The Now or Never Kind

I didn’t wake up terribly early the next morning, but I wasn’t the last one up. The coffee machine was already full of water, so I could easily put a little packet in and make myself a cup of tea. Amazing things, these newfangled coffee makers. We would have to get one for the apartment.

So those of us who were awake sat around, drank coffee, and did whatever it was we did in the morning. Jesse ate cereal and spoke French. Beth leaned against his shoulder, drank black coffee, and translated (sometimes). Seth played guitar, because Seth is an addict. Ryan was on his laptop, giving us random information about articles he was reading.

All in all, it was a perfect situation. Whoever lined up this tour was a genius.

“Ten minutes until we get there,” Matt announced, coming back from asking our bus driver Leo.

“Who’s waking up Danny?” Tim asked.

There was a long pause, and when I looked up from the bottom of my mug, I was the only one who didn’t have a finger on the end of his or her nose. I sighed and set my tea aside. “You all suck.” I climbed to my feet and sauntered back into the bunkroom, ruffling up my hair.

Standing next to his bunk, I got an idea and a wicked grin crossed my face. I slowly opened the far side of the curtain and very carefully climbed into his bunk, drawing the curtain closed again after me. Silently I crawled over Danny and, face-to-sleeping face, sat down on top of him.

“Daaanny,” I sang quietly. “Daaaaaaanny!” He grumbled, rubbing his eyes for a few seconds before realising that I was there. I smiled. “Good morning.”

“What…” He returned my smile with a confused, very disorientated look. “What’re you doing here?”

“Well…” I leaned down close, trailing my finger down to wear his t-shirt met the top of his boxers. “I thought you could use a good wake up call.” He grunted, trying to shift under me, and I grinned. “Though if I knew you'd be this happy to see me, I would've gotten here sooner.”

Danny slid his hands up to grab my hips. “It’s so unfair of you to take advantage of me in the morning,” he commented, rubbing his thumbs in circles on my hipbones. “You of all people should know what a guy on tour's like in the morning.”

Instead of grinning, I pouted in what I hoped was a luscious manner. “Well, if I know better about how it’s so unfair,” I murmured, “Maybe I should just… go.” I began to slither off him, pressing my hips down in the process.

His head rolled back, fingers digging into my sides. “Oh, baby,” he groaned softly, “Don’t tease.” I bit my lip a moment before remembering how much that hurt. Lipstick would be a good idea tonight.

“But you like it when I tease,” I whispered against his lips.

“Fuck, I do.” Danny sealed his mouth against mine, and for a few minutes I forgot what I was supposed to be doing and focused more on his tongue in my mouth, his fingers pushing back and tangling in my hair, his rough hands dragging my shirt up.

…Certain other things of his pressing against my stomach.

“Danny?” I said in between kisses down his neck.

“Hmmmm?” he replied, skimming a hand over my bra.

I lightly bit his collarbone, which caused his hand to tighten. Grinning again, I planted a kiss on the bite mark and looked up at him. “We’re at the venue.” With that, I slipped off him, through the curtain, and onto the floor just as the bus stopped. I laughed evilly as I darted into the front lounge, slipping on my shoes and joining the others as they deboarded.

“I thought you were waking up Danielson,” Matt queried, sipping his cardboard to-go cup of coffee.

I dragged a box of t-shirts from the bottom of the bus. “He’s awake,” I confirmed, hoisting it up.

“Where is he?” We started walking towards the building after Sean and Ryan.

I shrugged. “Probably jacking off.” Matt yanked the cup away from his face just in time to spit the contents of his mouth into the air in front of him. I laughed. “What? You do it all the time.”

Early shows meant a few things, I had come to know, both as a musician and an audience member. Generally the audience had a higher percentage of fans under 18; their parents allowed them to stay out until the end before they picked them up. We pushed everything forward: arrival, sound check, doors, the beginning of the first set, the end of the last. With doors at half past five, we walked off stage at half nine, had everything packed up by ten fifteen, and got to the hotel by ten thirty.

And last but not least, there was always a party afterwards.

This wasn’t to say that I rushed through early shows or getting people to leave. I just enjoyed showers. And with the others using the “obscenely early” hour as an excuse to drink—did they really need one? No—I had the room to myself. Which meant that I could shower in peace and not let the show-induced grossness eat through my skin.

So I gathered up all my bath things—my peppermint body wash, my conditioner, my loofah, my comb, and a razor—and traversed to the bathroom, where I turned the water on hot before stripping down. I didn’t normally take hot showers, but my muscles hurt from jumping around so much.

Apparently I went to the Hair Metal School for Rock Acrobatics.

This hotel had nice bathrooms. Spacious for a smaller room, with clean white tiles and relaxed blue-grey wallpaper. There was a large lighted mirror above the sink and counter space. It didn’t have a big bathtub like I’d half-expected it to; just a tiled shower with a seat and a glass door. And, no matter how fancy you get, a toilet is just a toilet in America.

