Song: Throb, by Janet Jackson (Miss Jackson, if you're nasty.)
Apparently the inspiration/theme of this story is dirty songs that end in audible climax. You're welcome.
She's tucked into his shoulder as they come in from the terrace, face turned away and unnoticing when Jeremy approaches them through the thinning crowd. Mindy begins to jerk apart, startled, and Danny keeps his arm cinched firmly around her.
"Is she alright?" he asks, addressing Danny.
"Uhh," with her ear pressed to him she can feel the syllable rumbling. She would says something to help out, an improbable lie never too far from her tongue, if Mindy wasn't already concentrating all of her effort to bite back a smile.
"Her face is flushed. Mindy? Is she sweating? Are you alright?" Jeremy gently touches her shoulder and her hand flies over her mouth, fingers muffling her laugh into something that sounds guttural and unpleasant.
"I think it was the shellfish," Danny supplies finally. "I told her not to trust lobster in a land-locked state. I'm gonna get her upstairs."
"I'll help you."
"No!" Danny cries. She cuts her eyes to see Jeremy, face tinged pink from drink and expression impertinent. "I mean. You're still having fun. And there's that lady you were talking to, what's her name. I was gonna head upstairs anyway. You stay."
"Thanks, mate." He's smiles amiably and gives her a pat, Jeremy always such a happy drunk, before gliding away without a backward glace.
Mindy waits until she can't distinguish him in the group on the other side of the ballroom before letting the laugh tumble out, her nose nudging the side of Danny's neck as she shakes with the kind of hysterical giggles that only come when you're trying to be quiet. He groans when she does, and she really should be more mindful of his . . situation.
He's pushing her toward the elevators, hands hot on her waist through her shirt, when Danny stops abruptly by the end of the long, walnut bar. Mindy staggers back a step, losing the momentum.
"What are you doing?"
"Shh," Danny ducks though a door marked private and returns to view immediately through an opening on the other side of the bar.
"Danny," she calls in her best stage whisper and he grins. The woman dressed in a tux tending bar is on the farthest end from them, customers four deep around her, and doesn't even notice Danny's presence. All told he's back there no more than 20 seconds, just long enough to snag a bottle of something and shove a wad of money in an already full hurricane glass for tips.
He pulls her into the elevator and Danny's mouth is hotly trailing across her clavicle before the doors have closed. There's polished brass inlaid in the dark wood paneling and she watches him, distorted, on three different sides. It's nearly too much, having him touch her already building her up even without watching him do it in panorama.
Mindy squeezes her eyes tight, tilting her head away to avoid looking and by extension to keep the desire to hit the emergency stop button and have him finish what he started where she can best enjoy the view. Maybe there's been enough messing around in public tonight without them fucking in an elevator. Shit, are there cameras in here? Her eyes open sluggishly and roam, trying to focus. It's a relic, and she doesn't spy anything that looks like a lens.
The prism of light shining from the tiny, antique crystal light fixture seems to get brighter when he pops the single pearl button keeping the back of her blouse fastened at her neck, his breath tickling hot on the super sensitive spot behind her ear. And how does he already know to focus there? She moans when he touches the tip of his tongue to her skin, and maybe that's how.
The doors slowly rattle open to their floor and she's relieved to find it deserted, her legs wobbling as they step from the car. For his part Danny doesn't look all that collected either. In the comparatively harsh lighting of the hallway Mindy can see clearly the way his eyes are hooded, his lips swollen to the point of indecency, smudges of her lipstick making him look like he's breaking out in precisely shaped hives.
He stops at his door, juggling the round, narrow bottle under his arm where he can reach for his room card without having the let go of her hand.
"Let's go to my room instead. I can freshen up."
Danny looks down her body quickly, seeing the way he doesn't try to hide the glint in his eye that is full of intentions making her swallow. "I've got condoms."
"Your room is good."
He's smirking as he turns and a second later the door is open and his hands are on her, the bottle hitting the carpet with a thump. Mindy can feel his sweater brush her face as he lifts it over his head and the back of her knees hit the mattress and she falls onto it a little breathlessly. Danny finds her in the pitch dark and jerks at the thick synthetic material of her leggings, her panties with them, the way they pull a little damply from her thighs making her shudder. Cool air bathes her skin and sends goosebumps scattering, and she misses him when Danny lets go of her ankle.
Mindy can hear him shuffle against the carpet, the sound of him toeing off his shoes and socks somehow more noticeable in the dark room. With her eyes starting to adjust she can see his silhouette, dark moving against dark, until he snaps on the tea lamp on the table and she has to shield her eyes from the suddenly too-bright change.
"What are you doing?" she asks.
"I want to see you."
Mindy wiggles straighter on the bed, trying to suck in her hips which is technically impossible but may still help with the angle, and props on one elbow to be able to rake her fingers through her hair.
