(no subject)

[takecourage]

She really doesn't know why they bother having two apartments at all, not when they're both much happier when they're in the same one. They cook together, they eat together, they sprawl on one sofa watching movies. They took the time to ward both places, with Bramford being as deeply haunted as it as. Riddled with grays. Alex feels them wash over her the minute she steps into the hallway but, in either of the apartments, she trusts him to keep her safe.

"What are you even doing?" she asks.

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[takecourage]

Her breath shivers at the brush of her lips against the back of her hand. She can't help but imagine what it would feel like brushing against other parts of her body.

"We both want this," she echoes. "I don't know how long I've wanted this."

[more_magic]

That sigh of her breath, the sound of it, is more beautiful than anything he's ever heard--right up until she speaks again. Darlington has the sense that'll keep happening, however long they do this; one breathtaking moment supplanted by the next, and the next, and the next. He wants it all, every minute she chooses to give him and every minute they get to have here.

"What, uh," he says, smiling again at the awkward, ineloquent hesitancy there. "What else do you want?" It sounds like a line, and perhaps from the kind of man she'd known before or the types of boys that had filled the privileged halls of Yale, it would have been. But from Darlington, all it is is another careful, honest question.

[takecourage]

Alex thinks about that for a moment, really gives it the thought that it deserves, her thumb stroking gently against the side of his neck.

"What we started that Halloween?" She says, flushing a bit at the thought. "That night at Manuscript."

[more_magic]

Her blush brings on a resurgence of his own. "I remember." In the guilt and confusion that had followed, his sense of a boundary crossed and the sudden shock of finding himself someplace else entirely, he'd tried to push it all aside. Not to forget, because he doesn't think he ever could, but to keep it back.

Manuscript had taken that desire, warped it and toyed with it for their own perverse entertainment, but they hadn't created it. It had been there already, whether he'd chosen to acknowledge it or not.

"That night was...I wanted you to choose me," he says, admits to. He can feel every sweep of her thumb, the slow trace of it against his skin. He's not as instantly hard as he was that night, but oh, he's getting there. "To be yours, to...it wasn't the mist. Or not entirely. It was just me."

[takecourage]

Nobody's ever said anything like that to her before and Alex can't tell if it's the wine or him that's making her dizzy. She can full his pulse thumping against the brush of her thumb.

"I just didn't want you to be humiliated," she says. "But I did almost wish you'd fucked me that night."

He'll probably scold her for vulgarity, but that's the truth.

[more_magic]

"Language, Stern," he says, his disapproval only a brief murmur. Vulgarity, like declarations of love, he thinks, and somehow he hadn't ever imagined they might be one and the same.

Or could be, in time.

"The circumstances weren't ideal," he says, an understatement if he's ever heard one. "And I wouldn't have wanted to, when I wasn't...when it wasn't a clearheaded choice." He's not clearheaded now either, the rush of the wine still present in his system, but this time it's in a way he's decided on. He's okay with that.

[takecourage]

"I know that," she says, still storming the side of his neck. "But that didn't stop me wanting it, Darlington. I wanted it then." She swallows. "I...want to now. All of it."

[more_magic]

"Alex," he says, her name for a moment the only word that matters. His head spins, his breath shivering out of him at the thought of all that could have been, and all that will be now. "So do I."

Such small words, really, to hold all that meaning.

[takecourage]

A grin, completely unguarded, spreads across her face and she leans in and kisses him, deeper and hungrier than before.

"Where do you want to start?"

[more_magic]

Even if he could have stopped the low moan that rises from his throat as she kisses him like that, he wouldn't have. His hand goes to her side, fingers resting against the fabric of that tank top she's wearing, as he kisses her back with an answering amount of heat.

"I'll start wherever you want," he says when they finally separate, his breath already coming faster than it had before. "But this is a decent beginning." Acting on instinct, he pulls her forward slightly, a little more into his lap as they sit there.

[takecourage]

She shifts into his lap easily, straddling his thighs so that she can look down at him, her dark hair tousled on one side of her face. She combs her fingers through his hair, tousling it back from his face.

"Danny Arlington," she says, grinning, delighted. "I never would have guessed you'd kiss like that."