It didn’t take long for the glass door to fog up completely; I was barely through shaving my legs. As I squeezed the bottle of body wash onto the loofah, I heard the door open. I rolled my eyes. “You need to leave, Danny,” I said over the noise of the shower.

“How’d you know it was me?” he asked, laughing.

“Because Didi and Beth would’ve knocked, Jesse, Sean, and Aromi would’ve used their own bathroom, Matt has learned better by now, and all of your band aren’t stupid enough to impede on a girl in the shower.”

Danny whistled. “Your powers of deduction wound me, Ange.”

“Regardless,” I replied, continuing to scrub my skin, “You need to leave.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m in the shower?”

“No fuckin’ duh.” I groaned in annoyance. He wasn’t going to let this go. “That really wasn’t nice earlier,” he informed me after a few minutes. “Giving me false hope this morning.”

“I only pretend to be nice,” I replied, laughing as I shampooed my hair. “In real life, I’m actually a huge bitch.”

Danny clicked his tongue. “Shame, because I’m pretty sure you were into it. I mean, why else would you climb on top of me and grind against me like that?” I paused, swallowing hard. I opened my mouth to protest, I did no such thing!, but he continued onward. “I don’t mind too much though. I got to think about all the terrible things I’d like to do to you.”

Rinsing the shampoo out of my hair, I tried to not tug too hard and to breathe evenly. “What are you doing?” I asked suspiciously.

“Just being honest,” he replied simply. Through the clouded glass, I could see him shrug, leaning against the counter. “My imagination gets the better of me sometimes. Thinking about how hot you were on top of me. Wanting to see just how wet I get you…”

I pressed my lips together as I combed conditioner through my hair. Why was he doing this now? “And I don’t believe your bullshit innocent routine. I’ve heard the shit you say sometimes, and you’ve got to have a mouth that’s just as bad as mine. If not worse.” He paused thoughtfully. “What would I have to do to make you use it?”

Why does he have to make everything sound so good? I asked in desperation, trembling slightly. “If you’re trying to get me to masturbate in front of you, forget it,” I said wryly and with more strength than I thought I could manage. “Because I don’t.”

Danny chuckled warmly, that rich dulcet tone that sent chills up my spine. “No wonder you’re so tense,” he said. “And it’s never too late to start.”

I turned off the shower. “Would you mind leaving now?” I asked, trying to sound politely when I was so incredibly frustrated. “I’d like to get dressed.”

“Well, if you’re getting dressed… No.”

I rolled my head back, licking my lips. Really? He wasn’t even going to give me that simple courtesy? “Well, at least hand me a towel.” I reached my hand over the pane, careful not to press any of my skin against the glass.

He did, thankfully, hand me a scratchy white towel that was long enough to wrap myself in after I dried myself off bit. Securing it tightly around my chest, I didn’t really see a way around this. So I opened the door and stepped out.

Steam billowed out around my legs into the bathroom, and before I caught the courage to look up, I heard Danny fall off the counter. He sat there on the floor, staring with wide eyes and parted lips. I smirked. “Oh come now,” I said condescendingly, “I’m not that great.”

“Uh. You’re a liar or have no idea what you look like,” he argued, almost slipping when he tried to get up. He gave me a half-grin. “I could’a sworn I heard angels singing there for a second.”

I rolled my eyes and clutched the towel to me when he stepped forward, but it was only to take my hand and lead me away from the wet floor. “You might be a romantic, but you’re still the most filthy-minded person I know.”

Danny tilted his head consideringly. “That’s such a great word.” He smiled down at me as I leant against the counter. “Filthy, I mean. It rolls off the tongue nicely. Fillllllttttthhy.” I stared at his tongue pressed to his top teeth and felt my entire body heat. He grinned. “Like filthy thoughts, and filthy words, and the filthy things I want to do to you.” He leaned in and breathed into my ear, “Fucking filthy.”

“Oh god, stop it!” I insisted. The words swam through the air a moment before rattling in my ears. Had I really just moaned that? Shit.

However, he took this as a sign. One hand on my hip, Danny began planting feather-light kisses, starting just under my ear and migrating downwards. I gripped my towel tightly, pressing my eyes shut. He pushed my wet hair away from my neck and twisted it in his fingers. Without thinking, I grabbed his shoulder and tugged him into me… which left me pressed against yet another surface.

Though my arm still pressed against my chest, holding my scant covering around me, Danny and I were flush, his cheek against my damp shoulder as he sucked and nibbled at my throat. I sighed gustily; he was running his hand over my leg again, pressing me further up onto the counter.

