we kept our hearts from view, this time we're problem solving

[more_magic]

To say they get back to normal wouldn't be true. There's enough that's changed, that's needed to change, that whatever they'd been before isn't a place they can return to now. Darlington moves his things out of the Bramford and back to their apartment in Dimera, paying the exorbitant repair costs the landlord quoted him for the bedroom door just so he won't have to look at the splintered frame and all it represents. He and Alex talk, sometimes more deeply than he thinks they ever had before, other times about absolutely nothing at all. He still takes Kirby for a run in the morning, and he's still over there for dinner almost every night.

Day by day, over the next few weeks, it starts to feel like something's building out of the ashes.

When they'd first begun, Alex had said it could be like dating, starting fresh in a way they hadn't really taken the chance to do before. So far, it's felt like that; slow, and careful, and a little cautious as they feel out the edges of these new boundaries. Almost normal, when so little in their life--here or at home--had been that way for years.

Darlington brings up the idea, dinner out instead of in, one day when they're just sitting on the couch with Kirby. An actual date, maybe, to mark another step forward in the thing growing between them. He picks one of their favorites, a place downtown that's upscale and intimate, making the reservation for an evening Alex has off of work. That night, he showers and dresses, calling a cab and asking the driver to wait outside the Bramford while he goes to the second floor and knocks on Alex's door.

He still has a key, just as she has one to Dimera, but tonight he wants to do everything right.

Comments

[takecourage]

She settles in against his side, curling up a little and taking a sip of her beer as she closes her eyes.

"Yeah, same. You should have seen the state of the fucking mattress at Ground Zero." She closes her eyes for a moment. "Anyway. What were we talking about before?"

[more_magic]

A chill runs down his spine at the mention of it, this close to everything they've already said and all the things he's already learned about Van Nuys and Hellie and that mattress, but he lets it pass. She's here with him, not there, and that's what matters.

He smiles against the lip of his bottle, the question rekindling a bit of that slow heat from before. "If I remember correctly," he says, "we were discussing my surprisingly long-held preference of letting the women I'm with take the lead. As it were."

[takecourage]

"Oh, yeah," says Alex, playing innocent, like she'd actually forgotten. "Did you... Was that always kind of a thing then?"

[more_magic]

"I suppose it was," he says, looking over at her. "Not that I thought of it as submission, not that I was aware of it in those terms. If anything, I considered it being...considerate. Wanting to make sure whoever I was with didn't feel pushed or obligated to go any further than they chose to go."

He smirks. "You're going to tell me this is just more proof I'm adorable again, aren't you?"

[takecourage]

"Pretty much," she says, grinning. "And it's more than that, anyway. There's a difference between being a considerate fuck and wanting to be treated like shit by a hot girl, Danny."

[more_magic]

"Oh no, Alex," he says, the crass way she puts it only causing it to sound more alluring, somehow. "The treating like shit is all you. The only one who's gone that far, and the only one I'd allow to."

[takecourage]

"That's because you always dated nice girls before you met me," she teases, smirking against the rim of her bottle. "All those Ashleys just didn't know what was good for you."

[more_magic]

"I'm really starting to wonder if you've had some kind of vendetta against an Ashley somewhere in your past," he says, dryly teasing. When she puts her bottle back down, he leans over to kiss her, once more slow and lingering, driven by the way they've picked up the earlier thread of their conversation.

"But you're right," he says. "None of them did."

[takecourage]

Alex smiles into the kiss, shifting a little so that she can rest back against the pillows, one hand coming up to touch his face. She studies his face for a long moment.

"What's your favourite?" she says, finally. "Of anything we've done?"

[more_magic]

"My favorite?" he says, eyes closing when she touches his face and his smile slipping into something more slow and relaxed. "I still have a lot of fond memories of Valentine's Day, you making that fantasy of mine happen. How we started to figure out all the things I was into. The marks you left behind."

He shifts his hips slightly, that low heat getting stronger, just like it used to when they talked like this. "Since we've figured it out...remember that night you demanded I cook you dinner in the nude?" Darlington brushes his fingers against her thigh, watching her face. "And then you wound me up talking about everything you were going to do with me after?"

