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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[more_magic]

He undoes the zipper as far as it'll go with her sitting in his lap, his hand slipping beneath the fabric of the dress, splaying against the bare skin of her back. Given the line of the dress, he might have expected to find nothing beneath, but somehow it still takes him by surprise.

He groans again, mouth pressed to her chest, his nails scratching lightly down her spine as her fingers tug at his hair.

[takecourage]

"You can take it off," says Alex, already shrugging her shoulders, shivering at the feeling of his nails scratching lightly over her skin. He'd seen her in her bra before. This is different, obviously, but she realises that she's never cared less about that in her life. She wants to be seen by him.

[more_magic]

Darlington nods, struck wordless again in the face of that permission and the vulnerability it holds. Gently, he peels the top of the dress down, Alex helping it along with those rolls of her shoulders and the graceful way she pulls her arms from the sleeves.

The fabric pools around her waist, a dark eddy of velvet flowing across both of their laps, and the sight of it--and of her--is more beautiful than even Manuscript's hallucination had made it seem.

[takecourage]

Suddenly topless in front of him, Alex finds herself feeling shy in a way that she's almost never felt before. She lightly covers both tits with her hands, biting her lip over a smile.

"That was easy..."

[more_magic]

It's a step beyond anything that's happened between them up to now. They've been in each other's spaces, slept in one another's beds, seen each other fresh from the shower or tousled from sleep, but never this. The closest, maybe, was that first morning in Darrow; his hand roaming lazily across her tits as he came out of sleep, the easy sweep of his thumb against her nipple until she'd pulled away. But even that had been over clothing, and no real comparison to this at all.

When her hands go to cover herself, Darlington pulls back, looking up at her with a brief flicker of concern on his face until he sees the way she smiles, somehow both coy and shy. "Maybe so," he says, running a finger along the curve of her cheek. "But I don't mind it."

[takecourage]

She sees the flicker of concern on his face, even as it melts into a smile. She bends her head, kissing the corner of his mouth, and then she's slipping out of his lap, onto her feet, her hands still cupping her tits as she shimmies her hips until her skirt slips down to pool around her feet. It leaves her standing in front of her in lacy panties and hold ups. If she'd known he'd be seeing what she was wearing underneath, she might have gone with a garter belt instead.

[more_magic]

As Alex gets out of his lap, he's aware of the embarrassing tent at the front of his trousers, that evidence of how caught up he's been. He bites his lip, shifting a little where he's sitting on the bed as he watches the dress fall the rest of the way down, exposing her further.

Those snakes at her hips, heads and forked tongues seeming to peer out from the waistband of her panties, take him a little by surprise--but then, he hadn't seen them, that day at Il Bastone. He hadn't thought to remove anything more than the ones on her arms, to help her start anew and show her a little bit of the wonder still left in the world. For just a moment, he thinks about tracing their undulating curves with the tip of his finger. Instead, he simply looks up, his gaze taking in each part of her, seeing her, until his eyes meet hers again.

"Don't mind this, either," he murmurs, an almost bashful smile on his face. "If you had any doubts."

[takecourage]

"Yeah," she says, her eyes dropping to his lap and then flicking back up to his face. "I can see that."

She could blame this on the champagne, but she's not that drunk and she knows it. After a moment, she squeezes both of her tits and then takes her hand away, one coming to rest on her hip, the other tousling into her dark hair.

[more_magic]

With Alex this undressed, he feels almost off-balance in comparison, his tie only slightly askew and divested of nothing more than his jacket and shoes. He laughs, his cheeks flushing as her eyes flick down and then back up again. "Point taken, Stern."

She drops her hands, exposes herself a little more, and once again it feels like an act of trust. Like the tattoos, the slim silver barbells piercing her nipples are both unexpected and not; another mark of who she'd been, but more easily hidden. There's something almost beautiful about them.

[takecourage]

She could get used to how he looks when he blushes like that. She bends from the waist, her tits swaying forward and kisses him, open mouthed and hungry.

"My turn?"

[more_magic]

Darlington moans into the kiss before he realizes he's doing it, matching every degree of heat Alex pours into it with a hunger of his own. Her tits bounce and sway, and he reaches out to cup one, feeling the metal of the piercing and the hard point of her nipple against his palm. The kiss breaks with a filthy noise, and when she asks her question he swallows hard, just once, before nodding.

"Have at."

[takecourage]

Not moving too much, not wanting to dislodge his hand from her tits, Alex starts with his tie, tugging the knot on his tie loose until she can pull it off altogether. Slowly, she starts to unbutton the crisp white cotton of his shirt.

[more_magic]

The fire that had gotten them to this point has banked itself to more of a slow smolder, but there's an equal kind of pleasure in it, a kind of firmly coiled tension that only serves to turn him on further. He tips his head up easily as Alex undoes his tie, letting out a soft, shivering breath as the silk fabric pulls free of his collar. As he'd done that first morning, his thumb smudges against her nipple, though this time there's not even the thin fabric of her t-shirt in the way.

[takecourage]

Alex's cunt throbs when he teases her nipple with the pad of his thumb and she bites her lip, unfastening his shirt. Eventually, she straightens up. "Stand up for me?" she says. "I need better access." She grins.

[more_magic]

Darlington watches her face as she works, her fingers undoing each button, his shirt opening inch by slow inch beneath her hands. The combination of it all is headier than he truly expected--but so much about the first minutes of this new year already has been.

She straightens up and grins, suitably pleased with herself, and he breathes out another laugh. "As you command," he says, standing up for her with only the faintest groan.

[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."