stay here.

[Lukas] Friday night, Lukas calls about an hour before he shows up. "You haven't eaten yet, have you?" he checks.

At around 8, he rings her intercom, bending to say "Je jsem já," into the speaker.

A few moments later there's a knock. The door swings open to reveal Lukas leaning against the wall just outside her door, dressed in what looks like pajamas, or loungewear: the sort of thing he would've never worn to see her a few months ago. The sort of thing she saw him in, the second time she ever saw him in this city -- drawstring pants, soft and loose; a white cotton undershirt.

He also has an opaque wardrobe bag over his shoulder, the rack hooked on two fingers. From the size and the way it lays against his shoulder, it looks like a coat and trousers, quite possibly a shirt and tie as well. In his other hand, he carries a plastic bag the Brasserie Jo where they met once -- briefly -- before he ran off to do battle.

And he smiles at her, faintly, a little lopsidedly. Straightening up from the wall, Lukas enters Danicka's apartment, his hand touching her waist as he steps forward to

just lean into her. Just press his body lightly, tangibly against hers, and his cheek to hers, and his nose against the line of her jaw, the hollow beneath her ear. She hears him draw a breath. When he lets it out it's with a faint hum of recognition, or pleasure, or contentment. A moment later he straightens, passing the bag of food to her. There are several boxes inside of varying sizes which, later unpacked, will reveal smoked salmon, steak au poivre, duck breast, profiteroles and, amazingly, no rack of lamb.

"I thought I might spend the night," he says, shrugging the shoulder his garment bag rests on, "and we could leave from here tomorrow."

[Danicka] There is actually a long pause between Lukas asking if Danicka has eaten and Danicka answering. She has to think about it. It's the end of the week and they don't get a Fall Break at the University of Chicago and her brain is swimming from homework. When she answers, it's a slow "Nooo, I haven't." as though the information is just dawning on her. It's better if he doesn't ask when the last time she did eat was.

Soon after, though: it's him. And: "Paul je venku," so he knows.

When he comes up to the apartment, Danicka's wearing a pair of dark skinny jeans, the cuffs folded up. Her socks are pale tan with miniscule green flowers on them, her silk blouse somewhere between peach and beige with loose, short, fluttering sleeves. He can feel her warmth under his hand when he touches her, the illusion of skin broken only by the faint grittiness of the fabric against his palm and fingertips. Her hair is down, straightened but starting to shift back into its natural waves at the end of the day.

Immediately when he enters she starts to take the bag of food from him, since he's already carrying the garment bag, reaching back to close the door and lock it behind him. She doesn't get to locking it, though, because Lukas fills the space against her, moves against her like

well

an animal greeting his mate.

Danicka becomes still for it, makes a soft noise not unlike his own except for much, much quieter, and closes her eyes. She puts her free hand on his abdomen, through his t-shirt, and presses her body back to his with roughly as much force as she felt him use. Except: she's so much softer. She's smaller. She pushes back anyway, in understanding and welcome both.

As they pull back from one another she lifts her eyebrows, then nods. And smiles. "I like that idea."

The further he goes into the apartment, the more he notices. The kitchen is clean. There are textbooks and Danicka's MacBook on the coffee table. The door to her room is open. The stereo is playing a song with a woman's voice singing in some other language, a breathy refrain of ah, boom ba repeating frequently.

Danicka locks the door, the plastic bag rustling in her hand. She starts towards the kitchen. "You can hang that up in my closet if you want." She doesn't specify which one.

[Lukas] So they press together, gently but firmly, like animals. They nuzzle one another and touch, her hand to his abdomen, his to her waist. They murmur to one another without words, comfortingly and comforted, as though their bodies had longed for one another; as though their bodies had not known when they would meet again.

They draw apart. She takes the food. He says, "Okay," and goes down the hall into her room, hanging his clothes up in the nearer closet -- at the side, out of the way. When he comes back she's unpacking the food, and he stops by the coffee table to pick up one of her textbooks. It's European history, volume one; everything up to the Enlightenment. Lukas leafs through it, and then does an odd thing: he raises it to his face and riffles the pages with his thumb, inhaling deeply.

When he puts it down he's smiling. "I love the smell of new books," he says, and sets it back down, open to the same page she left it at. Returning, Lukas levers himself up on a barstool at the breakfast bar, reaching out to take the boxes from her as she opens them.

And then he pauses, cartons still in hand. "Want to eat on the floor?" He tips his head toward the windows, the view. "Over by the windows?"

[Danicka] The nearest closet is the larger of the two. It's very big, and ridiculously well-organized. There are storage boxes on overhead shelves labeled by season. There are coats here, slacks and skirts there, tops there. Danicka's hamper is beside the door. Strangely, there are only a few pairs of shoes, the ones she wears most often. The lower shelves between rows of hung-up clothes have a few jewelry boxes, some accessories, and there are several bags and purses stored in here as well. There are two white storage boxes up high that are not labeled.

But it's a closet. Most likely, he hangs up his suit bag and walks out without even looking around the antechamber that smells like a mixture of fabric softener and Danicka, Danicka, Danicka.

She is indeed unpacking the food from the bag when he gets out of her suite, glancing over at him and smiling as he leaves the hallway. Her eyes follow him to the living room as he goes to her textbooks. The paperbacks for her lit course are used. So, actually, is the one for European history. He smells highliter rather than new book, pencil, fingerprints. He smells an old book rather than a fresh one, and Danicka quirks an eyebrow at him, passing over some of the opened boxes of food. She opens a drawer to get out out forks, doesn't bother with plates.

A beat. She nods. "You want wine?"

[Lukas] "Please," he replies; a sort of thoughtless courtesy.

Lukas starts gathering up boxes, folding them closed again so he can stack them and carry them all at once. The living room carpet is pristine. For what it's worth, Lukas walks carefully, crouches carefully, doesn't lose his balance and spill food everywhere. Before he sets the cartons down, he checks the bottoms to make sure they're clean, and he lays out napkins like a picnic blanket.

Danicka has lived in this apartment for most of a year now. She's had three roommates in that time. She's danced in this room in her underwear. She's fucked on the couch and on the floor. In all that time, she's never bothered to put up curtains or blinds; perhaps she's never wanted to. Lukas wouldn't blame her. The view is breathtaking, and when he sits crosslegged, he looks out at the skyscrapers to the southeast; the lake to the east.

One by one, he reopens the boxes. And he eats a profiterole first. So much for etiquette and courtesy.

"If you move," he asks, "are you still going to have a view?"

[Danicka] Etiquette and courtesy went out the door when Danicka told him, yesterday morning, that he does not have to say May I. Because she's his mate. Because he should not have to ask if he can come see her. Because she does not want the false manners, the politeness, the pretense. Because it's true: they belong to each other.

Etiquette and courtesy went out the door when he showed up in loungewear while she was finishing up some reading. Both of them are dressed rather casually, at least for how they normally look, and are fully intending, it seems, to laze around all Friday night and most of Saturday until going to this ridiculous dinner party full of Silver Fang high society bullshit.

Etiquette and courtesy went out the door when they decided to eat on the floor, when Danicka took a half-full bottle of cabernet sauvignon out of the fridge and removed the stopper and poured the red into glass tumblers instead of wine goblets. She pads across the living room to him and folds herself down with grace but evident, gradual care. She sits across from him, the view to her left, the music

I'm stuck
I'm out of luck
I'm trying to talk my way out of this

at her back.

She hands him a fork, chooses a bite of duck instead but does not put it in her mouth yet. "I hope so," she says, and eats. A little while later, long enough to chew and swallow, she adds: "Do you want the lights off? I had them on for reading, but... the moon's waxing, so."

[Lukas] Lukas's mouth is full of sweets. His reply is something like mmph, which may be an affirmative, but before Danicka can get up he wipes his hands on his napkin and rolls to his feet.

His bare feet, she might notice now. He left his shoes at the door; he wasn't wearing socks at all. So, barefoot, he pads to the lightswitches, flicks them off with the blade of his hand. Darkness drenches the living room, except for what uncertain and gleaming glow scatters in through the windows.

Lukas comes back, dropping down with a sort of thoughtless lazy ease. He folds his legs again, crossing them indian-style like a child, and eats another profiterole. Even if Danicka had not seen the kolache incident, she might believe him capable of stuffing himself with sweets until he was sick.

"I'd like that," he says, though it's arguable that what he would or wouldn't like hardly matters in her choice of a den. He won't be living there. He's never asked to live here; never considered it --

except that's a lie. Lukas has thought about that, living with Danicka, coming home to her every night, seeing her come home to him. He's thought about it the same way he's thought about mating with her, siring children by her, watching cubs grow around her; which is to say, indistinctly, in guilty, unreasonable flashes that his conscious, thinking mind soon overrules.

He's thinking about it now, though, looking out over the city. Not the cubs but the den. He licks chocolate syrup and melting ice cream off his fingers, absently, his eyes on the winking lights, his eyes on the uncertain stars.

And then, turning to her. He studies her by the light of the city, his eyelids blinking once, slow as an animal's.

"V noci slunovratu, chtěl jsem k vyrobit domov pro vás. Chtěl jsem se krájet ji z půda s můj rukama a udržet ty v bezpečí v tom. Chtěl jsem hon dát najíst vás, boj na ochranu vás, a seru na tebe každou noc pro teplo a přežití a lásku."

