank, the dimples on her back.
"Miluji te," he says after her. His eyes are still closed. He adds, ridiculous now: "Nemuzu se pohnout. Tento stul je prílis pohodlné. Moje oci nelze otevrít."
Danicka"Jste blazen," Danicka says fondly, pressing her fingertips to his side and nudging him, rolling him a half-inch before his weight rolls him right back. She is standing now, his cum on her inner thighs, his sweat mingled with hers on her stomach and her breasts and her arms, her hair as tousled as his. She leans over, kisses his mouth while his eyes remain happily closed.
Yes. There is a part of her that demands he please her, get her off, that's what he's for,
but it's no more unloving than the part of him that grabs her wrists, pins her down, fucks her til she can't walk, uses her cunt and bites into her shoulder, snarling like an animal. It is, in their bizarre and convoluted way, as tender as the way she kisses him now. As tender as her fingers tousling his sweat-soaked hair a bit more before she slips away from him.
If he remains on the desk, too comfortable on the flat, hard surface to move, Danicka leaves him there. His pants remain hanging off his ankles as she walks away, pulling her camisole off the rest of the way and dropping it as unceremoniously as the rest of her clothes. In the adjacent bathroom he hears water come on, pouring like rain from the multiple showerheads. The door is open and he hears a faint groan of pleasure from Danicka when she steps inside, borne of too many hours on a flight and then several minutes against a desk. The hot water hits her and she tips her head back, exhaling raggedly from relief.
LukasHe laughs quietly as she calls him crazy. She has a point. The table really isn't that great. But he's lazy, he's lounging, when she leans over him he curls his arm lazily and loungingly around her shoulders, sifts his fingers through her hair. The kiss goes on a little longer than it strictly needs to, and in truth he's starting to lift his head from the desk, starting to lean into it just a bit when she draws back.
As Danicka strolls into the bathroom, Lukas turns his head to watch. He watches her strip the camisole off, watches her disappear through the doorway. He smiles to himself.
A little later he follows her. Not very much later. A few minutes, really. She's working shampoo into her hair, and he's filling the bathroom with his scent and his presence and his size. He taps on the shower door so he doesn't frighten her, and though he saw her just moments ago, though he knew damn well she was in here, he's wearing that look again: delighted, so pleased with himself, he's found her.
The shower gets a little more crowded when he gets in. He's quite quick about washing: scrubs, shampoos, rinses, scrubs more, done. When he's clean she's still rinsing conditioner out of her much longer hair, and he wraps his arms around her and gets in the way more than he helps, and in the end she has to hand him a washcloth and ask him to help her wash her back, please, nevermind that she washed it before he ever came in. He obliges, disentangling himself, attending to his task very diligently. The further down the slope of her back he gets the more time he spends, and eventually he's given up the pretext entirely; the washcloth is forgotten on the floor of the shower, and he's reaching around to draw her back against him, reaching around to play with her clit while he kisses her shoulder, kisses her neck.
She has to remind him they're getting food. And exploring. And then napping. Or maybe she doesn't remind him, and they spend a few unplanned moments in the shower before stepping out, flushed and clean, toweling off.
The bed looks terribly inviting. It takes some willpower to resist, but Lukas manages. He rescues the lamp from the floor, then sets their suitcases up on racks; he dresses out of his and she dresses out of hers, and meanwhile the things they brought for their distant relatives go onto the desk to await their gifting. He pulls jeans on again, but these are nicer than the old worn pair he wore onto the plane, and a dark grey. His shirt is thin cotton, saved from being a t-shirt only by its weave, its long sleeves, and its lack of logo or slogan. He forgoes a coat for a thick sweater with a heavy, high collar and wind-tight cuffs, a tapered waist. It's also grey, a few shades lighter than his jeans. Neither of them are careless dressers.
His hair is still a little damp when they step out of their room. They each take a keycard, just in case they get separated, though Danicka knows very well if they were to get separated Lukas would likely find her again with his nose to the ground if necessary. He's brought gloves, which he stuffs in his back pocket until Danicka simply puts them in her purse, and he has a map of Prague on his phone. Which is an Android now.
