This is a door security bar. Now, it’s pretty obvious how it works, but let me explain anyway. When you are in your home/apartment, you brace this between the floor and the doorknob, (like you see them do with chairs in movies?) You secure it in place and when secured, the door is almost impossible to open, and basically impossible to kick open.
Derek sat back against the wall of the tiny motel room they’d crawled into late the night before and breathed in.
He could, of course, smell the cleaning products in the air and the dust and other people who’d stayed on this bed before them, but this was a small town on an all but abandoned section of one of the old cross-country routes; other than the owner who’d walked in before them to put fresh-sheets on the bed, no one had been in this room for weeks.
Mostly, therefore, Derek could smell Stiles.
He took his fill of his lover before him. They’d both stripped themselves of their travelling clothes and rinsed off quickly in the shower before crashing. Stiles was naked. The sheet they’d pulled over themselves last night now barely covered to the middle of his ass. He looked soft and pliable and absurdly young as he slept, far less than his now twenty-eight years.
Derek reached out to run his fingers over Stiles’ skin but stopped just before he made contact. Stiles deserved to sleep. The Pack they’d been negotiating with had tried to prove that they, as wolves, were stronger, could endure longer, than any human Mage. Stiles hadn’t faltered though. He’d made it through five solid days of meetings with only two or three hours of sleep each day.
And, Stiles was a little like a cat when it came to the sun—he joked that he could never make it across a sunbeam awake. Derek could feel it’s warmth on his fingers just above Stiles’ shoulder, growing even still as it wasn’t yet mid-morning. It would help to keep Stiles sleeping the way he desperately needed to be.
Derek thought that maybe he should pull on some clothes and go find the motel owner and pay for a few extra days; they’d finished their negotiations not only favorably, but also early. It would be nice to have just a little time to themselves. There were so many things they let slide at home that they could—
Stiles rolled his hips and moaned in his sleep and Derek bit his lip. If they were at home he’d…
Stiles had once told him that his mom had called his beauty marks his own, special constellation. Derek would never share the fact with his Mate, but he was kind of glad he’d never met Claudia Stilinski; he doubted he’d have been able to look her in the eye.
Derek treated Stiles moles, especially the ones on his back and chest, as carnal bullseyes. He was lucky to have found a lover, and Mate, who didn’t just put-up with his desire to mark and claim, but also encouraged him. Stiles referred to Derek’s desire to cover him in come as a sexy wolfy-need and would taunt him with patches of skin he hadn’t recently revisited. He liked waking up to Derek finishing, then straddling Derek and returning the favor all over Derek’s neck.
Derek liked that, too.
Right now though, he should…
He drew in a long breath. Stiles had dropped further back into sleep, his scent settling into that deeper space it did when he was truly slumbering.
Derek shuffled off the bed, pulled on his jeans and t-shirt and shoes, and wrapped his fingers around the door handle. They’d have a few days to make sure they smelled one hundred percent like each other before they headed home.
I hardly know where to begin, but begin I must and speak as plainly as I can by such means as are available to me. I plan to leave this letter with the rest of the mail at our next supply stop so that my mind and my heart need not wait until I see you again, though I must content myself to do so.
It is curious to me that my hands have not shaken nor my heart quailed so much as now even when we engaged a pirate sloop in open waters and in a storm to boot. I confess I can hardly write.
You see, my dear friend, I cannot forget our conversation though it was some weeks ago and I will surely understand if it was but a passing exchange in your view with nothing at all meant by it. As for me, it has taken root inside me and will not let me rest.
We were among friends, yours and mine, dining in the home of Colonel Philips, and, certain of the unrequited nature of my affection and sailing out next morning for God alone knows how long, I wanted to put this hopeless love aside with only your genuine happiness in mind. I wished you good fortune in your pursuit of a certain indomitable British aristocrat whose company you had kept most of the evening. You looked me in the eye and said no such pursuit existed, and that your eyes and hopes had always rested elsewhere. Those very same eyes never left mine as you spoke, and may God have pity on my soul, but between one breath and the next I spent a lifetime in your arms, and you in mine.
Now, in the quiet before the final watch with naught but the creaking of rope and sail and the snoring belowdecks for company, I wonder whether my memory of your words grows fanciful and if indeed you will read this and pity me for a wretch and a fool. Let it be as it must, but I can no longer keep this silent inside me.
If I have the wrong of it, you needn’t worry, this I promise you now, I will not trouble you again.
However, if you meant what you said to me, if indeed I have not misconstrued your intention, know that I ache for you. You alone reside in my every free waking thought and your presence is the first I shall seek out upon my return so I can take the repeat of your fair words directly from your lips.
shealwaysreads 