He reaches for their food at last, gently, peeling a slice of cold smoked salmon from the crushed and melting ice with his bare hands. His eyes cast down for a moment, his lashes soot-black, without the highlights of his hair. When they rise again, his irises seem starkly, strikingly blue, depthless in the slanting and dim light.

"I still want to."

[Danicka] It's something they've never talked about. It's something they've each avoided talking about, for their own reasons. The way they got used to each other, with stunning and frightening speed. The way they each realized, spoken or not, that they did not want this to end, that they were not and might never be ready for it to be over. The fact that the night Danicka led him into the woods and lost her clothes and civility bit by bit, luring him as he hunted her, she and he both laid together in the grass and dirt, covered in sweat and slick, and thought

we could live like this.

So when Lukas does say so, coming back to her after darkening the room so only the crescent moon and the city illuminate her expansive, curving living room, Danicka pauses in the middle of taking a sip of her wine. She looks at him across the makeshift picnic of napkins and takeout boxes, glass in hand, as he reaches down -- looks down -- and plucks salmon from the box to put in his mouth.

"Myslel jsem, že to samé," she whispers, as though sorry for it. Her brows are drawn together slightly; the expression looks almost like pain. Mild, fleeting pain, but there nonetheless. "Chtěl jsem zůstat."

She rolls her fork between thumb and forefinger, sets it down, and reaches for a profiterole. "Jsem chtěl zůstat s vámi od první noc, kdy jsem tě potkal." She takes a small bite, finishes, and with some trepidation -- and wistfulness, and longing -- adds: "Dokonce i poté, co jsem byla se Sam. Nechtěl jsem nechat ty."

Danicka finishes the cream puff before she says anything else. "I don't know what I want to do. So many bad things have happened here that I don't like remembering." Her frown deepends. "I'm torn. I have been happy with you here. When you are here it feels more like my home. When you aren't here, it means nothing to me."

[Lukas] Lukas's eyelids bat only once when Sam, and everything that happened with Sam, is mentioned. Strange, but what used to sting, infuriate, hurt, doesn't so much anymore. It's in the past. She's his. She chose him.

Sam doesn't matter anymore. Martin matters less.

Meditatively, he unfolds one leg from the other, draws his knee up a small ways, sets his bare foot along the perimeter of their makeshift picnic, closer to her than before. And he tips his head back to drop salmon in his mouth before reaching for a slice of steak, precut, drizzled in sauce, browned on the outside and rare red on the inside.

He's a predator. She's a carnivore. He doesn't think she'll mind a little red on her meat.

"Wherever you go," he says, "I'll be happy to follow. And we'll be happy there." A moment's thought. "Where we are doesn't matter."

[Danicka] There is not much she can say to that. It's an echo of what she told him the first night they fucked, explained later on when he asked what she meant. It doesn't matter where they are. In the woods. In his bed. In a fucking dive bar's bathroom. In his car. That is why he wouldn't take her in that nightclub when she all but begged him to just fuck her, please, just undo the week they'd spent apart and put her up against the wall and fuck her. It's never just a fuck. It's never that simple.

Or empty.

But it never matters where they are or who is around them. That's the part that's not important. Only they're not talking about sex now, about what happens to them when he's inside of her or between her legs or even just moaning as their kisses grow deeper. They're talking about homes. Dens. The sort of lovemaking that doesn't necessarily include naked flesh or orgasm. And though neither of them speak of it, they are both thinking about the cubs that would belong in a den, the children that would belong in their home.

So Danicka doesn't talk about them. She moves her leg, too, so their feet can touch, and leans forward to eat.

Mostly, Danicka eats the duck and the salmon. He has seen her eat steak both well done and rare, but she only takes a few bites of it tonight. Ironically, he sees her eat red meat infrequently when he's with her, and it is one of the only times she eats it to begin with. She eats perhaps a third of what he does, simply because she does not need to. She burns fewer calories just by existing than he does, never goes so physically into battle. She is hungry tonight, but not as ravenous as she was the night they got back from New York, or the morning he had to leave her at home to go tell the sept what had happened to them underground.

She tangles her fingers with his to get the last profiterole. "No, mine," she says, her tone a playfully whining argument.

[Lukas] The mood relaxes as they settle into their meals. It was never tense, but it was serious; then intense.

That dissipates now. She eats mostly fish and fowl. He eats mostly red meat, though he likes the salmon too; loves the duck. For all that, there's plenty of duck and salmon left over. He leaves it for her. There's a slice or two of beef as well, though the potatoes are mostly gone.

And the profiteroles. That's down to the very last one, and when he reaches for it thoughtlessly, her fingers tangle with his, and it makes him laugh suddenly. His eyes drop to their tangled hands. They rise to her, sparking with humor and something perilously close to mischief.

"I can make more," he says. It sounds vaguely like a threat. "Do you want to see?" And he brings her hand to his mouth, sucking syrup off the tips of her fingers.

[Danicka] "No, I want to eat that one," Danicka says as he's licking her fingertips. She's fighting a smile, then flicks his lower lip down gently. "That tickles. Quit it."

[Lukas] There's something vaguely animal about the way Lukas turns his face to nuzzle into the palm of her hand; to kiss her there, unmindful of her saliva-wet, chocolate-sticky fingers on his cheek.

Just the faintest hint of a beard roughens his skin tonight, as though he'd shaved sometime earlier in the day. He'll shave again before he goes to dinner tomorrow night. They'll dress together, she putting on her earrings, perhaps, or slipping into her stockings; he buttoning his shirt and tying his tie, if he wears one. The thought pleases him somehow. He never thought something like that, something so domestic and mundane and unremarkable, would please him.

"So eat it," he tells her, smirking; but fond, so fond. His smile is a little edged, but his eyes belie that. There's nothing but warmth there.

[Danicka] Her hand moves away slowly, almost reluctant, a smile teasing her lips as she reaches down to eat the last profiterole. She plucks it from the box with her thumb and middle finger to eat it, and it's messy, and she chuckles softly when a drop of syrup gets on her chin. Danicka wipes it with her finger, sucks it off. She's had two glasses of wine. She is not thinking about tomorrow night, as a rule, though later on she'll likely open his bag and look at what he's wearing before deciding what to put on.

He's never been here with her as she's gotten up to really get ready to go anywhere. Usually she stays in pajamas or bed after he's spent a night with her here, and it will not be the same to get up and see her applying makeup, putting on jewelry, adorning herself for a dinner party she does not want to go to because it means sitting with people she hates. She will look beautiful. She will be the only female there who is With Someone. She likely knows as much or more about traditional etiquette than the Fangs that will be there.

Right now she has chocolate on her chin and is mildly buzzed, eating dessert and then, then

leaning forward across the boxes of food, one hand on the ground then on his knee, one hand on his chest and then his shoulder, all but crawling into the food, crawling into his lap, kissing him.

[Lukas] Which is undeniably sudden. Which comes out of the blue, like lightning in a clear sky. Which -- knowing them, knowing them at all -- one might've predicted would happen sooner or later. Sooner, rather than later.

Lukas leans into the kiss, but only a little. Mostly, he receives. He's happy to receive. He's happy right now, period, because he's eating dinner with his mate. Because he sucked chocolate off her fingers and made her laugh. Because she ate the last glorified cream puff and because she's kissing him now, and his mouth is smiling even as it's opening to hers, and his arm which rests over his knee unfurls a little; his palm turns to her body, covering her side gently, almost delicately, which his other hand catches her by the chin and turns her face up a little more for him to

slant his mouth on hers, just like that, and kiss her a little softer, a little deeper. He grazes her mouth like she were a part of the meal, and he were half-full already, and both of them are lazy, sitting not in her living room but on some savanna, on some african veldt, in some north american forest, in their den.

"Mmm," is the sound he makes, a low animal murmur of pleasure. His teeth catch her lower lip ever so gently as they part. Then he's licking his lips and his eyes open a sliver. Close again. He takes her face between his hands this time, and he kisses her harder, deeper still, while he shifts half-fluidly and half-awkwardly to stand on his knees. Quite simply put, Lukas is mauling her face now over the remains of their dinner, and his hands are moving down her neck, and his hands are grasping handfuls of her shirt.

[Danicka] Lately -- and that is in terms of months, not weeks -- they have seen each other infrequently. Their meetings have been filled with stress of some form or another, threats to love and life, and they have usually been hungry, tired, and angry. They've made love because it is at times the only way they can reacquaint themselves with each other's nature, the only way to communicate I love you where it feels sincere beyond the capacity of language. And it's been intense, and ravenous, and desperate, as though they cannot remember the last time and cannot imagine the next.

It's only been about a week now. For them, two weeks was too much from the start, and they've endured longer than that, even. One week, for Danicka, is about the limit of her patience. She has admitted to Lukas, though he may have tried to forget it, that her conquests number in the hundreds. Her sexual appetite is surreal, and there is possibility now that she will simply walk out one night, find someone in a club, and take them to a bathroom stall or car or hotel to fulfill that drive. She does not want them. She did not want them during the week they were apart and she could not have Lukas. She can't remember the last time she wanted them.

But she still wants this. Vividly. Viciously. She moves onto his lap and parts her denim-clad legs over his hips but does not sink down on him, grasping at the fabric of his t-shirt with her hands while she explores his mouth, laughs darkly when he smiles, shudders when he so much as puts his hand on her.