They make a handsome couple, stepping off the elevator into the lobby. They're holding hands again. On the street they look around a moment to get their bearings, and then they head toward the old town square, around which the old city of Prague was founded over a thousand years ago.
There's an interesting little story surrounding that founding, Lukas says as they stroll the streets. Legend has it there was a woman named Libuse, who was the youngest daughter of a great pagan chieftain. Her sisters were a healer and a sorceress; she herself was a seer. For her wisdom her father chose her as his successor, and when she became queen she saw a vision of the future of her people. Following her own prophecies, she raised a castle and founded a city on the Vltava River. When it came time for her to marry, she directed her councilmen to a farm near the city, where they were to find a ploughman with a broken shoe. This man, who was Premysl, was discovered exactly as she foretold and brought back to the palace to become her king-consort. Their descendants would go on to rule Prague and the Kingdom of Bohemia for four hundred years.
DanickaHe wants her again. Moments after orgasm, his skin still hyper-sensitive, their sweat still warm, he kisses her like he can't get enough of her. Danicka leans into that kiss, too, her hand moving to his chest, curling around his ribs, getting closer until her breast brushes his side. A small shiver goes through her when he plays with her hair, but she does draw back. Her eyes meet his for a moment, open and verdant, and
he knows.
Watching Danicka walk away, one item of clothing or another coming off, is something he's been doing since the very start. She does it sometimes, stripping her shirt off or unzipping and dropping and stepping out of her skirt as she turns her back on him and leads him where she wants him. That he follows her, always, does not indicate a struggle for power between them, unless there is an inherent psychological power struggle in the mating of wolves. The arch of a spine, the madness of lust, the way males are to females when females are in heat.
Danicka goes to the shower and turns it on. She doesn't start washing right away. She just stands under the water, soaking herself, hands on a wall covered by lapis-colored tiles as though she can't stand under her own power. She's only just risen a bit and reached for the shampoo when Lukas comes in, and she pauses a moment, her figure obscured by frosted glass that goes from the floor almost to the ceiling. He knocks, but he doesn't need to, and she doesn't answer, because she doesn't need to.
He is smiling. Found you. She smirks at him, sly and sidelong like before at the doors to the terrace, which are still standing open in the other room, letting in curls of cool, wet spring air.
They wash. And in this, they're quite simply a couple who have been together for three years, living (mostly) together for two. They weren't even a year into their relationship when he found their den, brought her there, showed her that it was safe and warm and it was good, yes, very good for mating and for cubs and eating prey. They are both of them, ultimately, very practical. She washes her hair, rinses, works conditioner into the locks. In this hotel there are multiple showerheads; they aren't sharing, for once, and Danicka says they should install something like this in their bathroom at the den.
A look in his eyes. Danicka smiles and turns to him, wraps her arms around his waist, and beams up at him. See? she says, as water runs down both their flanks. We can still cuddle, but neither of our backs get cold!
Nips his chest, and flicks her tongue over his nipple before she turns away again. She has washing to do. Her face, her body. She leaves the conditioner soaking in her hair for a long time while she gets cleaned up. Lukas shakes his head under the water like a beast. Danicka didn't bring a razor. Danicka never brings a razor. He asked about it, some time ago, because he's far from unobservant. Danicka explained the rather extensive lasering she'd undergone a while ago, last summer sometime. She leans on him while she washes between her toes, holding his arm for balance. He hardly notices the added weight, the shift in his own balance. She doesn't ask permission to touch him, lean on him, use him like that. She imagines he likes being good for that. She imagines he likes being the thing that keeps her from falling. Better him than a wall.
