Page 9 of Desiderium
I smirk back in his direction. “I never said that…”
His smile instantly returns as he holds out his fist to Aly and Cole. “Fuck yes! It’s like a treasure hunt!” Aly fist bumps him before he turns back to me, smiling ear to ear. “Do I still need to hump something to activate a door?”
I do a double take, caught off-guard, once again, by his absurdity. “What in the absolute fuck? No, man. But you could always try humping Aly to activateherback door if you wanted.” I look to Aly, along with Hawk and Cole, and see her face flush like a tomato. She sucks her lower lip into her mouth as her eyes dart everywhere but never landing on us; her restrained smile subconsciously telling us that she wouldn’t be opposed to it.
“Oh, they’ve got it all wrong, don’t they, gorgeous?” Cole pulls Aly close, running his hand up and down her back. “No. You activate like a keypad—with a sequence of buttons pressed just… so… precisely?” He whispers the last bit into her ear, just loud enough for us all to hear as he simultaneously strokes a single finger down her spine, making her back arch like a cat and noticeably shiver in response.
A second later, Aly gathers herself enough to speak, albeit breathlessly. “I don’t know. Both sound like they could be equally effective. But if we really want to get down to it, with respect to all of your dirty talk, I think I’d say that I’m voice activated…." She turns away, flipping her hair behind her as she walks ahead of us with a little extra pep in her step and an exaggerated sway to her hips.
“Fuck…,” Hawk rasps out.
The three of us are left in the middle of the road staring at her voluptuous ass as she continues on as if nothing happened. We may be stunned but at least we’re still able to stop the drool from falling from our lips. Well, almost. I look over to Hawk and see him not so subtly wipe his mouth with an impressed grin.
Yeah… this is going to be a fun trip.
Chapter Six
Aly
We should have taken the boat…
Taking the boat would have probably been easier…Mucheasier.
When I asked Jax why we were walking the entire way andnotusing the boat, he simply said, “It’s been out all winter, uncovered, at a rickety dock and with little to no gas. We can’t guarantee it’s even there anymore let alone if it would get us all the way back to the estate without any issue. This is just the safer, more reliable route.”
Yeah, no. My legs don’t seem so reliable right now. And if I have to walk all the way to New Bern? I repeat, yeah, no… fuck that.
Just the thought of New Bern and Tryon Palace is enough to bring up old memories of when I used to live down here. The majority of my life was spent in New York, but for a few short months, North Carolina was my home. It wasn’t long but the time I spent here mattered… at least to me.
Nine Years Ago…
“At your next exit, take a right.”
It’s our first road trip outside of New York and I’m both thrilled and terrified. My boyfriend, Darius, just signed his life away to join the Marine Corps and will be leaving at some point in the near future to go to boot camp.
I wasn’t happy in the least at the news. No one wants to wake up and hear that the person they love is leaving them. Voluntarily, to boot. It didn’t matter how secure I felt in our relationship. Hearing those words? It shook my confidence to the core. To reassure me and to make up for his cheating on me with his whore of a mistress—the government—he decided to take me on a trip down to where we hope he might be stationed. Instead of confronting the beast head on and checking out Jacksonville, the town the base is located, we decided to vacation to the nearby sites. I’d always heard that Tryon Palace was beautiful, and if we were ever in the area, and able to make a pitstop to go see it, we should. So that’s what we’re doing.
“Here we go.” He takes a second to check the GPS before saying, “Ok, I think the entrance is just across thestreet.”
We park the car and exit, crossing the road and entering some sort of gift shop. Little trinkets, shirts, and hats that mean nothing to me right now surround us as we wander through the building. After a few minutes, we finally enter a court yard and there it is—Tryon Palace.
“Wow, this place is so… little. Where’s the palace?” I turn my questionable gaze on my boyfriend, hoping he knows where they hid the actual palace.
“This is it, mi alma. In the seventeen hundreds this place would be considered huge. Still is huge, if you ask me.” Darius pulls out the map he picked up from the gift shop and unfolds it. He brushes his fingers across the picture, showing me a few key areas. “See, there are tons of gardens and it links up with the river back this way.”
I take a second to review the map, but then step back to look around skeptically, crossing my arms across my chest. “Isn’t a palace supposed to be like a castle? Boldt Castle back home is three times the size of this. And it has an indoor pool and a bowling alley. This place probably doesn’t even have a yacht house. It’s losing points. Big ones,” I say with a smirk.
“We’ll just have to build our own palace down here, then, won’t we? Make up for their blatant lack of respect in building this puny place. What do you think?” He pulls me in by my waist, his smile tilting up on one side. “Could you handle being my princess down here in a palace of our own?” His voice lowers even deeper than it normally is as he purrs into my ear. “Could you handleme,surrounding you with affection? With lust? With love? The all-consuming type of worship you truly deserve every minute of every hourof every day? Could you handle the passion you create deep within my soul that aches and burns only for you?” His arms encompass me, guaranteed to feel the quiver his words subconsciously draw out of my body as he lures my gaze to his. “Could you handle the love I have for you, mi alma?”
My breath stutters. We’ve never lived together. Not yet anyways. He had his apartment and I had mine. It’s been the comfortable status quo for the entire duration of our relationship. I’m not sure why we never made the big decision to move in together, but our relationship was steady, constant, solid, so there was never any rush to change what we were doing.
With him moving away, I thought about how difficult a long-distance relationship would be—the inevitable arguments that would manifest as the miles built up over the days and months ahead. But if he’s offering to move in together, of starting a life down here together. That’s big.
When he sees he’s stunned me speechless, he pulls me close and kisses my forehead. Taking my hand in his, he lifts it to his lips, kissing my knuckles before angling his body towards the pathway to the left. Eventually, I’m able to breathe again, and we decide to explore the entirety of the grounds for the rest of the day.
The palace was actually very beautiful and surprisingly larger than I thought, once we’re able to enter the buildings and gardens, that is. At least from what I remember of the outing. It was just a few short months after that vacation that he packed up his bags and left for boot camp. Little did he know, he took my heart with him that day, regardless of what he asked of me when he left.
A sudden jolt of pain shoots through my shoulder, bringing me back to the present. I didn’t realize, when I was packing my bag, just how heavy it was.Stillis. Shit, it feels even heavier than when we first left. I even tried to keep it to just the essentials since the guys took it upon themselves to carry most of the heavy stuff.