"Stop. Don't do that," he growls at her. And it sounds sexy yes, but also a little bit genuinely pissed too, and it makes her feel oddly defensive.
"What? I told you I wanted to freshen up."
"Not that. You know what I mean. Primping."
She shrugs a little halfheartedly, as if the mere suggestion is enough to undo a lifetime's worth of any womans' ingrained insecurities.
"Fine. Just - you wouldn't feel that way if you could see what I'm looking at. So. . Stop it." He walks the single step to where he dropped the bottle, Mindy unsure where to look: at where his pants are pulled to what has to be a painful level of tautness, or at the way his bare torso looks as the muscles and tendons shift under his skin in the soft light every time he moves. Glancing down briefly at the label, he unscrews the cap and takes a drink, then licks his lips in a way that makes her care a lot less about if her hair is tangled. "Do you know you smell like almonds?"
"Huh?" Mindy feels foggy, but even so it doesn't seem like he's making any sense.
"I don't know what it is. Your lotion maybe. Or the kind of conditioner you use. You smell like almonds. Or maybe it's you. And I wonder if you taste like almonds, too." He threads the cap on the bottle before handing it to her, distracting her for only the briefest moment from realizing he has knelt in front of her.
"Danny?" Her breath is trapped in her lungs like a cage.
"Yeah?" He presses his smile to just above her left knee and it makes her shiver. It's embarrassing how close she already is to losing control again and he's still there with his pants tight. Never would she have pegged him as being quite so patient.
"Wouldn't you rather..." Mindy's words trail off as he places a row of achingly tender kisses up the inside of her leg.
"Rather what?" He's messing with her, she can feel it on his lips, but the way his breath coats her thigh causes her to lose any argument against it. Danny inches the fabric of the top she's still wearing up her stomach, giving a swath of bare skin from her bellybutton down, and pushes on her calf to spread her legs further apart.
His nose nudges the sensitive skin at the very top of her inner thigh and Mindy moans, not meaning to. Danny inhales sharply and then his tongue is on her, deftly parting her before flattening, flicking. Her toes curl and back hits the mattress, her arm too shaky to support her. But lying down all she can see is the ceiling or the inside of her eyelids, and that really won't do.
Mindy pushes back up, this time on the other arm, and threads her fingers in his thick black hair. It isn't even so much to spur or guide him, just the overwhelming need to be touching him making her reach out. For it she gets a hum that vibrates all the way into her bones and the addition of his teeth.
She sucks in a breath and the muscles in her legs are starting to tighten and quake. It is such a close thing, but it isn't happening, not this way. It's too playful, just his tongue and the pull of his lips able to build her up but, a mere twenty minutes after a pretty fucking spectacular orgasm, not enough to bring it a second time. Somehow Mindy thinks he knows this and it is purposeful in it.
Tugging on the tight grip of hair she has, he lifts away from her, the absence immediately making her stomach tight in disappointment. Enough now. She wants him. So she says the only provocative think she can think of, "Were you right? Do I taste like almonds?"
Danny's eyes darken, his mouth twitching, before raising up and countering with a smirk. "You tell me."
Arms braced wide on either side of her, he slants his mouth over hers, tongue just as skilled parting these lips as the others. Mindy can count on one hand how many men have gone down on her, and never in all of those times had they kissed her after, not like this. And, holy shit, she does; she tastes it. Almonds.
Mindy must gasp when she realizes it, because he pulls away with a chuckle. "How is that possible? And what are you laughing at?"
He kisses her chin and nods to the bottle on the bed next to them. "It's the amaretto." Oh. She feels a little like an idiot for not already putting that together. "You're just as sweet, though."
Danny kisses up her jaw to her cheek, and he can't just say things like that and sound like he means it. "Take off your pants."
He pulls away slightly to look at her, and there's no time for this messing around anymore. "Take off your fucking pants, Danny."
The button's undone and fly down before he's done scurrying off her, tripping over the pant-legs and stepping out of them on the way to his luggage. Riffling around he finds the pack of condoms and is naked save for latex and seated between her legs in under a minute.
"Take this off." He pulls at her shirt, trying and failing to help. It takes a moment of maneuvering to get it from where she's halfway lying on it to get it over her head, the jostling bumping their poised bodies together enough to make Mindy's eyes flutter closed. He tries, bless him, to unhook her bra before she shoves his hand away and does it herself.
For a very long time, to the point she is beginning to get nervous, he does nothing but stare at her.
"Danny?" His name snaps him out of it, eyes flying to hers like he just remembered she's the one he's doing this with, before burying his face in her neck. With tiny gasps and grunts he devours every inch of skin his mouth can reach; her collarbone, the thin skin over her sternum, her breasts, all the while his hands are racing roughly over her.
This is information worth saving for later: once Danny Castellano reaches the end of his tethered self-control, the cable snaps. Mindy hooks an ankle around the back of his knee and rolls her hips into him, trying to focus his attention.
