50 Shades of Drake 5 and 6

More Life: Chapter Twelve

    "Have you given thought to where you will serve out this time in hiding?"

    "If I have to hide, I want the place to be tropical," Destiny requested, towel drying her hair after having showered for the first time that week.

    Darius reviewed the list in his hand. "Then your possibilities are Costa Rica, Bora Bora, the Maldives, Bora Bora, St. Maarten, Turks and Caicos, and Grand Cayman."

    A few of those places were on her bucket list, but her response had to be strategic. A memory popped into her head.

    "What are you thinking about?" a question he asked so often, it was like he was trying to walk inside of her mind.

    Enjoying the feel of his body enveloping hers, she held onto the arms he had locked around her chest. She briefly considered lying to him or brushing off the question, but instead she went with the truth. "I was trying to picture our wedding."

    "Really? What are you picturing?"

    "I don't know," she muttered and hated that a nervous giggle slipped out.

    He used a hand to brush hair back from her face. "Tell me."

    "Weddings have always seemed like spectacles to me," she confessed. "Like...look at us, look at us. Give us your attention on a day that is supposed to be about me and my husband. There's nothing wrong with that...but what I keep picturing is a destination wedding. Somewhere warm and tropical. On a beach, even. Instead of it just being one day, we would bring the people we love most to an island somewhere, plan a week of events together and solo. Allow them to go off on their own and make their own memories, have a vacation for themselves. The wedding itself would be optional. All we would need are the witnesses, so a friend of mine and a friend of yours. Anyone else would have the choice of whether or not they attend. The time we'd get to spend with them would be during the other events, so maybe a nice beach bonfire or a nice dinner. Fun activities like scuba diving, or hiking for those who want to."

    "So...a shared honeymoon," he paraphrased. "A honeymoon where our friends join us."

    "For that first week," she said, nodding. "You and I would stay a week or two longer for the real honeymoon."

    "Hmm." He mulled that over. "That's actually a very cool idea, baby girl."

    Cautiously hopeful, she asked, "You really think so?"

    "Yeah. I've heard of destination weddings, but I like the way you described it."

    "I haven't really done a ton of traveling, so I'm not really sure where I'd want to actually have the wedding," she admitted. "I've seen pictures of Bora Bora. They have these cute bungalows over the water. There are plexiglass cutouts in the floor, so you can see the fish swimming under you. I thought that was pretty cool."

    He laughed. "Bora Bora is nice."

    Her hopes were dashed a little. She'd been hoping that was mentioning a place he hadn't been before, so they could experience a new place together. "You've already been?"

    "There are a lot of places that I've been," he reminded her. "Especially the tropical locations. Jamaica, Turks and Caicos, the DR, Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Maldives, the Bahamas - and not just the touristy locations, but the islands that aren't yet known to the public."

    "Oh."

    He must've heard the disappointment in her voice. "Were you wanting to choose a place that I haven't been before?"