[more_magic]

"And I never would have guessed you'd find out I could." She's beautiful above him just like this, just like she'd been when he was on his knees before her, half a world away now. When her fingers push into his hair, he follows the motion easily, readily, his head tilting up towards her.

Still following that instinct, he moves that hand at her side to just beneath her tank top, his palm resting warm against the small of her back.

[takecourage]

Her hand on her bare skin feels amazing and Alex squirms just a little bit, her fingers still tousled in his hair. She pulls just a little.

"Have you imagined it?" She asks. "With me?"

[more_magic]

She squirms and pulls his hair, and the combination of the two goes straight to his cock. If he wasn't so caught up, if he didn't already want this as much as she does, he might have been embarrassed.

"Yeah, I did," he admits, the bare honesty of it tumbling freely out of him. "When I was still coming down from whatever Manuscript did to me, but then...after that too." He expects her to tease him about that, to laugh and comment about being your fucking wet dream, Darlington?, but he'll take it. He won't even mind it, much.

[takecourage]

She can feel how turned on he is, the press of his hard cock between her thighs, through her sweats, and it's perfect. She shifts her hips again and leans forward, putting her mouth close to his ear.

"Tell me about it? How you imagined it?"

[more_magic]

There's no mockery after all, just the rock of her hips and the sound of her voice in his ear as she presses close to him. His head spins, and it's glorious.

"You on top, usually. In bed here, or back home. Once or twice, I thought about the day of the rainstorm, what it might have been like, in...in front of the fire." It's primal, admitting to it; vulgar in a way he never is, but she's asked and he'd never deny her the things she requests. "Thought about kneeling for you, like I did on Halloween." He does manage a smile, a wry tilt of one corner of his mouth. "Absent the drugs and the nosebleed, of course."

[takecourage]

She shivers at the thought of it, her body pressed against his, her breath still in his ear.

"And what are you going to do for me once you're on your knees, Danny?"

[more_magic]

They're so close, he can feel the shiver as it runs through her. He moves his hand a little further up Alex's back, the fabric of her tank top starting to gather at his wrist.

"Whatever you want, but when I thought about it..." He pauses, his mouth gone dry for a moment. "Lifting up your skirt. Taking down your panties. Fitting...fitting my head between your legs."

[takecourage]

It's not quite talking dirty, not yet, but it's so close that Alex can almost taste it. She shifts her hips, pressing one hand between them so that she can palm the hard line of his cock, squeezing just a little.

"Fuck, Danny," she breathes. "Tell me what you'll do once you're there."

[more_magic]

He groans, his hips jumping when she squeezes him like that. For a minute, he imagines how much better it would feel without the barrier of his sweatpants in the way.

"Put my mouth on you," he says, the wine and his own need making him more direct than he thinks he might have been otherwise. "Kissing your thighs, using my hand to...spread you, so I can go down on you, find out how you like that. If you like that, if you want it."

[takecourage]

"God, I like that," she says, her hips rocking forward like she's riding him, her hand restored trapped between them. "God, I want that."

[more_magic]

Absurdly, he's glad he took the time to strengthen the wards at the start of the evening; the desire here likely to bring a crowd of spectators neither of them want and only one of them can see. Alex rocks against him, the motion of her hips prompting her hand to move as well, and it's so easy to envision what it might be like when neither of them are as dressed as they are now.

God, he wants that.

"Then I'll do it," he promises, his voice gone rough with need. "Whenever you want."

[takecourage]

She takes another kiss, squeezing his cock again, feeling it hard and hot through the fabric of his sweatpants.

"Fuck. Darlington. Danny. Take me to bed. Please."

[more_magic]

This is not how he expected this night to go, but now that it's here he can't imagine wanting anything different. His cock twitches in her grasp, and for a minute he has to concentrate hard on not simply coming in his pants.

"Yes," he breathes, knowing it to be the only response he'd ever want to give.

[takecourage]

She all but scrambles out his lap, her eyes drawn, for a moment, to the obscene way that his cock tents his sweats and then she holds out both her hands to him.

Whatever they're doing here, they're doing it together.