The way of his kiss is slower, deeper, more patient. Lazy. And Danicka has none of it. She nips at his lower lip with her teeth, a gesture he returns as he's murmuring appreciation, contentment, whatever it is. She growls softly as he takes her face in his hands, a low sound just a bit harder-edged than a purr, and slides back as he rises. They're both kneeling now, and Lukas has caught up to her kiss, and her hands are going into his hair instead, keeping his head where it is, where she wants it.

Danicka takes in a sharp, shallow breath as she moves her mouth from his a few moments later, catching his eyes and then grabbing the collar of his shirt. She lays back, to the side of the makeshift picnic, the mostly-empty wine bottle thankfully on the other side of the napkins, and pulls him towards her, over her. "Pojď sem," she breathes. "Pojď sem teď."

[Lukas] But he doesn't. He doesn't come here, at least not now, not immediately. When she sinks back the soft fabric of his shirt deforms in her hand, pulling into stress lines across his shoulders, his sides, stretching at his back. Lukas's hands leave Danicka's face as she recedes from him. Quickly, he scrunches his shoulders and ducks his head, raises his arms, slips so fluidly out of his shirt as she tugs it up and off.

Then he's half-bare and half-savage, his torso moving with his quickened breath. The way he kneels, sitting on his heels, his spine is curved. His chest and shoulders form a thick, broad wall of muscle; his stomach is ridged with it, and the light dusting of hair over his torso spreads over the one and runs in a thin line down the other. Hungry and sharp, his eyes gleam in the half-light as he moves over her.

Crawls over her, like an animal. His hands walk their way forward: beside her hips, then her ribs, then her shoulders. She tosses his shirt aside. Or lets it fall. Or just forgets about it, letting it rumple between their bodies, her hands, as he bends to her on all fours, catches her mouth with his. That's the only true point of hot, molten contact. Everything else is passing and transient: her hands running over his skin or in his hair, his knees nudging between her.

Until he comes down over her, that is. The hip joint straightens out; the knee joint opens. He lays down over her, his body heavy, dense, hot. His pajama bottoms are thin and soft enough almost not to matter. He's not wearing boxer briefs, or boxers, or anything at all under it, and she can feel the shape of his cock when he grinds against her, rubs between her legs, taking her face in his hands again as he feasts on her mouth.

A handful of seconds go by. He settles into a blind, hungry rhythm, fucking her through their clothes as if there was nothing there at all, snarling into her mouth, all but biting kisses into her.

All of a sudden he draws back, raises up. It's like suddenly he's remembered they were only half-undressed. That they could be so much closer than this. Now it's his hands on her clothes, his fingers grasping at the buttons of her jeans, which haste makes him slip on. He grabs her by the waistband of her pants, then, and hauls her forward, closer, tears the button open and the zipper down, pulls, pulls, pulls them off, tosses them aside.

[Danicka] The carpet rubs against her back through the thin silk of her shirt, leaves impressions of pattern in her skin while they grind together on the floor, her body still completely hidden and his upper half bared for her. She lifted her head to kiss him when he crawled over her, bit his lower lip harder than before, more insistent. She opened her legs for him and ran her hands over his chest and told him in a half-snarl

"Jste tak kurva horko."

His shirt is off to one side, tossed away after he slipped out of it, let her tug it off of him. She touches him endlessly, palms stroking over as much skin as she can reach, as though she'll have lost something tonight if she doesn't touch every inch of him. Her fingers are hooking in the elastic waistband of his lounge pants as he's coming down onto her body, pressing into her, and trying to push it away until that first hard grind of his hips against hers. She grabs hold of his hips then, groaning, arching her back as she receives the force of his thrust, rolls back towards him, holds him to her.

The jeans she has on are tight, and stiff, and rough. The seam presses against her clit through her panties, his cock presses against her, the heat of him suffuses her so quickly that she forgets she's still wearing her blouse. It's going to smell like him if he doesn't get it off of her soon. It's going to remind her of fucking him, like this, lying on her living room floor next to remnants of French cuisine.

It's not necessary for Danicka to beg him not to stop, not to fucking stop. She doesn't waste her breath on it, kissing him instead, sucking on his tongue, gasping into his mouth when he pushes against her a little harder, when they start picking up speed, when her heart starts hammering in her chest. She runs her hands up his back, grasps his shoulderblades, rakes her nails down with a hard moan when he slams against her with impatient, animal fervor.

She follows him when he rises up, lifting her upper body and reaching for the loose ties around her waist that keep her shirt closed around her torso. She unties, unwraps, while he's fumbling with the button of her jeans, yanking down the zipper. It takes her seconds to get the shirt off, throwing it over beside his t-shirt. Her bra is pale pink lined lace, her panties are white cotton. There's a miniscule pink bow on the front. Danicka puts her thumbs under the waist as he's tearing her jeans off, wriggling against the rug as he frees her legs, pushing the panties off her hips.

[Lukas] --where he grabs hold of them, grasping the entirety of it in his hand like a handkerchief or a rag, pulls her panties right off her legs and lets it fall ... wherever.

"Yeah," he exhales at the sight of her, not in any explicit agreement but simply in recognition, desire, want. Then he's rising up on his knees to push his pajamas down, off his hips and down his thighs to catch under his knees. Now they're both almost naked, her bra and his half-dropped pants the only articles of clothing remaining to them, and when he comes down again over her, against her, it's a maddening slide of flesh on flesh that has him rubbing and pressing against her like a snake.

Or an animal.
Or himself.

His fingers comb her hair into its natural waves, and then into a chaos of blonde spread over the floor. They kiss, endlessly, his body grinding between her legs, his cock sliding over her cunt over and over, getting wet, getting so fucking hard, fucking her without fucking her while his mouth devours hers, and her face, and her neck, and now he's pulling at her bra, pushing it up out of the way to suck and bite at her nipples with his lips. Her heart beats against his mouth. He presses his lips to that rhythm, his tongue; he kisses the center of her chest, and then he pushes up on one hand to grasp himself by the base of his cock and

and he doesn't slide it into her, slide it all the way to the base, the way he wants to. He handles his cock instead, slaps the underside of it against her clit. Lukas's head is bent, his eyes shadowed by his brow, his nose a straight slash. Danicka can see his chest pulling for breath as he plays with her, plays with himself, teases them both, slaps himself against her and rubs the head of his cock between her lips, over and over, stroking her slick all over his cock with swift, twisting slides of his hand.

"Chceš to, zlato?" His eyes are a pale flash, flickering up to hers, casting down again. He watches, rapt, fixated, fixed, and now he's slipping himself past the opening of her cunt, stroking into her with the head of his cock, over and over, quickly, lightly. His voice is scarcely more than a mutter, his breathing harsh. "Chceš tento kohout uvnitř vás?"

[Danicka] One would think neither of them would be able to stand this. That there would be no room for teasing, for getting any more clothes off than strictly necessary, or waiting a little while to make each other ask for it. Beg for it. It's difficult enough to get her panties off rather than just pulling them to the side, and she doesn't care about her socks, and her bra is digging into her after he pushes it up but one sensation is overwhelmed by his cock rubbing against her pussy now.

With nothing between them. No more pajamas, no jeans, no soft white cotton keeping him from her. Danicka jerks the first time she feels him, catching a groan in her throat and arching her back, grabbing at the carpet, hands scramblnig for purchase she can't find in the soft, thick pile. Her eyes are closed. She's lost. Her head is turned to one side as they go through the motions of lovemaking as though to torment themselves, each other, ragged little cries leaving her mouth along with struggling gasps every time he slaps himself against her, mingles precum with her slick, makes her jump over and over again.

Which is nothing compared to what she does when he speaks again, when he starts to push into her.

"Oh, fuck, yes," she moans, lowly, her back arched so hard that her hips are lifting off the ground, her body squirming closer to his. Her legs open farther as she pushes herself onto him, trying to get more of him now. Danicka reaches up with one hand as her hips touch the carpet again, grabbing at his shoulder, head turning and eyes opening again. Unabashedly, shamelessly, wantonly, she bucks against him, gasping: "Ano. Ano, lásko, prosím."

She whimpers then, reaching down to stroke his cock, reaching down to take hold of him and pull him deeper, her cunt clenching down on the head. "Já kurva to potřebují. Dej mi to. Musím se dostat prdeli."

[Lukas] Briefly, their hands tangle over the hard hot shaft of his cock. Her fingers are over his, and then under, and then his hand is holding hers, guiding hers, and then he simply

gives over

and lets her touch him as she likes; lets her draw him in. Deeper. For a while both his hands are planted on the carpet, and his eyes are closed, and his face is a mask of tension and pleasure. Then he lowers himself onto his elbows, not quite smoothly -- a little suddenly -- and he's kissing her while she tells him she needs to get fucked and groaning into her mouth, harshly, when her flesh clenches down on his.

"Take it, baby," he murmurs against her mouth. Then it's his brow against hers; he's looking down the narrow space between their bodies, looking at her breasts and belly moving as she breathes, as she writhes; looking at where his cock penetrates her, and where her thighs are open around him, and where she's guiding him into her. "That's it," he sighs. "Take that cock in.

"Oh.

"...fuck." There's wetness on his hand when he takes her face in his palm again. There's very little laziness left in the kiss. It's all hunger, all want. The last inch or two, he doesn't wait for her. He doesn't wait for her to draw him in, to work herself onto him, to tighten her thighs and pull him down. A short, sharp throw of his hips slams him home. Drives his breath out in a hard panting exhale. Makes a shudder run up his back.