I was losing my mind. I shouldn’t have been on a hotel bathroom counter in only a towel with a guy—a fellow musician, a tour mate!—devouring my neck and shoulders. I should have been sleeping, or reading, or writing, or… something other thing that makes me a complete prude. But I couldn’t ignore the tingling sparks running through my limbs.

Nor could I ignore—though I hadn’t been aware of—the fact that Danny had somehow loosed my death-grip on my towel-toga and was inching it down my chest, kissing each new space of skin as it appeared. I shuddered, a hand winding itself in his hair and pulling, and got a hungry grunt and a squeeze of my breast in response.

“We really need to stop doing this in bathrooms,” I breathed, laughing slightly.

Danny chuckled against my skin, peering up at me with stormy blue eyes. Still grinning and keeping eye contact, he flicked his tongue out and licked sensitive skin. I whimpered, head rolling back to the ceiling. He continued kissing, licking, and biting my chest, continuing across my sternum to the other side, all light as air.

His lips felt so good and I wanted them all over me. I wanted him all over me.

I grabbed a fistful of his hair and pulled his head back, immediately latching onto his lips. He made a noise of surprise at my fervor, but went with it nonetheless. As he slid his hand up my bare thigh, I caught his lower lip between my teeth and tugged slightly. Danny groaned and before I could even register what was happening, he was holding my knee aside against the counter and had two fingers inside me, working their way in and out and everywhere.

I moaned loud and gripped his shoulder tightly. “You’ve been holding out on me,” Danny hissed in my ear. Up so far on my toes that it hurt, with only a small section of my foot keeping me grounded, I quivered and bit my lip to keep myself quiet as his thumb circled. “I knew when we met, that look in your eye, I knew you were a dirty slut.”

He rotated his hand, curling his fingers slightly, and I gasped, arching my body into him. “Oh, you like that, don’t you?”

And I did. Nobody had ever talked to me that way. Ryan was pretty vanilla and William, despite his… enthusiasm for me, always seemed to keep in mind that I was fragile in some ways. Danny either didn’t know or didn’t care. He didn’t want to know all my secrets or be my everything; he just saw that I wanted him bad.

“Hey.” I blinked a few times. He was staring at me, kind of confused, and he’d removed his hand from under my towel. “Where’d you go just now?”

I smiled, looping one arm around his neck and trailing my other hand down to the button of his jeans. He shuddered, eyes shutting for a brief moment. “I’m right here,” I replied headily, pulling the tie out of his hair. “Right where you want me.” Danny grinned, eyes flashing again, and I returned his kiss heartily. But after I drew his shirt over his head and left a few marks that wouldn’t be going anywhere for a few days, I pulled away. “One more thing.”

“What?” he asked breathlessly. I’d distracted him from his undertaking of slowly working the towel out of my grip and off my body with a hand down his pants.

I planted a kiss on his neck. “I’m not going to fuck you in a hotel bathroom without a condom.”

“You’re not very adventurous about location, huh?” Danny smirked. “But you’ve got a point.” I nodded in assent and he lightly kissed my lips. “Can I have my shirt back?”

“Nope,” I decided, holding it to my chest and sidestepping past him to saunter into the main room. “I’m keeping it to ensure you come back.”

“Oh, I’m coming back, baby, just you wait.” He walked to the door, pausing half in and half out. “Anything else you’d like me to get?”

I tapped my lips as I sat down on the end of the bed, which had been stripped to the sheets earlier. “Not unless you’ve got a bottle of honey and handcuffs,” I said with a dark, alluring smile.

Danny’s eyes widened and he licked his lips. “Handcuffs?” he repeated.

“Mmmhmmm. I’ve got duct tape but that’s less easy to take off when we’re done.” He looked like he had half a mind to say ‘screw being safe’ and tackle me back onto the bed then and there. I chuckled. “Come on, now. Haven’t got all night.” I winked. “Or maybe I have.”

I smiled to myself and the empty room before looking down at the shirt in my hand; with half a thought I crossed back to the bathroom, hung up the towel to dry, and pulled the shirt over my head. Just long enough. And by that, I mean too short for anything but being taken off. I sat back down on the bed and kicked my feet for a few seconds before grabbing my phone.

You don’t want to come into the room for the next while, I texted to Beth, Aero, and Didi. I didn’t know how long, but I was pretty sure they’d put that together with Danny walking through shirtless covered in bite-marks and get…

Well, they’d get the picture.

Danny slipped back through the door, shut it quietly, and just about had a heart attack. I smiled, leaning back on my hands and crossing my legs at the knee. “Fuck.”

Then I just had to laugh. “That was the idea, yes,” I jibbed, grinning from ear to ear.

“Oh, you think that’s funny, huh?” he challenged, slowly walking towards me. I nodded brightly, and he stopped in front of me. My eyes flicked down to my head’s level and back up to his, lips still curved upwards. He stroked a hand over my head and buried it in the hair at the back of my head. I twitched, like I always did when someone did that. “’Cause I don’t.”

