What are you doing New Year's Eve?

[takecourage]

They step off the tram and walk up to the lodge together and Alex...really hadn't been prepared for how beautiful it all is. She's glad she went with the fancier dress now, velvet, off the shoulder, cut below the knee and paired with spike black heels with straps that wrap around her ankles. She'd have felt underdresssed in anything else.

She blows out a breath and, for a moment, she almost shrinks behind Darlington, trusting him to protect her from the unknown.

"I...don't think I'm going to fit in here," she says.

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[takecourage]

When he stands up, she tugs his shirt out of his pants, easing it back off his shoulders. She's seen him shirtless before, changing for bed, fresh out of the shower, but she's still taken by how beautiful he looks. Once his shirt is on the floor, she leans in, curling her arms around his neck and kissing him, pressing her bare tits against his skin, letting him feel how warm she is, how much she wants him right then.

[more_magic]

There have been times the last week or so when he might have sworn Alex was staring at him: just back from a run and stripping off his t-shirt on the way to the shower; making coffee early in the morning in nothing but his sweats; the odd and easy intimacy of their first night here, as he'd changed into a borrowed shirt and curled up in her bed. He hadn't let himself think about any of them much, but as his dress shirt falls to the floor and he sees that same look in her eye, Darlington regrets not paying better attention.

Alex presses against him again, her arms twisting around his neck, and those regrets fall away as quickly as they'd come. He should have noticed before, but they're here now, and that's the only thing that ought to matter. As they kiss, he holds her just as close, the brush of her tits against his bare chest sending a jolt down his spine and right to his cock.

"Still meeting with your approval?" he murmurs, one hand running lightly down her back.

[takecourage]

"I've never seen anything like you," she says, huffing a laugh against his lips. She kisses him again and then she gently disengages, leaning back, her hands dropping to his belt. She glances up at his face, one dark eyebrow raised. A silent question. Asking for permission.

[more_magic]

"Careful," he says, grinning. "Too many comments like that and I might become more insufferable to you than usual." As she leans back, he loosens his hold on her, giving her whatever space she requires--and as he feels the brush of her fingers along his belt, he bites his lip, riding out a wave of arousal so strong it makes his head spin.

He sees the question in her eyes, and answers it with a nod.

[takecourage]

Deftly, Alex undoes his belt with a snap of leather and, once it's open, she unbuttons his pants and unzips his fly, revealing the black cotton of his underwear and the press of his cock. She bites her lip again and then slips her hand inside his pants, palming him, squeezing gently.

[more_magic]

They've gone so far beyond that initial kiss for good luck, it's like they're in a different territory altogether. Alex's hand slips into his pants and he rocks unthinkingly into the touch, the brush of her palm and the squeeze of her fingers light enough to be little more than a tease.

[takecourage]

He rocks forward against the palm of her hand and Alex squeezes him a little firmer, lets him know that every shift of his hips is totally welcome, that none of this is too much. She leans up to kiss him again and has to fight back at urge to just push her hand inside his underwear and really feel how big he is.

[more_magic]

Alex squeezes him again, just hard enough that it has him groaning as their mouths meet again in another hungry, almost sloppy kiss. For another long few minutes, all he can do is kiss her, one hand going to tangle in her hair as the other slides along the curve of her hip and down to the swell of her ass, the lace of her panties rough beneath his fingers.

"Alex," he says, her name coming out rough with need. "We can...we can keep going. Christ, I want to keep going."

[takecourage]

She nods, her mouth bumping against his, even as she's still fondling him through the cotton of his boxers. "Tell me what you want, Daniel," she says, swallowing hard, nipping at his lips. "You can have it. I want it too. Fuck, I want it."

[more_magic]

He rocks into the touch, the give of his body something almost automatic as he tries just to act and not to think, to let whatever happens happen--even if it's just for tonight.

Alex asks what he wants, and his first impulse is to just say You; simple, direct, and true, if nonspecific. He takes a shaky breath, trying to come up with something a little clearer. "I just want to make you feel good," he says, alternating every few words with a kiss, soft and gentle even as he keeps pushing into the fondling stroke of her hand. "However you want. Or...almost." His blush returns as he smiles against her mouth. "At the risk of seeming either too presumptuous now, or not presumptuous enough then, I didn't...I don't have a condom with me."

[takecourage]

"Shit," says Alex, and she's laughing when she says it. "Neither do I." She shrugs, pushing closer again. "Guess we'll have to think of other things to do. What've got in your repertoire, Darlington?"

[more_magic]

"Repertoire?" he echoes with a roll of his eyes, but even as he does it he's laughing along with Alex, marveling at how simple this all is for such an unanticipated change. He kisses her again. "Quite the way of putting it."

