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

[more_magic]

He keeps up the slow, gentle sweep of his thumb, reassured and encouraged by the quiet noise of her reaction. "The thought of a cold shower did occur," he admits, smiling even though her back's to him and she won't see it. "But didn't hold very much appeal."

Darlington watches the slow rise and fall of her breathing, takes in the slim lines of her side and the sleep-ruffled tangle of her hair, his hand still curved around her tit and his body still pressed close to hers. He knows what he wants, but it takes him a moment to find the words.

"Would you still be willing to get me off?"

[takecourage]

Alex smirks against the pillow and nods, her cheek whispering against soft cotton. She shifts her hips back again, more deliberately, arching her back to press her tit more firmly into his hand.

"What did you have in mind?"

[more_magic]

He groans quietly at the press of her hips, his touch getting firmer and more assured as she presses into his hand. It's as much of an agreement, maybe more so, as the way she'd nodded only a moment before.

"I'm still not...we need more time before we actually have sex," he says, and it sounds no less awkward to him now, in the gentle light of morning. "But maybe, if you wanted to..." Darlington trails off, his soft laugh carrying an edge of exasperation. "Christ, this shouldn't be this hard, I'm sorry."

He closes his eyes, then opens them again. "I was thinking you might give me a handjob?"

[takecourage]

"Hard," she echoes, snorting a laugh against the pillow. The roll of her hips is more rhythmic now, her hand slipping back to grip his hip and squeeze. "Could just do it like this," she says. "Slow and sleepy. Pull things out of the way. Or is it too close to what we're not doing?"

[more_magic]

"You know what I meant, Alex," he says when she laughs, smiling against her skin before he kisses her just behind her ear. It's maybe too easy to start matching the roll of her hips, letting her pull him a little closer with that encouraging squeeze to his hip.

"It's close," he says, shifting his hand to pinch lightly at her nipple through her shirt. "But not close enough to cross a line."

[takecourage]

She moans, softly, when he pinches at her nipple like that. Before she met him, when she only had Len to go on, she never could have imagined liking that rougher touch, but it's all wrapped up in how much she trusts him, and how she knows that he'd never, ever do anything to hurt her.

"You could just pull your shorts down a little," she says, softly, her voice a rough rasp first thing in the morning. "Mine too."

[more_magic]

"I could," he says, the sleepy huskiness of her voice sinking through him just the same as her moan had only a moment earlier. Getting him harder, making him want this, moving them both a little closer to how they'd once been. His hand moves down to the waistband of her shorts, fingers resting along the soft fabric. "Is that what you want?"

[takecourage]

"Yeah, it's what I want," she says, shifting her ass back again. She reaches out blindly for the bedside table. "Do you want the lube? Just to make...you know...Slippery."

[more_magic]

"Please," he says, biting his lip as she shifts away and he realizes precisely how hard he is. He eases her shorts down, then does the same with his sweats, taking the lube once she's found it and slicking his cock. When she pushes close to him again, it's easy to get back to that same slow, rolling rhythm from before.

"I love you," he murmurs, kissing the line of her shoulder where it peeks out from the neck of her t-shirt.

[takecourage]

It's almost, but not quite, the same as fucking. They've had sex in this position before, always first thing in the morning, sleepy and close and warm. She reaches back, her hand on his bare hip, squeezing.

"I love you too."

[more_magic]

They move together, easy and slow, not unlike they have before--but different this time, that last boundary of his still firmly, stupidly in place. He doesn't think about it, or tries not to, focusing instead on how it feels to be close like this again with her.

[takecourage]

His cock slides easily along the cleft of her ass and she rocks her hips back to meet him. "Do you want me to...shall I..." Her hand twists in the hem of her t-shirt, tugging it upwards.

[more_magic]

"Yes," he says, still moving with her as she lifts her shirt. "I want you to take off your shirt." Once it's off, his hand moves to her tits again, fondling, his fingers playing with her nipples as he keeps up the roll of his hips. Everything's smooth and slick, easy, almost effortless.

[takecourage]

He touches her, plays with her, and it's perfect. She moans softly, squirming her hips back, aware of how nearly naked she is, of how much of his bare skin is pressed against hers.

"What else do you want?" she says. "Talk to me."

[more_magic]

He moves against her, touching her, and it's so close to fucking that for a moment he wonders why he's stopped himself, why that boundary's even in place at all. It matters, and he knows it, but right now it seems like the smallest concern in the world.

"Tell me what you want," he murmurs. "When we're both ready again. Tell me how you want it to happen."

[takecourage]

"Like this," she says, covering his hand on her tit with one of hers, squeezing go urge his touch just a little bit rougher. "Only you're inside me, obviously. Or...on my hands and knees. Hard. I want you to fuck me hard enough to remind me that I don't need anyone else every again. Put me back in my place."

[more_magic]

He takes the encouragement in that squeeze of her hand, accepts it, touching her more roughly and moving against her with a little more purpose. "You need that," he says, kissing her shoulder again, sucking up a mark. "To remember you belong to me, as much as I do to you. No one else."

[takecourage]

"I need that," she echoes, grinding her hips back against him, slipping one hand down between her thighs to rub her fingertips over her clit as he rocks against her, as his cock slides against her. She gasps at the sharp pain of his mouth on her shoulder. "I do. I want you to remind me. Fuck, Danny."

[more_magic]

"Then I will," he says, groaning when she starts to touch herself, his fingers rolling her nipple and pinching hard. "Multiple times. All over the apartment, if necessary. Until there's no way you'll forget."

It took work, the last time, for him to manage this kind of firmness; a trust in her that's as deep as the one she had in him. To get back to it now feels like another piece falling into place.

[takecourage]

"Fuck, yes," moans Alex, turning her face into the pillow as she squirms her hips beween the press of his cock against her ass and the rub of her own fingers. The pinch of her nipple is perfect. "Make me remember."

[more_magic]

"I will, Alex," he says, breathing hard, still pressing kisses to the heated flush of her skin, everywhere he can reach positioned like this. They move, and squirm, and it doesn't take long until he's coming, striping her ass and the soft inside of her thighs, his fingers still toying with her nipple and fondling her tits.

"Oh, fuck, Alex."

[takecourage]

He comes and she feels it, hot against her skin, and the slightly rough way that he's fondling her tits is perfect. It only takes another moment or two before she's coming, her face pressed into the pillow.

[more_magic]

She comes, her face turned away, and he stays close until she's finished. They've gone a little further than he thought, more than he expected when he'd knocked on her door the night before, but none of it is something he'd change for anything different.

[takecourage]

After a moment, Alex reaches back and squeezes his hip, bare where he's shoved his sweats down.

"I think we both need a shower," she says, grinning against the pillowcase.

[more_magic]

"I think you're right," he says, smiling lazily when she squeezes his hip. Content, in a way that feels both familiar and entirely new. "Shower, then breakfast?" Darlington laughs, a low, soft sound. "Shockingly, I'm not feeling at all motivated to leave for my morning run."