"Cítíte se tak dobře," he murmurs, gently; lovingly. There's something so starkly gentle about his hands on her face, his voice, his words, and all the while his mouth is tearing at hers, and he's shifting his weight between her thighs to press deeper, and then to lever up so he can

start fucking her. Hard and deep from the start, slamming into her with every stroke, pinning her hips to the floor with his force, his drive, his cock in her cunt. "Tak kurva těsný," he groans. "Tak, kurva mokrý."

[Danicka] If she had her way he would be here like this every night.

Eating with her, on the floor or at the breakfast bar or standing in the kitchen or sitting on the couch, food laid out over the coffee table where her books are now, something playing on that enormous television or something playing on that streamlined stereo system. Or out on the balcony at the table and chairs she's always considered putting out there but hasn't ever bothered to buy because the only thing she's ever done on that balcony is smoke or fuck.

His clothes in her closet, hanging up alongside hers, a toothbrush stowed somewhere in case she doesn't have an extra one in a drawer somewhere, his razor and soap and brush put away in the medicine cabinet. The heaviness and warmth of him in bed beside her when she wakes up, his back to the bookshelf and the windows, his face half-buried against her pillow, his hand on her breast, over her heart.

And this. On that balcony against the hard brick wall, her legs spread and his tongue flicking over her again and again the way she taught him with gentle nudges of her hands and whimpered instruction. On the couch, his arms stretched out to either side of the cushions, his hips rocking upward while she rides him. On the floor

where she told him she was falling in love with him.

In her bed. In her shower. Again, and again, and again.

There is no chance of having him every night, when night is the time that so many bad things happen. And not mundane things, not humans hurting humans but humans becoming something else entirely or monsters erupting out of the shadows to tear at their greatest predators and enemies, of which he is one. She knows. By god, she knows she can't have him like this as often as she wants. So she takes him, all of him, every time he gives himself over a little, as though she would swallow him entire and hold some part of him inside to last her until the next time she sees him.

But every time, she gives it all back. She can't help it. Besides.

She promised.

Danicka bucks against him again, insistent, intense, making pleading little noises that she would never make in the beginning. She resisted begging like this. She would ask. She would demand. She would tell him in no uncertain terms how badly she wanted him, but this is something else, this whimpering, imploring chorus of sounds she lets out when he's on top of her, inside her, neither of them stopping to get a condom, to say they need to get a condom, neither of them even thinking of it this time, which is dangerous. Which is a threat. Which is something they each dread.

Which doesn't matter, at all, when he's kissing her like this and she's moaning so loudly it's almost a shout at that last hard pistoning of his hips. He crashes into her like a wave and her cunt squeezes him over and over and over again in sudden, overwhelmed satisfaction. She presses her inner thighs against him but keeps her feet on the floor for leverage to fuck him back harder, gasping over and over and over again in time with his rhythm, with the roll and thrust of his body into hers.

"Faster," she breathes, grabbing a hold of his arms now, her hands slick, the both of them slick, her body starting to sheen with sweat. "Faster, baby, fuck me."

[Lukas] When they were in New York, fucking in front of windows like these hundreds of feet above Times Square, Danicka wore pearls around her neck that shivered and rolled and bounced on her skin when she arched

(just like that.)

and shuddered

(just like that.)

She doesn't wear pearls now. She wears only the colors of the city on her skin, dim and glistening in the sweat that's beginning to sheen her breasts, her thighs. Her hands are slick, too, and so are his shoulders, his back. His triceps flex beneath her fingers as he pushes himself up in response to her request, demand, plea, and that's all the response there is.

That, and the way he bends his head, the way he looks down to see her receiving him, the way he fucks her then, faster as she asked, just as hard, pistoning into her body over and over while her hair shivers and her breasts bounce and

he shifts his weight to one hand, scoops her up with the other, bends her spine up until her body is an arch between her shoulders, which hold her balance, and her hips, where he pins her with the force of his thrusts. He bows her up toward him, bends toward her, catches her breasts against his mouth and licks, flicks the nipple, catches it between his lips and scrapes it with his teeth. There's very little gentle about this; any of it. His mouth on her breasts is ravenous and plundering, opening, taking, sucking. He fucks her like she's the slut he used to think she was, like she's the animal he knows she is, roughly, heavily, plunging into her cunt in quick, deep thrusts of his hips.

His hand at her back lowers her back to the floor. Braced again on both hands, Lukas rises up over her, holds himself over her and leans forward to roll her hips up, to give it to her deeper, to rub the shaft of his cock over her clit over and over while he fucks her cunt, pounds her, fills her with his cock and hammers her while she

makes that sound. That drives him out of his mind. That drives him to want to at once consume and protect her: this slender woman beneath him, this blonde with her venom-green eyes and her soft skin and her cunt, her sweet cunt so tight and insistent around him; this woman who is unlike all others, who is his one love, who is his mate, his Danička, his. Eyes locked, bodies interlocked, he fucks her the way he wants to every night; the way he's wanted to since the first night.

Which is to say: fiercely. Almost aggressively. Possessively, as if to make her his forever. Passionately, and with utter focus and devotion, as if fucking her were a form of savage worship; as if by giving himself over to her, completely, he might attain some state of glorification or enlightenment or redemption or

as if he might gain something no more or less complicated than what he gives her, given back.

"Come on." His voice is low and rough. He speaks through clenched teeth. "Give it up for me. Dovolte mi vidět vás přijde na můj kohout."

[Danicka] She has no idea how much he likes to look at her, how intoxicating it is when he can see the city lights flickering on her skin or the moonlight hitting her hair or the flash of her eyes when she's angry, when she's aroused, when her pupils blow out and turn her irises into nothing more than thin emerald rings.

Or maybe she knows. Danicka's known since she was perhaps too young to hear such things how beautiful she is, how appealing. She is used to being stared at, watched, followed across rooms with eyes just as ravenous as they are, perhaps, appreciative. She is used to being eaten alive when a mouth is on her, touched everywhere when hands are on her. She knows the effect a strand of pearls has on the right person, the purpose of lingerie, what high heels do to the shape of her leg, the silhouette of her body against a dark window or crossing a hotel room.

But all of that is different from what she has with him. From this. A week ago the way he fucks her now would have terrified her, overwhelmed her. She wouldn't have been able to bear his rage, his strength, his hunger. She would have trembled, and tried to withstand it anyway, and kissed him to cover whimpers of nervousness along with desire, and he... would have seen right through her.

A few days ago, she would have shuddered. A few months ago, she would have not been able to tolerate it. And it's a hard thing to swallow sometimes, to know that he is something that must be endured as much as welcomed, that receiving him means surviving him as well. But something has changed, before what she said to him underground, before New York, before even the solstice, and Danicka does not whimper, or shudder.

At least not in fear.

She lays back against the carpet and lets him have her, holding his biceps while he pounds at her cunt the way he sometimes asks to, the way he sometimes seems to need to, the way she sometimes screams for him to. Danicka watches, too, looking between their bodies at his cock sliding into her, pulling out wet and glistening, slamming back into her cunt. Her bra is still pushed up, a scrap of tangled pink lace over her chest, rubbing roughly on her skin and against his when he pulls her up and mauls her breasts, eats at her, takes as much of her in as he can

the same way she takes as much of him as she can

as though in this way they can keep each other past the inevitable leavings, the inescapable separations. He fucks her very much like the way he did on the night of the summer solstice, hard and heavy and savage, only she's on her back now instead of on her knees, facing him instead of folded underneath him with her back to his chest, with his heartbeat shuddering through her skin and surrounding her own pulse.

Danicka throws her head back after he lowers her down again, squirming her hips, bearing down on his cock while rubbing against it, gasping as the grind of flesh against her clit makes her pussy quiver around him. She moans again, again, putting her hands on his chest like she's going to try to push him away. The sweat on his skin makes her hand slip, but she touches him again, whimpers loudly. It sounds like she's about to cry, is nothing of the sort, it sounds like pain, and it's not, because even her voice seems to want to mislead

or maybe because that's just because she's getting close, and because she can't take much more of this, and he's looking into her eyes and seeing her more than the light on her skin or the lingerie she's painted with or the fact that she's well bred or the fact that she's blonde or the fact that she's anything, anything other than his own.

She reaches up and grabs him by the back of the head then, fingers tangled in his hair, and pulls him down to her mouth, kissing him crushingly, fiercely. Her eyes close tightly, her cunt clenches hard, and she repays aggression with aggression, possession with possession, passion with passion, devotion and worship with loyalty and something like blessing.

Všechno.

When she comes, it's suddenly, it feels like it's without warning when that quiver and clench and kiss could have been considered a siren going off. Her cries, as her mouth tears off of his and her head falls back, get harder and sharper and closer together, until they hitch

and there's silence in between the sounds she lets out, her face contorted with pleasure, aching with it. Her body goes rigid under his for a few seconds before it melts, before she warms again, and then she squirms onto him, riding her orgasm out on his cock. The last shriek she lets out quickly turns to panting, gasping pulls for air. Her eyes open again and find his while it rolls through her, pulling at him, holding him, keeping him inside, deep, hot.

"Don't stop," she says, even while it's still wracking her, making her shudder. "Baby, come with me."