Ever since midnight, there's been this give and take of permission between them, something often unspoken and instinctive that they've both chosen to trust. Darlington continues to do so now, his hand moving to ghost just between her thighs, over the lace of her panties. "I'd be happy just to touch you, Alex," he says. "Or if you want more, and you'll forgive my being crass...I could go down on you, as it's so often put."

Even he can hear the crisp control in his voice when he says that, the ridiculous effort, and he tries to temper it with a grin.

[takecourage]

Alex's ink dark eyes widen for a moment and she has to ride out a wave of arousal stronger than anything she's ever felt just hearing him say it. Her hips press into the light touch against the front of her panties, and she can't help but remember how it had felt when it was her mouth pressed there.

"Yes," she says, the word all but falling out of her. "That. Please."

[more_magic]

The initial startled flash in her eyes is replaced--so, so quickly--with a deeper and more encouraging need, and the sight of it is almost enough to make Darlington's stomach flip. He pulls her in for another slow, deep kiss, his hand moving with a little more assurance between her thighs. He can already feel how wet she is, even through the lace, and he groans.

"Lie down on the bed?" he asks, though for a moment he thinks simply of dropping to his knees as he had on Halloween. If she asked, he almost thinks he would.

[takecourage]

Alex rocks her hips forward against the press of his fingers between her thighs. She groans softly, her eyes wide and dark and fixed on him.

"Would you..." She rides out a pulse between her thighs. "Would you do it on your knees instead?"

It's a recurring fantasy that she's had since the first Halloween.

[more_magic]

It's like she'd seen the thought flicker across his face--and maybe she had. They're bared to one another in nearly every other respect, it almost makes sense. He swallows hard. "Happily." There's more desire poured into the sound of that single word than even he'd expected.

After taking one last, slow kiss, he slips his hand from between her legs and moves back a step. His fly is still open, his trousers rumpled and his belt dangling; his cock aching hard and pushing at the cotton of his boxers, but he leaves it all just as it is for now. His eyes fixed on hers, he goes to his knees, right there on the plush carpet of their hotel room floor.

[takecourage]

She isn't expecting him to be so pliable, so eager, so willing when he's in his right mind. Her head spins.

"Is it bad that I wish you had less clothes on?"

[more_magic]

At first, all he does is laugh, something fond in the shake of his head. "Don't know that I'd call it wrong, precisely."

Still kneeling there, still looking up at her--and how familiar this position feels, how right--he bites his lip, thinking for a moment, then makes his choice. "What do you want me to lose?"

[takecourage]

She thinks about that for a second, still struck by how beautiful he is on his knees, how powerful it makes her feel.

"All of it?"

[more_magic]

Darlington doesn't know if he'd expected that answer or not, but either way the sound of it is enough to send another near-overwhelming wave of arousal through him. The flush in his cheeks is almost a permanent thing, but he can't bring himself to care. The corner of his mouth goes up, and he nods. "All of it, then."

He stands up again, pushing his pants down before taking them off the rest of the way along with his socks, revealing long, pale feet and the defined muscles of his legs. Hooking his fingers in the elastic of his underwear, he pauses, his blue eyes finding Alex's dark ones. He takes a shaky breath and lets it out, then pulls his boxers down and steps out of them.

[takecourage]

Just like that, he strips off, strips naked in front of her and Alex thinks that she might pass out because he's so beautiful. Her eyes dip to his cock of course they do, and she raises both eyebrows.

"Wow."

[more_magic]

Gentleman though he tries to be, Daniel Arlington is still only human. Alex's eyes drop down, then go wide, and his small, wry smile broadens into a grin. "It can't be as bad as all that, Stern."

Laughing, he moves back into a kneeling position there at her feet, his cock bobbing with the motion.

[takecourage]

"It's not bad, and you know it," she says, biting her lip over a grin as he sinks down onto his knees again. She can't quite believe how beautiful he looks like that.

"Should I stay standing, or..."

[more_magic]

"Ah, but I got you to admit that even so," he teases, marveling once more at how easy it is for them both to be like this, laughing and comfortable and unconcerned about the world beyond the door of this very room. Perhaps it's more precious, knowing it may be fleeting--or even that nothing like it happens at all back home for a reason he still doesn't understand. Not that tonight, now, is the time to be thinking of any of it.

Darlington tips his head up, one eyebrow raised. "This is the point at which I admit I've never done this when the woman's standing, isn't it?" He laughs again. "Not to say I'm not up for the challenge if you are."

[takecourage]

"Let's set if we can make it work," she says, hooking her thumbs under the waistband of her panties. "Of it doesn't, we can always try something else."