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]

"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."

[takecourage]

"Good," she says, smirking a little at that. She shifts, glancing over her shoulder. "Do you want to go first in the shower? You can just throw me a washcloth if you want."

[more_magic]

"I'm not just going to throw you a washcloth," he says with a shake of his head, the look he gives her more fond than chiding when she glances back at him. "But I'll shower first, and take Kirby downstairs while you get cleaned up?"

[takecourage]

"Just so I don't get any on the sheets," she says, grinning at him. "I'll shower afterwards. If you don't want to throw it, you could always come and wipe me down while the water heats up."

[more_magic]

"Now the truth comes out," he says with a laugh. "Just another way of getting me to serve you." He looks at her lying there, disheveled and grinning, and it feels so normal as to be its own kind of extraordinary. Going to the bathroom, he turns on the shower and lets it start to warm up, then dampens a washcloth in the sink before returning to the bedroom.

"Any additional requests, Stern?"

[takecourage]

"Get naked for me?" she asks, raising her eyebrow. "Please? And then you can go and shower in peace."

[more_magic]

"Happily," he says easily--more easily than he might have thought, just last night. Already shirtless, it's no work at all to push his sweatpants down, revealing himself to her entirely. Picking up the washcloth again, he sits at the edge of the bed, gently starting to wipe away the streaks of come along her thighs.

[takecourage]

He strips off and Alex leans her chin on the back of her hand, enjoying the view as he starts to wipe her skin clean.

"We're going to be okay, aren't we?"

[more_magic]

He's focused on the sweep of the cloth against her skin, the quiet ritual of doing this for her--because she'd asked, because he wants to, because it feels like another something normal--but when Alex asks that question, Darlington looks up, meeting her eyes with his. He smiles.

"Yes," he says, simply and honestly. "We're going to be okay."