Chapter Nineteen - FIVE
I’m peeking out from behind a palm frond to assess the situation on the pool deck. Rory is standing off to the side, biting her nails. Like she’s nervous our babies might fail.
Shit, if I was worried about that I’d be all set. None of this sneaking around would be necessary. But there’s no way our babies will fail this test. Gonna ace it for sure. Gonna get into any goddamned school they want, no doubt. Gonna wanna move away and never come back.
And for a moment, it’s not the idea of them getting hurt that bothers me. It’s the never coming back part… by choice.
What if they go out there and fall in love with it? Make all kinds of new friends and Jesus, soon they’ll be wanting boyfriends and then jobs, and then college, and marriage and…
Fuck that.
I can’t deal. They’re just babies. My little princesses. How in the world did Spencer Shrike ever let his girls grow up? I can’t imagine it. Not even a little bit.
I look at Rory and realize she is the spitting image of her mother when she was younger. Bombshells, both of them.
And then I glance at my two girls sitting under the palapa, pencils in hand, furiously writing… and understand what growing up really means.
They will be bombshells too. They will be beautiful, and alluring, and men will fall in love with them—the same way Spencer fell in love with Veronica and I fell in love with Rory.
But it’s different. I’m my father’s son. Which means I’m one of us. Who will they fall in love with who can protect them the way I can? Who?
There isn’t a single worthy man on this planet, let alone two of them. And then I wonder the same thing about Louise and Mathilda. Jesus Christ, what was I thinking bringing four princesses into this fucked-up world?
I need to stop this before it starts. I don’t know what kind of future I want for them other then to be safe. And for as long as they’ve been alive, this place—this island—it’s been our haven. Our sanctuary. Our refuge. An oasis in the middle of turbulent global politics, and secret shadow governments, and assassins who don’t have a name, but a number.
I need to convince Rory, that’s what I need to do. I’m almost sure Mysterious is gonna fuck up this job. He’s a mess about something. Probably afraid to get married and give up his exciting life as mastermind fixer.
I almost laugh at that. Because Oliver is not happy about that little match-up at all. If the Vance-Shrike wedding falls apart before tomorrow he’ll probably celebrate.
Point is, I can’t trust Paxton to get the job done. I need to go right to the woman in charge herself.
My wife.
An evil Five Aston plan creeps into my mind. Date day. My wife, who is still worriedly looking at our twins as they test as she bites her nails, just needs to be reminded that I know best.
And I do.
But I need to get her alone.
So I creep around the edge of the pool deck, being careful to stay hidden in the palm fronds, and when I’m right behind her I stalk up, wrap my hand around her face, cup it tight over her mouth and say, “Come with me, queen. We’ve got a date planned.”
I take her hand and lead her away. She’s still looking over her shoulder at the girls, but I tug a little and she turns back to me and smiles. “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see…”
We haven’t been up this path in a long time. Maybe almost a year. Which makes me sad. Because we used to come up here at least once a week when we were younger. Before kids, and kitchen houses. When all we had was a little three-room house that wasn’t even close to the palace I imagined giving her all growing up.
But Rory never complained. Ever. She loved our little house. And it’s still standing. We mostly use it for storage now. But it was our only home for several years while the main house and out buildings were being built. It took forever to get this island to the way it is now. Almost ten years because we did everything in stages and had to hire out locals from Nassau, transport them here, put them up in makeshift tent homes, and yeah… fucking hassle.
She was a trooper through all of it.
“I love you,” I say, looking over at her.
“I love you too,” she says, smiling back at me.
“No,” I say. “I mean… you’re everything to me, Rory. You and the girls. You’re all I ever wanted or needed.” I stop on the path, take her face in my hands, and kiss her. Long. Soft. Our tongues doing that little dance we’ve perfected over the years. “I love you.” I whisper it this time.
“We’re not people,” she says, talking right into my mouth. Her words flirting with my tongue. “We’re made of moonlight, and twinkling stars, and the night.”