[takecourage]

"Of course I remember that," she says, biting her lip when his fingers brush against her bare thigh. "I don't know how you managed to make something so ridiculous look so fucking sexy."

[more_magic]

He smirks, even as a shiver rolls down his back when he sees her bite her lip like that.

"I'd say it was practice, same as always, but that was the first time I'd ever done something like that." His fingers repeat their path along her thigh, this time upwards instead of down. "Maybe we call it natural talent."

[takecourage]

"It just suits you," she says, grinning at that, shifting her hips carefully at the maddening brush of her fingers. She doesn't want to push him, faster than he wants to go or away. It just feels good. "Doing what you're told."

[more_magic]

Alex moves, slow and careful enough that it can't really be called a squirm, but with a definite intent. He can't ignore it--nor, he realizes, does he entirely want to. As long as they both keep their boundaries in mind, maybe they can have this for tonight.

"Oh, yes?" he says, as though what she says is news to him. He takes a drink of his beer, spiraling out the tension that's already started to settle. "Is that your favorite, out of everything we've done? Seeing me do as I'm told?"

He almost says serve you instead, holding it back only at the last possible instant.

[takecourage]

"You don't get applause for the bare minimum that I expect, babe," says Alex, grinning up at him, admiring the way muscles shift when he drinks and swallows. "I like...my favourite is when you get really deep down into it so you'd do anything. When I'm the one with all the power."

[more_magic]

Darlington knows exactly what she means, another shiver running through him at the memory of how it feels when he gets to that place. Like Merity, like Halloween, but the influence he's under is not magic, just entirely something of their own making.

"It took a little while to get comfortable with that," he says, watching the way she looks up at him, the full curves of her lips and the dark tendrils of hair starting to come down from the knot at the top of her head. "Giving up all that control, even when I trust you so deeply. But now..." He has to pause and take a breath, aware again of the heady, electric tension in the room. "Now, I always look forward to it. Surrendering like that."

[takecourage]

She feels the shiver go through him, pressed close as he is. When he pauses, her cunt throbs.

"Letting me do whatever I want to you," she says. "Craving it."

[more_magic]

"Exactly."

There's something dark and deep in the inkwell of her eyes, a desire that Darlington thinks might be reflected in his own. They have to be careful; they can't fall too fast again, as they had the last time. He swallows hard, turning away only long enough to set his beer down on the bedside table. When he kisses her, it's slow, and deep, and wanting.

[takecourage]

He kisses her harder, deeper with more intent than before and Alex reminds herself that there's plenty that they can do that's not having sex. She pushes her fingers into his dark hair.

[more_magic]

He groans softly against her mouth, loving the twist of her fingers in his hair the same as he always does. His hand is at her waist, his fingers resting just an inch or so beneath the hem of her shirt; slowly, his touch moves further upwards as they keep kissing.

[takecourage]

Alex shifts, encouraging the push of his hand up under her shirt as they kiss, her legs shifting further apart under the sheets.

[more_magic]

She moves and it's easy to follow her, to lean over her a little bit more as they keep kissing, slotting himself a bit between her spread thighs. The fabric of her shirt gathers around his wrist as his hand moves upwards, his fingers gliding along her side.

"This isn't too far, yet," he says, watching for a moment to make sure the same is true for her. His hand cups her tit, his thumb brushing over her nipple.

[takecourage]

"Green light, babe," she says, arching her back to press her tits into his hand when his fingers brush over her nipple. "Not too far."

[more_magic]

"Good," he says, his breath shuddering a little when she arches into the touch. God, he'd missed her, and this, and everything possible that's yet to follow. He fondles her with a little more assurance, his kisses carrying an edge of hunger as he toys with her nipple.

[takecourage]

Alex curls her free arm around his neck, the other still pushed into his hair as she squirms under him. It reminds her, a little, of that first night in Darrow, when he was still on Merity and she'd let herself get carried away.