[Lukas] As if Lukas could stop, now.

As if there was any way, any possibility, that he might stop, now, with her molten-hot and still shuddering beneath him, with her hands on him and her body around his and --

when she pulled him down like that, he nearly lost his balance. He had to catch himself on his elbows, his chest thumping into hers, his rhythm hitching and then picking up again until he was fucking her just as hard, just as fast, just as relentlessly while they tore at one another's mouths like they were starving for one another's breath. And taste. And presence. And kiss.

When she came like that, when her head fell back and her eyes shut and she went rigid, his mouth was all over her. He kissed her open mouth, her hot cheek, her gasping throat; he roved over her face and her neck and her breasts, laying loose, half-mindless kisses on her while he groaned encouragement, murmured endearments, growled for her to

"Come, baby. That's it. That's it, baby. Come on that cock. Come for me."

while he fucked her right through her orgasm, kept on slamming her and pounding her and fucking her, hard enough to make that shriek she lets loose hitch and stutter.

So, no. Lukas doesn't stop. He raises his head when she opens her eyes. Their eyes lock, all pupil, all black, and she's telling him what she's telling him and

he swoops down to catch that filthy, beautiful mouth of hers, to catch her breath on his tongue, to pour the raw, quiet snarl that leaves him then into her mouth as his arms wrap around her. His hands clutch at her shoulderblade, at her back, at her hip.

"Baby -- " this, torn from the kiss, gasped, "baby, jdu přijít."

His mouth seals to her shoulder. An impression of teeth, and then the hard, merciless grip of them -- he bites into the flesh of her shoulder as he holds her hips down, holds them still, hammers into her harder than she would have been able to handle the last time they met, harder than he would have dared to when this all began.

He doesn't even stop to think about it now. Can't. The last, reckless thrust takes him deep, rocks her hips up and back, opens her to him, sets off some chain reaction in him that has him groaning harshly, helplessly against her shoulder; has him going electrically motionless; has him coming into her, his cock jumping inside her, his hips bucking against hers, wave after wave of uncontrollable shudders slamming down his back.

When it's over he isn't sure where he is, or who. He isn't sure how many pieces he's just fragmented into. He isn't sure how to tell his hands to release their grip, nor his arms to loosen. He isn't sure how he'll survive if he had to part from her right now.

So he doesn't.

Lukas holds on to her. Shivers are still running up and down his back in stutters and waves. It takes him a while to realize it's him panting for breath like that, that the thunder in his ears is his heartbeat, tripping over itself to catch up to itself. He holds on to Danicka, and buries his face against her shoulder, her neck, while he waits for his mind to recoalesce.

[Danicka] Tomorrow night they're going to be stepping out of Lukas's glossy black BMW, the replacement for his totaled MKZ and a more savage cousin of Danicka's totaled convertible, walking up pale stone steps, and entering the home of a family of Silver Fangs that they have both known, in some fashion, for years on end. She first met Katherine when the Philodox was still a teenager, not yet Changed, already hovering over Gabriella. She has almost no familiarity with Rosalie other than treating her as she treated the matron of the Sokolov family: averting her eyes, holding her tongue, watching her back.

They are going to be well-dressed. They are going to be paragons of Lordly behavior. They are going to dine among the descendants of kings and they will fit in despite the earthy comfort that goes along with the very scent of the woman under him now, despite the fact that his family lost everything and regained it only by merit and hard work and the luck of having a son with a suddenly short, brutal lifespan.

Despite the fact that neither of them is nearly so civilized as they are capable of pretending.

The proof of it is in what they do now, biting at each other, tearing at each other, her nails raking down his back and his teeth leaving impressions in her shoulder, his cock filling her cunt and her back arched while she takes it, while he takes her, while they go over the goddamn edge together. They fuck like animals on the carpeting, filthy and sweating and slick from each other, savage. She is not thinking about the possibility of there being a bite mark on her skin still tomorrow night, is not thinking of anything at all when he slams into her, kisses her, comes in her the way he does.

They need this. They need this time together, after arguing on the phone, after time apart, before going amongst those fucking Fangs. Danicka may need this even more than Lukas does. She needs him here, against her, inside her, home with her, more than she can tell him, more than she might ever dare to say aloud for fear that might lead to it being taken away.

Afterward,

after it's over,

Danicka breathes against the curve of his ear, holding him against her body as he burrows against the hollow between her neck and shoulder. She keeps her arms wrapped around his shoulders, cradling him there, her eyes falling closed. She feels him pulsing inside of her still, as he feels her occasionally clutch at him, more and more gently each time. She sighs, after awhile, at some shift of his hips or perhaps merely at the smell of him. She is still and panting for awhile, until she turns her head and nuzzles the side of his face, his rough cheek.

"Miluji tě," she whispers against his earlobe, her breath curling over his jawline. "Miluji tě tak vroucně, Lukáš."

Her hands move then, flutter slightly with effort, fingertips rubbing the back of his neck. "Moje Lukáš."

[Lukas] The still-ragged, rough pull of his breathing changes, shivers into a panting laugh. She can feel his mouth curving against her skin, still pressed so close his teeth press against her shoulder when he smiles like that. And laughs like that. Not because something she said was funny, or amusing, or silly, but because --

"Jsem tak šťastná s tebou. Ty mě tak šťastná."

Which is something she's told him before. The sentiment, anyway. It's not, he realizes in retrospect, something he's ever told her. He supposes he just assumed she would know. That it would be obvious to her, she who could see so deeply into him, in the way his eyes light up when he sees her, in the way he smiles when she appears unexpectedly or even expectedly; in the way he can't help himself sometimes, and has to pick her up, spin her around, kiss her, touch her, assure himself she's there.

That's what he's doing right now. His hands are gripping gently at her, sliding over her. He's rocking gently between her legs, shifting inside her, exhaling a slow sigh at the feel of it, the sudden overwhelming sensations that jolt through overloaded nerve endings.

He stills again. Wraps his arms around her, closer, and settles again. A deep breath, taken, held, released.

He gives it back:

"Miluji tě."

[Danicka] They lay there like that for a long time. The room is cool but pleasantly so; Danicka barely feels it anyway, holding Lukas atop her as she does. The air smells like their dinner, the sauce on the meats and the scent of the wine, but between the two of them such traces are overwhelmed by the smell of each other. Sweat. Love. Fucking.

He laughs and she smiles. He holds her more tightly, and she thinks of what he said when he saw her in mid-April: how he thought at first he could not wait for her to get into his room so he could fuck her against the window, over the desk, on his bed, it didn't matter so long as he could be in her. She thinks of how he said that once he did see her, he realized he'd be happy just to hold her. Just to have her near, just to look over at his bed and see her lying there, reading her book. Or standing at the desk, taking off her earrings.

Just so long as she was with him.

She shifts under him only a couple of times, once to whisper for him to reach under her and unclasp her bra so she can get it completely off. She sighs when he does, but makes no effort to get it off her arms. That would require taking her arms away from his body. So it hangs on her, resting on her chest but no longer bound around her. There's a line across her where the bra dug into her skin while he fucked her; he may not even see it in the dim light. He may not see the bite mark he's left on her shoulder, the remnant of how hard he came.

She strokes his hair, nuzzles his temple, his cheek, murmurs again and again that she loves him, as though in intervening seconds he might forget, as though in intervening seconds she has forgotten that he knows, he must know, that she adores him.

They move together, too: Lukas rocking into her, sighing at the feel of her. Danicka shuddering. Danicka relaxing again, melting to his body, kissing his mouth softly when he relents. Danicka's cunt clutching at him more gently than it did when she came, responding as though answering some physical question.

Ano.

"Baby, we should get cleaned up," she murmurs, perhaps five minutes, perhaps ten minutes, after the sweat has started to cool on their skins. She cradles him still, even though she is -- essentially -- telling him to move. "I want to talk to you about something."

[Lukas] Sometimes they fuck so ruthlessly that it would be hard for an outsider to believe they have anything beyond -- well. Mindblowing sex. It would be hard for a stranger to recognize the thread of recognition, of mutual adoration and regard and claim, that runs through even their most savage couplings. It would be hard to believe that they're capable of this, too.

These moments afterward, gathering themselves again in each other's arms. The way he holds her like he can't bear to let go, and moves gently against and within her, and laughs for joy, and sighs for pleasure.

The way he frowns, too, an unbidden and unstoppable flicker across his brow, when he sees the welt her bra has left because he couldn't take the time to get it off. Lukas runs his fingers gently over the line, then cups her breast beneath it. He kisses her again, gently, as though in apology.

They lie together a little longer, heartbeats slowing, breathing leveling out. He's careful to keep his weight on his forearms, his brow resting against the carpet beside her ear. Seconds unravel to minutes. Satiation overtakes him, shifts into a sort of pleasant exhaustion. He could easily sleep here, like this, curved over her as though to protect her from the sky falling.

"Mm?" It's a sleepy sound when she speaks. A second later he comes fully alert, raising his head to look at her. His eyelids droop, but do not shut, when his mouth wanders over hers again. "O čem, láska?"

[Danicka] The first time -- hell, the first four times -- it was nothing like what they just did to each other. It was as though he was afraid of breaking her, of scaring her off, of being told no or stop again. They moved hard and deliberate together, sweating, gasping at the satisfaction of each other. They writhed like snakes on the stripped motel bed. They fucked, again and again, until she was certain that she wanted to stay, certain that she would not. The last time, she rode him again, her hands on his chest, her body leaning forward until her hair was a curtain on either side of his face, and their kisses had become almost soft. Definitely melting.