When she finally starts rinsing the conditioner out of her hair, her head is tipped back and her eyes are closed and the water and the hair treatment turn her skin slippery. Lukas is done. Lukas isn't ready to get out and towel off. Danicka feels his arms come around her and huffs a laugh that isn't audible above the water flowing over them. The way she hands him that washcloth isn't much different from the way she looked at him after they kissed. He gets out of the way and she finishes rinsing. When his hands come to the cleft of her ass and the washcloth drops, his fingers sliding over those curves, feeling her for a while, she leans foward, one hand to the bright blue tiles again. His hand is between her legs. Her mate is stepping closer to her, playing with her, pressing against her, and
this time it's slower, and she reminds him of nothing at all. He holds her up while he moves in her. She moans and it ricochets off the walls. His arm around her keeps her from falling when she comes. His hand under her breast feels her heart slamming against her ribs like a panicked bird in a cage as she shudders apart. The heat and steam of the shower and the long-awaited orgasm make her lightheaded. She has to stand there for some time, just until her breathing subsides, just until she isn't dizzy anymore. He holds her the whole time. She never doubts that anymore.
The bed does look inviting. And Danicka is no help. She is purringly attentive to him after that shower, nuzzling him and staying within a few inches of him, touching him, telling him we could just nap. it's fine. we'll just sleep and fuck forever. come on. And it does take willpower to resist the bed, and resist her, even though she's laughing and dropping onto the bed anyway still wrapped in her towel. He rescues the lamp, sets out their suitcases. Danicka watches him walking around in his towel, smiling.
Eventually she pulls herself up and goes to dry her hair, standing naked in the still-steamy bathroom. Halfway through she gets bored and just twists her hair up into a surprisingly shabby-elegant knot at the nape of her neck, the ends dusting her shoulder. It's loose and comfortable and lovely and for a moment, when she looks at him from the reflection in the bathroom mirror,
it is hard not to see the keeper of the seventh gate, the woman who mothered his childred and demanded his life.
She dresses with the easy practice of someone who not only dresses thoughtfully but shops mindfully. Buy the right clothes and outfits put themselves together, after all. They are casual, though: her jeans are dark and tuck into a pair of flat-soled brown riding boots. He gets to watch her put on her bra, clasp and twist and straps sliding up to shoulders. Another camisole over that, cream-colored and this time with lace above her breasts. Her sweater has a v-neck and is made of camel-colored cashmere. Danicka brushes a minimum of makeup on once she's dressed. She replaces her wedding ring from where she carefully set it before their shower. She puts small champagne-colored pearls in her ears.
And because she does not run as hot as he does even on her warmest day, Danicka folds her peacoat over her arm as they walk out, her bag slung across her body. With her wallet, her key card, her phone, his gloves, their passports, lip balm, hand lotion, and a couple of snack bars. And gum. They are holding hands in the hallway, and in the elevator, and in the lobby. Danicka hides a yawn behind their conjoined hands, blinks her eyes several times before turning them wide-open to him as though to prove that she's not sleepy at all,
and they set off. Lukas tells her about the founding of Prague, which she knows the broad strokes of, but she likes to hear him tell it. Smiles at him as he does, and slows their progress at every turn. She wants to see everything. It's Prague, and there is plenty of signage in more than just Czech. It's Prague, and it is an ancient city that has not been forgotten by the modern age. They are not terribly out of place even with their sleek Android phones out, checking a map here or there. They take no photographs that do not include one of them in the frame, and few photos even then. Danicka, standing right on the cobblestones, changes the background wallpaper of her phone to a picture of Lukas standing in front of the malé nám stí fountain, leaning against the grid at his back.
Because it's the oldest, she tells him, when he inquires about why that one. That is his mate: she lives on the razor-sharp edge of technology, has come home telling him about things thought impossible when he was a child or so far out of reach it would be decades before they accomplished it. She has already informed him that they are going to get a 3D printer eventually, and gone on a twenty-minute rave about how much easier that will make their lives, especially with children. Danicka is hardly a Luddite. Yet she was also born under the crescent moon. She has her own kinds of prayers and paganism. She is a granddaughter of a storm-spirit, and when she is with Lukas, particularly here, she thinks:
I've known you before. I've always known you.
Because it's the oldest fountain in Prague, she says, tucking her phone away again and taking his hands, kissing his mouth again. Her lips are cool from being outside, and his skin is warm, and she leaves them there for a few moments as though to steal his heat like a ghost stealing a living person's breath to try and feel whole and alive again. Her lips spread into a smile as she parts, and as they walk away to go find somewhere to eat, she glances over her shoulder at the fountain. A the sky. At the antiquity of the city. Her hand slips back into his.