“Well…” I slid my hands up the front of his jeans, watching him shuddering just a touch, and pulled myself up on his belt. Inches from his lips I murmured, “You don’t have much of a sense of humour then, do you?”

Danny attacked my mouth hungrily, probing and exploring with his tongue. My hands worked fast, unfastening his belt and popping open the button of his jeans, while I turned us around so slowly he didn’t notice. That is, until I brought my hands up to his chest and shoved him onto the bed.

I crawled over him, pulling down his jeans as I went, and straddling his lap. “You, sir, are wearing far too many clothes,” I purred.

As he kicked them off, he sat halfway up, grabbing me by the hips and pulling me down harder into him. I bit my lip, holding back a sigh. “You too.” With that, he practically ripped the shirt off my body and flipped me onto the mattress, making me squeak. Immediately Danny pounced again, attacking my skin with teeth and tongue and making all my nerves scream out in elation.

His hand found its way back between my legs and I bit back a cry. “Don’t you fucking hold back on me,” he growled in my ear. “I want to hear every whimper and moan. I’m gonna make you scream.” That alone was enough to send a surge of heat through me.

I got so wrapped up in him touching me that the second he stopped, I was instantly aware of the void. Looking at him kneeling between my knees, I pushed my lower lip into a pout. Danny smirked, his eyes flashing like lightning, and lowered himself to kiss the top of my knee; he ran his hands up and down my legs, adulating every inch of skin, as he trailed kisses down my inner thigh. My breath quickened and my fingers tangled in his loose hair, which spilled over my hips, making me shudder.

Danny lifted his eyes to mine and lowered his head, slowly running his tongue up my slit. I jerked my head back, emitting a moan that they must’ve heard next door even over the music. He pealed my fingers away from his head—I might’ve pulled just a little—and returned to smash his lips against mine, all the while keeping his lower body just far enough away from mine for me to whine into his lips.

When he drew back from my mouth, I wrapped the leg he wasn’t holding around his now-naked body. His breathing was already uneven, and its sweetness across my face just spurred me on. “Oh god, I need you,” I whispered, words slipping out of my mouth like the sweat forming on his skin.

With a groan, he pulled my leg up onto his shoulder and thrust into me; my body arched into his, muscles singing their agreement with my appreciative moan. He moved slowly, torturously, and I chewed my lip, sliding a hand up his chest and onto his neck. “If you don’t go faster, I might have to kill you,” I said breathlessly.

Danny gave a shaky, gravelly laugh and cupped one breast, squeezing slightly and running his thumb over the most sensitive area. I whimpered, head swimming. He continued unhurriedly, though from the way he shook, I could tell he was straining to keep such an agonizing speed. In frustration I pulled him down by the neck, which pinned my leg somewhere over my head, and bit his lower lip. I smiled at his proceeding grunt and shuddered at his emphatic lunge.

My blood pooled towards his touch, the lower half of my body throbbing. I sighed, eyes falling back under heavy lids. “Harder,” I begged in a whisper. Groaning, he was more than happy to comply, picking up speed and strength, and I clutched his arm desperately, breath lining up with every conjunction of our hips.

Soon the noises—growls and grunts—coming from Danny’s throat were growing louder than my own. I pressed two fingers to his parted lips, hushing him condescendingly. His eyes flashed open. After another stifled moan, he drew my fingers into his mouth. I rolled my head back as he nibbled and sucked my fingertips.

As the pressure in my body mounted, my mind slipped away. Supernovas bursting into fiery new stars. Volcanoes exploding molten rock into the air. “Hey.” I opened my eyes, breathing shallow and inconsistent. Danny held onto my cheek, his own motions jerking and erratic. “Look at me. Stay right here.”

His eyes were so blindingly blue, full of want and hunger. My mind blazed into emptiness and I tugged his lips onto mine to stifle the shriek that welled up. Danny’s fingers sharply dug into my hips as white, blue, and green flashed before my eyes.

I gasped for air as he collapsed onto me, quaking. After a long time of simply lying there, both slick with sweat and our hair twisting together, Danny lifted himself off me enough to return my leg to the bed; then he pulled the sheets up around us and held me against his chest.

“Wow,” I managed, brain still fuzzy. He chuckled and planted a kiss on my forehead, stroking my hair. I wrapped my arms around him and buried my face in his shoulder.

It could have been two minutes and it could have been an hour, but after some time, I tilted my head up to look at him. Danny, amazingly, was still awake and smiled inquisitively. “I have some scarves that would do better than duct tape,” I informed him quietly. “In case you’re interested.”

A smirk widened across his lips. “Give me another minute and I’ll take you up on that.”