Which is like the way they kiss each other now, when Danicka feels his eyes on her chest and his hand on her breast, when he kisses her as gently as he can, as safely as he can. She strokes his hair, damp under her fingertips, and finds herself home as he holds her, resting against the carpet, his body both covering and filling hers. When he lifts his head she laughs, lightly. There's an impression of the carpet in his forehead.

She kisses him there.

And then his mouth, when he goes from sleepy to alert just like an animal, just like he does when there's some noise in the apartment that makes his instincts light up in protection and territorialism. Danicka kisses him slowly, more deeply than his grazing, and sighs softly in contentment.

"Přemýšlím o pobyt zde. A získání zaměstnání na pokrytí nákladů spolubydlící by pokryla."

[Lukas] When she laughs, a diffuse, curious, unformed humor answers in his eyes. He's not sure why she's laughing, but he wants to laugh with her anyway. Then she kisses his brow and he closes his eyes after all, opening them only after their mouths have drifted together, passingly, and then deeper.

When she tells him what she's thinking of, his first reaction, which he does not try to hide and probably couldn't even if he did, is a flicker of something very much like joy. He's happy; of course he is. He thinks of this place as hers, though it's been violated. He thinks of it as hers, and he thinks

I can keep her safe here. I can make her feel safe again here.

Then its passes; his eyes cloud and he frowns. He raises his hand to her face, pushing her hair back from her forehead and her temples.

"Práce, a škola?" He tastes the idea; sounds dubious and, because he is Lukas, faintly worried. "Co bude ty dělat?"

[Danicka] She has so much hair. So long, and so many strands of it. It gets in her eyes, it's loose over the floor, it clings to her temples and cheeks and her clavicles. When Danicka pushes his hair back it's a single lock, a curl here or there, or simply an affectionate gesture. When Lukas reaches over and strokes strand after strand from her face, it is as though he is clearing a path, pulling aside the last threads of a veil. Danicka breathes in as he does so, and shifts under him. Her skin parts from his slightly, peeling away from his where they were once stuck together with sweat.

"Jen částečný úvazek práce," she says, both thoughtfully and to reassure him. Because she is Danicka, and she can see his worry, see his concern that it will all be too much, that maybe she won't be okay.

But she also saw the spark of joy, just as she saw the disappointment he'd had at the idea of her moving out of this apartment. She doesn't know that he is thinking, somewhat irrationally, that he can protect her here any more than he could somewhere else. She doesn't know that he is thinking that he can make this place feel good to her again, or she would tell him he already has. That she would not be so much as considering staying here otherwise.

"Existují pracovních míst na koleji Myslím, že bych mohl udělat," she goes on. Then, laughing: "I've only ever had the one job. My résumé is a paragraph long."

[Lukas] The frown breaks. He laughs with her, quietly but unrestrainedly, the furrow to his brow smoothing away while the corners of his mouth flirt up.

Lukas knows enough about the human world to know that to get into college you had to submit an application; that the application involved personal statement essays and grades and extracurricular work. Sometimes he wonders how her life experiences translated into those grids, those 5000-character limits. He wonders what she wrote in her essay.

I am kin to werewolves. I have seen more horror than you can imagine. I'm stronger in spirit than you'll ever be.

Doubtful, that.

He's serious again, now. And he leans down to kiss her, softly. Afterward he breathes in deeply and, with a quiet huff of a sigh, draws out of her. Draws away from her, sits up on his heels.

"Byl bych šťastný, kdyby jste byl ubytován. Pokud byste mohli zůstat a cítit v bezpečí." He reaches his hand out to her, draws her up with him as he stands. "Ale nemají pobyt pro mě. Zůstaňte, protože ty chcete."

[Danicka] Danicka sighs. Not in contentment or relief, nor in exasperation or impatience. She sighs, quietly, because Lukas laughs when she laughs. Because his delight is sometimes as unbidden and sudden as his rage, and because he is so very warm, and so very near. She sighs because there is a certain agony in this closeness, as though mere mortal shells cannot quite encompass it anymore than a 5000-word essay could explain who Danicka is, or what her life has been.

She wrote to the University of Chicago about her father. His craftsmanship, his attention to detail, his work with immigrants from his home country. She wrote about her sister battling cancer, her multitude of nieces and nephews separated from each other by the Atlantic. She wrote about what she learned as the governess to the lone daughter of a high-society family. She showed them her grades from nearly a decade ago, just above and below the thin lines that would have garnered notice. She said

I was afraid to stand out. It was not that I thought I did not deserve praise or attention. I was afraid of losing something I had control over after my mother's death: the illusion of my own mediocrity.

She wrote about that, too.

My mother died when I was fourteen. She was missing for two weeks before we learned that she had been murdered.

Lukas does not know and probably never will know that as Danicka wrote that sentence so many months ago, she covered her face with her hand and fought tears. Then surrendered to them.

Now he kisses her and moves to pull away, and the threat of separation makes her wrap her legs more tightly around him. Her hands splay over his shoulders, her light arms attempt to hold him to her. "Ne," she whispers, as her brows draw together.

[Lukas] So he doesn't move away. He sinks back down with barely a trace of resistance, pressing between her thighs, holding himself on his elbows over her. And he kisses her neck, because now they're so close together that their heads fit past one another's, against each other's shoulders.

"I'm just taking us to the shower, baby," he murmurs. Kisses her again. "Come with me?"

If she lets him, he'll lift her with him. He's strong enough. She's light enough. She's slender under the best of conditions; the byproduct, perhaps, of a metabolism that was altered years ago at the very beginning of her life. Under the worst of conditions, when she's stressed and she doesn't eat, she's altogether thin.

After that week in May, after those two weeks between when he left her at the W and found her again at the Best Western, her shoulderblades were more prominent than he remembered. Her collarbones seemed so fragile under his lips.

He holds her tighter, protecting her from the past in his mind.

[Danicka] And so she sighs again, this time more warmly, with more satisfaction. She has not answered what he said about staying or not staying here. She does not let him lift her, as though defiantly determined to stay right where she is, with her lover inside her and above her, all his weight held off of her on his arms.

"No," she repeats, and nuzzles the side of his face, scratchy or not. Her voice falls, simply because her lips are closer to his ear. "I'm not ready yet."

And if he relents, staying with her on the living room floor for now next to the remnants of dinner, she relaxes. Her legs and arms loosen but don't leave him, and she touches his face, her hair a tangle under her head and across the carpeting. "You really don't need to tell me not to stay solely for your sake," she tells him.

[Lukas] Of course Lukas relents. There's no real relenting to be done, for that matter. He hasn't even begun to move. He simply doesn't begin to move.

He stays where he is: on the floor, in her living room, in her arms, in her.

By slow degree her limbs relax. So does he. Lukas nuzzles her cheek, the lobe of her ear; her neck. He puts his brow back on the carpet, closing his eyes. He lets himself rest in the cradle of her thighs, her hips; his stomach presses to hers, though the weight of his chest is held away, held up so he doesn't crush her.

City lights cast a smooth shimmering glow on them both. His back is a smooth curve from shoulder to hip, a complex meshwork of bone and muscle.

When she speaks again his head lifts a little. He breathes a little deeper, exhales it. For a moment he thinks about what she said.

"Vím," he murmurs then. He does know that.

[Danicka] Eventually they will have to move. It won't even be that long before he has to pull away from her. They need to shower, and rest, and perhaps spend some time together before tomorrow night's dinner at Bellamonte Manor, surrounded by the Fucking Fangs they both, sometimes, get so tired of. Sooner or later the carpet is going to become too uncomfortable, even Lukas will need to rest his arms, and they both know Paul will come home at some point and perhaps be less than enthused to see his roommate and her boyfriend tangled, naked and messy, in front of the view.

"Then why'd you say it?" she ask quietly, perhaps teasingly.

[Lukas] "Because," he replies with a quiet sort of humor, "I forgot I knew."

Then he raises his head again. And he kisses her, softly and lingeringly. Moments slip by before their mouths part -- his upper lip still touching her lower. He breathes against her skin. He kisses her again, softer still.

[Danicka] "You have a horrible memory," she chides him, before they kiss.

She nudges him with her brow and nose when it's over, a subtle and nonverbal indication of intent. It's less subtle, and it becomes verbal, when she whispers: "Okay."

[Lukas] Lukas kisses her again, a quicker touch of his mouth to hers. "Come on," he returns, a whisper for a whisper.

Then he presses a hand to the carpet, tightening the other around her body as he lifts off the ground. Wrapped around him as she is, Danicka can feel the broad muscles in his back pulling, drawing him upright. He settles her on his lap for a moment, kneeling, and then Lukas wraps both arms around her as he rises to his feet.

Their food is still on the ground, cooling. Their wine too, warming. He looks down at it briefly, then up at her.

"Can we just leave it 'til the morning?" he asks, quiet.

[Danicka] It says something about his strength compared to her size that it is this easy for him to move from a prone position over and inside her to kneeling, to standing, without either of them falling, without either of them getting hurt, without even more than a moment of strain. Not in Danicka's body. Not in the muscles of her back, or her thighs. She barely has to move except to readjust herself on him as he slips out of her, as a roll of her hips and a sigh makes it that much easier for them to make it to her hallway and her bathroom without tumbling to the ground or shifting awkwardly against one another.