I laugh, remembering the night I told her that. Just a small, sad laugh. “We’re perfectly matched. Your blue eyes.”
“And your brown ones,” she says, finishing the promise we made to each other so long ago. “We’re soulmates, Five Aston.”
“We are, Rory Aston.”
She smiles big when I call her that. She’s not legally Mrs. Aston, but she’s always been mine, so that’s legal enough for me.
“Come on,” I say, reluctantly pulling away. “We’ve got a date with paradise.”
She knows where we’re going. This path only leads one place and that’s our secret place. But when it comes into view we both stop and look at it. Like we’ve never seen it before.
The waterfall is large by island standards. And it never seems to stop falling. Ever. Like magic, it’s always there for us when we come. Of course, it has to stop sometimes. It’s made of rainwater in a pool at the top of the highest peak.
But reality hides that little fact from us. So we refuse to believe it. It’s not really water, just like we’re not really people. It’s magic.
“We haven’t been in here in a long time,” Rory says, echoing my earlier thought.
“No,” I say. “We got busy, I guess. Forgot that magic lives here. But I want us to remember today.”
She slips her tank top over her head, her eyes burning with the same desire I remember from our first summer together after I told her everything. She unclasps her bra, and that falls down onto the path with her shirt.
I don’t need to stare at her breasts anymore. I see them all the time. They’re a part of me now. So I stare at her eyes. Because I can’t ever know enough about what’s behind those eyes. There is no memory that can replace the real thing when I look into her eyes.
“Five,” she says, lifting up my shirt.
I raise my arms and let her pull it over my head.
She doesn’t look at my chest. She looks right into my eyes. Just like I did her.
“What?” I ask, wanting her to speak so bad. I always want to hear her voice. Even though I hear it every day. Have heard it every way.
Her eyes dart back and forth to each of mine. Like she’s searching for something but she can’t find it.
“What?” I ask again.
But she shakes her head. Smiles. “I love you.”
We jump into the pool of rainwater that never ends and go under. The water is clear. Not as clear as the ocean down below, but perfectly clear. Like everything else in this place. She takes my hand while we’re still under and then kicks her feet to swim.
I follow, clinging to her fingertips like I’ll never let go. Like I can’t ever get close enough and she might slip away.
We come up once. Just long enough to grab a breath of air and smile at each other. And then, like we’ve done this millions of times throughout eternity, we duck back under the water, letting the force of the waterfall pound our backs, and resurface inside the secret we’ve been hiding since we first found the magic here at the top of our personal paradise.
She lets got of my hand and I have to sigh. Because I hate letting go. Even here, where no one and nothing can touch us. She places both hands on the flat, smooth slab of rock that reminds me so much of our rock along the spring behind Sparrow’s house it almost hurts, and lifts herself out of the water. Dripping. Her nipples peaking up from the coolness of the cave.
I follow, and we stand there. The humidity enveloping us like a blanket. Making our skin prickle until a chill runs up our bodies and we shiver together.
“God,” I say, taking her face in my hands again. “You’re so beautiful.”
She lets out a long breath of air and says, “Fuck me.”
“Gladly,” I say, pulling on the button of her shorts. She wiggles her hips until I can pull them over. They are wet and stick to her skin. But every moment is delicious.
I feel her thighs. The taut muscles in her legs. And then brush my fingertips along the back of her knees.
“Fuck me,” she says again. “Fuck me. Fuck me. Fuck me.”
She begins tugging on my shorts now too. The button. The zipper. She tugs them down my legs. Hard, impatient. Desperate.
After all these years, she is still desperate for me.
I lift her up and she wraps her arms and legs around me. Hugs me with every part of herself.
And when I sit down on the flat, smooth rock, I’m already inside her. Her hips are already rocking. Her fingertips running across my scalp, tousling my hair. My fingertips pinching her nipples, making her gasp.
And I do exactly what she told me to do. I fuck her.
But it’s not fucking. It’s love.