It works, his hand coming down to guide. He's concentrating, lips parted and the crease between his eyebrows folded deep, as he sinks, slowly, into her.
Mindy's clenching around him, not meaning to but unable to stop, and he moves his hand away, pressing it onto the mattress again for support. The muscles in his arms are quivering and he's stopped, halfway inside her, his eyes downcast.
She gives him a moment, and only one, before wrapping her hands around his back and pulling, his name falling off her lips. In a solid stroke he buries himself, the contact of hipbone to pelvis enough to knock the air from her lungs.
"Mindy, shit," he gasps, forehead pressed to her cheek. Hearing him so desperately call her name makes tears stupidly spring to her eyes, and if he notices she'll blame it on the way he's pulling out just far enough to slam back into her with exquisite force.
Wanting him deeper, she pulls her knees up as far as she can, Danny palming a kneecap frantically. It stretches her leg almost too far, nearly hurting, and despite the way it pushes him even further, she takes his hand away, lacing their fingers together. Mindy didn't mean it as a romantic gesture, but he clasps their hands, palms kissing, and leans into her, his other hand burying in her hair as he shifts more fully over her.
The angle isn't quite as good this way, but it is better. Intense. They're nose to nose, sharing the same jagged breaths, Danny's eyes locked on hers and thumb stroking the edge of her cheekbone.
He watches her closely as she comes, his nostrils flared and eyes flashing every time she moans. Somehow he's still holding on, the constant, steady drive of him prolonging her orgasm exponentially.
She's catching her breath, or trying to, when he kisses her, soft and sloppy and filled with something that feels like much, much more than just lust. Scratching her blunted nails up his back, she plants her feet and uses the leverage to meet him thrust for thrust, her body still clutching at him, drawing him deep.
"Min- fuck." She smiles against his mouth. "Fuck. Uhhh."
Mindy kisses the corner of his mouth, his body rocking beautifully and inelegantly with tremors of release. She kisses his jaw, the underside of his chin, his Adam's apple, stopping only when her lips brush against his carotid artery. Life is pulsing hot and fluid there, and she parts her lips, tasting him.
Danny's skin doesn't taste of almonds. It tastes of salt and sweat and of him. And it's entirely possible she'll never taste enough of him to be satisfied.
The phone blares into the room, Danny searching blindly for it, nearly knocking it off the nightstand in an attempt to silence the alarm clock. It isn't the alarm though.
"Hey," he answers, voice sounding much rougher than he feels.
"Where are you? You've already missed the first speaker." Jeremy sounds slightly too perky to have drunk as much as he did the night before.
Danny raises up a little to find the clock on the room's telephone, the luminous green numbers shining brightly with the drapes pulled. It's after 9:30. "Ugh, I'm sorry. I must have missed my wake-up call. I can be down in a few minutes."
Mindy stirs next to him, the way her body brushes his a wonderful reminder of how absolutely naked she is under the sheet.
"Have you talked to Mindy this morning?"
He cuts his eyes down to where she's scattering kisses along his chest, her hair tickling under his arm. Technically it isn't a lie when he says, "No."
Jeremy sighs into the phone and Danny feels a little like a heel for leaving him in the lurch this way. Then Mindy slides her hand down his bare stomach then lower and he forgets completely why he should care that Jeremy had to sit through a stupid presentation by himself.
"You think you'll be down before the next one starts in fifteen minutes? Shall I save you a seat?"
"Uhhh," Danny swallows hard, his tongue feeling like it's made of cotton. He could be done in fifteen minutes, but. . . Mindy's gradually applying more pressure and a groan makes it all the way up his throat before he quashes it with a strangled sound.
"Are you okay? Oh God, did you have the lobster, too?"
"No. I -" Mindy's working him in a way that's already making his stomach tight, her long and fluid strokes making the white sheet pop up and down rhythmically in front of him. Danny clenches his jaw hard and averts his eyes. "Think. Maybe it's a virus. Or something. I'm super sick."
Suddenly Mindy's hand is off him and he holds the phone away from them as far as his arm will extend. "I'm lying. I didn't mean stop," he whispers frantically.
She rolls her eyes and goes back to pushing the sheet off him, scooting down.
Jeremy's saying something completely unintelligible when he brings the phone back to his ear and tries to think of whatever he can say that will end this call the fastest. And it's not too bad, the words, "I gotta go. I think I'm going to-" falling from his mouth the same moment Mindy takes him in hers, completely changing the ending he had devised in his head.
Somehow he finds the red button to disconnect the call, Jeremy already way too present for what's happening here. In an effort to pitch the phone on the nightstand he overdoes it, smacking the wall hard instead. The cell phone shatters about three minutes before Danny does.
Notes:
As previously noted, this story is for my lovely Mona. 3
With thanks to PhunkyBrewster for the speedy, 7am beta! x