She nods against his shoulder, laying her head there and pressing a kiss to the side of his neck. "Leave it," she whispers in agreement, though she knows Paul is neater and less tolerant of messes than Danicka herself or either of her two roommates -- one of whom didn't care because he was a coke addict and one of whom didn't care because she was so intimidated by Danicka, who cannot imagine intimidating anyone who knows Garou.

Paul can handle a makeshift picnic and an empty wine bottle left on the expansive living room carpet. He's moving into a house with a few friends in January. He'll see that -- and their clothes -- and know it's better than walking in on them naked and fucking in front of the windows. Maybe they'll argue later about it. Maybe they won't. Maybe it doesn't fucking matter, right now, what Paul thinks.

Her suite is dark. There's more homework on the desk, but that's farther than they go. Her bathroom is the same as he knows it: dark, clean, silent, and smelling of her, of everything she puts on her skin and in her hair.

She whispers to him as they enter: "Leave the light."

They've done that before. Bathed in the dark together. And Danicka likes the dark.

[Lukas] Lukas is not so thoughtlessly, intimately familiar with the dimensions and proportions of 520 N. Kingsbury, unit 23-C, as Danicka must be by now. He finds his way through the darkened halls and corridors by instinct and memory and sound and scent. He does not rely on touch. His hands stay on Danicka, where they belong, holding her up and holding her loosely against him.

They make their way across the living room, past the plasma TV, into the entry hall and then into the hall to the south suite. He takes his time. He's half-distracted by the woman wrapped around him, her head on his shoulder, her limbs enfolding him. He's more than half-distracted. He stops in the doorway of the bathroom to kiss her neck, and it's then that she says,

Leave the light.

So he does.

It's dark in the bathroom. He swings the door shut, but not latched. He lowers them both carefully to the edge of the tub, carefully so their legs don't bang on the ceramic, and then leans back to twist the tap on. Water blasts, echoing in the tiled confines. He waits until it's warm over his hands, adjusts the temperature, and then seals the tub.

While the water fills, Lukas simply holds Danicka. Who is his girlfriend. Who is his mate. Who is his beloved, the love of his life, and all the other names one might give her and be absolutely accurate.

In the end, only one is necessary. Her own. Danička.

And perhaps one other:

Moje Danička. Moje.

The tub is filling. Lukas leans back and slides in backward, trusting the buoyancy of water to cushion him. The water's warm enough to make him exhale, nearly a gasp. Then he's used to it; he settles, his arms loosening. He leans back against the sloped side of the tub.

[Danicka] It will be something like three or four in the morning before Paul wanders in again. It's possible that he won't even see the picnic and clothing in the living room, in his haste to get his drunk ass or his drunk friend or his drunk conquest to his bedroom down the north hallway. Most likely, if they see him, it won't be until late tomorrow, when he scours the kitchen for cold pizza or enough coffee to make a draft horse fly.

Tomorrow night will be a rush from lazing about in bed or eating delivery on the floor or napping together under the covers to get Danicka's lingerie on, to attach cufflinks to Lukas's jacket that match her necklace and earrings, to button his shirt, to do up her hair, to apply just enough makeup to make her look like she belongs in the dress hanging from the hook at the top of the closet door. He'll have polished shoes to lace, while Danicka calls from the bathroom mirror, asking him to look in the closet and see if he can find a black shawl and when he finds three of them and can't tell which she wants and after a brief and fruitless exchange she'll walk out wearing a strapless bra and panty in silver-colored satin with swirling lavender embroidery

and because her hair is already done she'll gasp not against the wall, even when he picks her up and pulls her legs around him, even when he starts to unzip his trousers, the two of them already struggling not to pant. Neither of them will question whether or not they have the time for this when they should be grabbing her handbag to go downstairs and one of his cuffs is undone still and she hasn't even gotten her dress on. Neither of them will suggest that they stop and finish getting ready so they can get to his car and go to Bellamonte Manor, prompt as all polite guests should be.

And after all that work, his shirt will come undone again, though she won't bother to unhook her lingerie or do more than pull the satin and chiffon on her lower half aside so she can get him inside her again.

After, their skin sheened with sweat and his cock buried inside her, hands all but melded to her hips, she'll lean over and nuzzle his face, smelling of all the thinks that make her hairstyle and the look of her face possible, smelling also, suddenly, of sex and sweat and her mate. She'll leave the faintest mark of pink on his jawline when she kisses him, sighing

That was so good.

(which she'll have to wipe off later, stopped at a red light or noticing it just before they get out of the M3)

to which he will only be able to murmur wordless agreement, eyes closed and palms running up her body, trying to pull her down to rest against him before he remembers

Shit, what time is it?

But for now, Katherine's dinner is hours upon hours away and they are slipping into the hot, hot water of her large, large bathtub, sticky from each other, smelling of an amalgamation of scenes from food to flesh to wine, and Danicka is breathing in as the water engulfs her legs and her thighs and rises up to her ribs, her breasts, from the weight of the two of them descending into the tub. She buries her face against his neck for a moment, then asks:

"Change your mind about the shower?"

[Lukas] Tomorrow will be an exercise in laziness. They'll wake around noon. He'll look at the sunshine in her room, and the rainbows on the carpet, and the woman in bed beside him. They won't make it out of bed until nearly one in the afternoon, and by then they'll be starving.

Lukas will suddenly crave frosted cereal and sausage-bell pepper-tomato-cheddar omelettes, which he'll run downstairs to the corner store for if she doesn't have all the ingredients in her fridge and pantry. He'll make the omelette -- singular, but enormous -- while he crunches on cereal, and afterward, sharing the omelette with Danicka, he'll veg out on her couch, in her living room, sprawled out in the corner while she stretched out lengthwise and puts her feet in his lap.

They'll watch pointless shows and movies from the past decade, licensed out to broadcast TV on weekend afternoons now. At some point he'll get up and put the dishes in the dishwasher. Then he'll stand over her view of the city and look out, hands behind his back, his head turning to follow cars and people with the precision and curiosity of an animal.

He'll spend the day his pajama bottoms, his upper half bare to the watery sunshine of a northern autumn. It's not cold. It's warm behind the glass, in her home. At some point they'll tire of the TV and return to her room. He'll browse his old books, and she'll join him, and they'll end up sprawled around the floor on pillows and covers pulled from the bed, tangling up with one another, lying at odd angles, intersecting one another: his head on her stomach, or her legs over his thighs, or his legs under her head, or her head on his shoulder.

They'll debate which is better: Prydain or Narnia. Ramona Quimby or Henry Huggins. They'll agree fervently that the Harry Potter series doesn't even hold a candle to the books on her shelves. He'll express a vast hatred of Where's Waldo books; he never had the patience. He'll show her his favorite parts, which she'd be able to find anyway by the wear on the pages. They'll end up with books everywhere, bedding everywhere, when the sun begins to approach the western horizon. Lukas is starting to get hungry again. Lukas is considering getting delivery when he remembers --

it's time to get ready.

So then they shower, and he shaves, and they start to dress, and they don't get very far because he can't find the Shawl That Goes With That Dress and she comes to help and ...

That was so good.
Mmm.
...
Shit, what time is it?

Then they'll be scrambling to get out the door, Lukas struggling into his undershirt and then buttoning the buttons of his pressed black shirt; working his cufflinks in and pausing to zip Danicka up; donning his coat and pulling his trousers up while Danicka is reapplying makeup; leaning against the wall to pull his socks on while she's fixing what minor inevitable damage was done to her hair and

even though he's knotting his tie by touch while he's walking out the door, and she's leaving her clogs in his car so she can strap her heels on the car, and he as lipstick on his jawline that she has to wipe away at the redlight, which makes him turn to her, which makes him reach for her suddenly, which makes him nuzzle her face (because kissing her would defeat the purpose of the exercise) for so long that the light turns green and the car behind them honks

they'll still make it to Bellamonte Manor at the stroke of the hour and emerge from the car smooth and polished and beautiful, as well-matched as two pieces off a chessboard.

But now.

Now, they're soaking in the tub, and Lukas is sighing quietly as he relaxes into the warm water, and it's dark, and he's nuzzling against her forehead, her temple, while she buries her face against his neck. The water is up to her breasts. It's up to his chest, within an inch or two of the tub's lip, close enough that water is slipping down the safety drain. And his arms are warm, warm as the water, as they slide around her and secure her against him.

"It's dark," he murmurs, as though this were an answer and a reason. His lips press against her skin. "Patříme sem."

[Danicka] Tomorrow, he'll learn that she thinks Prydain could kick Narnia's ass in a cage match. That she never really got into the Ramona books but read Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books obsessively, and repeatedly. That she also hates Where's Waldo, not because she didn't have the patience but because after one go, she knew where he was in all the pictures and the books were useless to her after that. They bored her. He will learn that she has three different kinds of frosted cereal hidden away in a cupboard alongside two 'healthy' cereals and two 'fruity' cereals and one chocolately cereal and is not even remotely ashamed of this. He already knows she refuses to drink anything thinner than 1% milk but has real cream in her fridge that she puts in her coffee.

When he gets back from the corner store with sausage and a tomato, Danicka will be on him as soon as he's in the door, claiming to have missed him, her arms and legs thrown around his neck and waist, her embrace almost desperate.

Paul will be scarce most of the day. He'll emerge while they're watching television, eyes bloodshot and wanting that cold pizza he knows is in the fridge, which he will take back to his room to continue nursing his hangover. Danicka will keep the volume down, and tuck her feet between the couch and the small of Lukas's back even though she has socks on and her feet don't need warming. She will be the one who suggests that they go back to the bedroom, that she was reading something and wanted to ask him what he thought.

Did Gwydion and Achren have a thing going, yes/no?

They will agree that those two most definitely had a thing going.

Which will make Danicka laugh, and make Lukas put aside a copy of The Book of Three and gently, gently tackle her onto her comforter and pillows on the floor, crawling over her, nuzzling her neck with his rough face and only making her laugh harder, begging him to stop. Before she nuzzles him back, lying back and closing her eyes, their faces touching intimately, softly, until his stomach snarls at him that it is sick and tired of being ignored, omelette or no.

She'll use a handkerchief from her bag to wipe the lipstick from his face in the car, murmuring a quiet apology in Czech just before he pulls her across the divide, leans across the divide towards her, breathes in her scent, nuzzles her

and it's not ticklish.

Nor is it now, with her body wrapped around him, kneeling over him, head on his shoulder, his heartbeat seeming to thud through the water and into her chest. She laughs almost noiselessly, huffing out air, and sighs when he wraps his arms around her. "Ve tmě?" she asks, teasingly, and then in the momentary silence before he can answer, she takes a breath and admits: "Myslím, že budeme dělat."

A second or two later, she sits back, back straightening, and tries to find his eyes in the dark. It's nearly impossible. She thinks she sees a gleam. Her hands go to cup either side of his face. "I'm sorry about how I was on the phone."

[Lukas] "Patříme v vana když je tma," Lukas intones with a solemnity that only Danicka's growing familiarity with him -- and her ability to read him, right from the start -- recognizes as mock. As humor.

Just as she recognizes this as seriousness: "Spolu."

The water laps at her back, at his chest, when she sits back. They stare into the darkness to find some hint of each other. She touches his face and his eyes close. Maybe the gleam goes away.

Lukas turns his face to her wet palm, kissing her slowly, deeply at the center of her hand where stigmata is said to appear. "I'm sorry I forget how you feel about Katherine. It was insensitive of me."

Water sluicing down his back. Water running back into the tub, itself to itself. He sits up too, follows her across the divide, kisses her blindly. He finds her mouth anyway.

"It's okay," he whispers to her.

[Danicka] Again, he makes her laugh. She kisses him quickly, in the dark and missing his mouth at first but they turn their heads and find each other, they find each other as they always do. Her arms slide back around his neck, looser than before, just before she sits back and touches his face and gives him an apology

which he gives back to her.

She does not assure him that it's okay, but accepts his remorse on her palm and on her mouth quietly, kissing him back (again, again) but slower than they did in the living room. Calmer. She nuzzles his nose with her own, drowsily, mellow from wine and food and orgasm and heat, her body relaxed on top of his.

"I'm afraid I may fall asleep in here," she murmurs, but doesn't mean it, and it doesn't stop her from flowing back towards him, bare breasts to bare chest, laying her head on his shoulder just like before, as though drawn there.

Because she belongs there.

[Lukas] Lukas's hand cups water to Danicka's back. Up, and then pouring, and then down. And again. And again -- stroking her back, or washing her, or some amorphous amalgamation of both while they breathe against one another and listen to one another's heartbeats.

Eventually, he kisses her temple softly. "Here," he murmurs, reaching around her for -- soap, a sponge, a brush, something -- "let's wash and go to bed, baby."

[Danicka] His hand finds soap. Good enough. A slim, soft bar that he knows makes a rich lather. One might expect Danicka to use a poof and body wash. He's only ever found bar soap in her shower, bar soap and facial wash, shampoo and conditioner and nothing else. There's not even a razor in this tiled cave they're in, not out in the open at least. She nods against him as he starts to rub the bar between his palms, gathering suds to apply to her skin.

She sits up and takes the bar from him when he hands it over, does the same.

Chances are that were she not so evidently tired, they would not get out of here without water on the floor and impressions of teeth left in lower lips and shoulders. It will be morning before he realizes he marked her out in the living room, biting into her like that when he came, but upon waking -- upon opening her eyes and finding him there, finding him beside her and smiling at him as she stretches, barely able to contain genuine glee at the sight and presence of him -- she will tell him not to worry. It will fade. And if it doesn't, she knows a think or two about hiding things like that.

But she's tired now, and they don't end up with skin slippery and alluring against one another. Well. They do. But Danicka doesn't reach between them and touch his cock, guide him into her, tell him they can sleep later. She does kiss him, eyes closed in the dark and washing him by touch as he washes her, arms tangled and water --

-- well, water gets on the floor after all. Danicka gasps beside his ear after all, shudders when he leans forward to let the bath drain, groans in protest when they turn the showerhead on to rinse the last bits of soapy residue off their skins. She gets on her knees so the water hits his chest and stomach suddenly, as suddenly as her mouth around him, which is not quite fucking him in the bathtub but telling him, certainly, that she is ready to go to bed but not ready to sleep yet.

Even as tired as she is. Even though they have to get up and go to dinner tomorrow night.

[Lukas] It's almost pitchblack in here -- darker than it was in her living room, lit by the city through the unblinded glass. Darker than it will be in her bed, lit by the moon through her curtainless windows. It's dark, and he moves by touch, washes her by touch, touches her, caresses her, loves her.

They don't make it out of the shower so quickly after all. The water is pelting down, and he's skimming the last of the soap from her skin, and she

goes to her knees and takes him in her mouth.

Lukas exhales all in a rush. It's not audible over the cascade of water. For a moment his hand is in her hair, wet on wet. Then he leans back against the tile and his fingers slip and slide on the ceramic and he tips his head back and

just accepts what she gives him for a while. For a few seconds. A few moments.

A few minutes go by. He hardens in her mouth in the space of a few breaths, thickens and lengthens until it becomes a feat, a fucking feat that he remembers very well from the first time she performed it, for her to take him all in. She sucks on him and licks him, fondles him, strokes him, but before he comes his hands are on her shoulders, under her arms, pulling her gently to her feet and turning her around to put her against her shower wall so he can fuck her from behind only

she stops him. Puts her hands on his chest, his biceps, holds him where he is.

Tells him:

Take me to bed.

And he crosses the space between, leaning down to catch her mouth, to kiss her mouth, to kiss her wet mouth under the spray of the shower, tasting himself on her, tasting her, tasting, finally, only the water between them.

That's when he draws back. And reaches around her to turn the shower off. And he's careful stepping out of her large tub, careful not to slip, careful that she doesn't slip. He's holding her hand and their fingers are wet and slick on one another's. The bathroom is full of steam. Her towels feel warm on their skin, wicking away moisture with little effort.

He doesn't spend much time drying himself, or her. His hand finds hers again. They leave their towels somewhere in the short hall between her bathroom and her bed.

--

It's gentle.

--

It's gentle, and slow; gentle when he draws her sheets back and lays her down, slow when he moves over her. Soft when he kisses her, and kisses her, and reaches down to caress her body.

And touch her.

And stroke her.

And part her legs, nuzzling her neck as he murmurs for her to wrap them around him.

He enters her slowly this time, stroke by stroke, gasping quietly in her ear as her body clenches around him; pulls him deeper. She angles her hips. He rocks deeper. Her hands close on his back, at his shoulderblades. He strokes her hair back and opens his mouth to hers, kisses her slowly, drenchingly, while he moves inside her.

They love each other for a long time. Blankets murmur against sheets. Sheets rustle against skin. Skin slides on skin, slow as the tide, steady as the ocean. Breath mingles. Hearts beat. Only near the end, the very end, does his breathing grow ragged; his thrusts picking up. Harder, deeper. A little faster.

He buries his face against her neck when he comes. He doesn't moan, or bite into her flesh. He makes no sound at all, going rigid for an endless instant and then --

falling to pieces, shuddering silently as he gasps against her skin, bucking between her thighs as his hands pull at her back, clench on the sheets.

Eventually his panting resolves into words. Oh god, he's gasping, in one language or another. Oh, fuck.

--

For a long time after, he doesn't move. When he does, it's only to roll onto his side. They're tangled together. He doesn't want to change that. Doesn't want to draw away. Doesn't want to do anything, except close his eyes.

For a while, he nuzzles her shoulder, then her face. He kisses her mouth again, as though he's just now remembering how to, or learning it for the first time.

"Chci zůstat tady s tebou," he murmurs. He doesn't know himself what he means. Tonight. Tomorrow. Forever and ever. If she weren't so tired, if he weren't nearly asleep, if they hadn't made love twice, once so fiercely, once so tenderly, and both times so intensely -- if all of that weren't true, he wouldn't have said it at all.

Lukas barely thinks of it now. He wraps his arms around Danicka, fits her against him and himself against her. Draws a deep breath. Lets it go.

I can keep her warm, he thinks. And this is true.
I can keep her safe here, he thinks. And this is less true.

But he thinks it anyway. And holds her anyway. And kisses the back of her ear, softly.

He adds, "Stýská se mi, když jsme jsou od sebe.

His eyes close again. He doesn't miss her tonight.