Page 39 of The Other Princess

“We’re going to MY house, Ever, not my family’s house.”

Her nose scrunched up along with her eyebrows as she watched me. “You have your own house?”

“Where did you think I lived?”

“I don’t know either at the clubhouse or with your family.”

“I’m almost 25, Ever, I don’t live with my family, and no one could possibly survive living in the clubhouse for more than a couple weeks unless they were certifiable.”

“Oh,” she popped off the word, completely surprised by the knowledge that I had my own home. “I didn’t realize,” she continued on and I just stood there taking in her reaction, and wondering what it was about my home ownership that was throwing her. It didn’t take long to find out, as her mouth seemed to keep running with the thoughts flitting through her head whether she meant me to hear them out loud or not.

“It’s just, I guess I don’t know you as well as I thought I did. How could I not know you had your own home? That’s weird right? It never occurred to me to wonder where you went at night when you left me. I just thought since the club was calling you away, that’s where you would be.”

“Most of the time it is,” I informed her as I pushed a piece of hair back behind her ear. “I bought my home while I was away in the Army, and when I first moved back I started working on renovating it. I haven’t actually spent more than a couple nights there because of it.”

“You’re renovating a house that will be your home when you’re done, but you never spoke of it?”

Ah, I was starting to see where she was going with this. She thought I’d kept it a secret for a reason, and I had. It was a secret I was keeping for this night in particular, the night when I was ready to give her everything and have her know exactly what being mine meant. “Come on, Ever, allow me to introduce you to my home. It’s what I had planned for tonight.”

“Okay,” she spoke quietly as she took my hand and allowed me to guide her out of her apartment and down to my Harley. It never got old feeling her legs slide over the leather seat and lock in place on either side of mine. In fact, my bike felt empty – damn near lacking – whenever she wasn’t with me now. Once she was settled I still had to touch her, pretend to pull her closer by grabbing hold of her thighs and tugging even though I knew she couldn’t possibly get closer. Her warmth radiated through me and her light vanilla perfume enveloped me, tantalizing my senses.

“Ready?” I called back to her. Her hands squeezed tight around my waist, digging into my flesh and making me wish I didn’t have plans to take her anywhere, because now the ride across town seemed too much to endure before my hands would be free to roam along her body again.

“I’m ready when you are, Deck.” She whispered the words in my ear just before I started the engine, and the way she said them made me think she wasn’t just talking about being ready for the ride.

~ Ever ~

We turned on to a road I hadn’t actually been on since I was a young girl. A boy too uncaring to notice what he’d done had dashed my dreams the last time I had come down this road. I should have known then that J-Bird would end up causing me insurmountable trouble since he was the one to shatter my girlhood dreams. Oddly enough, Deck stopped his bike in front of the exact spot it had happened too. When he killed the engine and tapped my thigh signaling me it was time to get off. I did so without question as I glanced around. There were exactly three houses on this part of the road. Two were across the street from where we parked. The other one… I couldn’t even bring myself to glance up at it, because it had once meant something to me. It had been a dream I’d had.

Once off the bike, and having secured the helmets, Deck turned to me and smiled. “Well, what do you think?”

“About what?” I asked dumbly.

Deck smirked. “About my house,” he teased and then lifted my chin with his finger and pointed my face toward the house I had dreamed of as a young girl. When I saw it, it was as if I were looking upon my dream come true instead of the old dilapidated house it had been back then.

“This is the house I used to dream about,” I mumbled.

“I know,” he whispered into my ear.

“What do you mean you know?”

“You were about, what? Thirteen, maybe,” he answered his own question as I stood there wondering what he was getting at. I was here, sitting up on the porch behind the mess of vines that had grown up there. It was the perfect spot to get away. I heard you and Jay as you came closer. He was just humoring you while he waited for Toby to finish messing around with the girl across the street.”

“Toby was across the street that day?” I glanced back over my shoulder at Deck, who now stood behind me with his arms wrapped around my waist.

“Yep, the little shit was nailing Emory Ward back then.”

“She was 17,” I informed him scandalized.

“That she was, which made your big brother a damn God among boys at your school. Not that anyone would ever tell you why, I guess.” I just shrugged.

“What does this have to do with that?” I asked pointing at the house.

“See, I was sitting here that day, thinking of what I would do to the house if I could buy it and fix it up. I had all these ideas, but then I saw you and Jay walking up to it so I hid back behind the vines and listened. You were telling him that one day you would buy this house. Then you explained how you would fix it up and paint the outside a cream color instead of white, and the shutters would be blue, because it was both bright and cheery while also being calming.” I laughed nervously, because I remembered saying those exact words, and so damn dreamily too. “You told him how you would fix the gardens out here, and what you would do to restore some of the insides that you had peeked at before.” I listened and I could picture every bit of it as if I were seeing it for real.

Something was dawning on me as he spoke about my past conversation with his brother. I wasn’t staring at a dilapidated old house any longer. It had been fixed up. Those vines were no longer a burden on the porch. The cream colored porch that matched the house with blue shutters and blue trim, just like I said I wanted it.

“You told him that one day it would all be yours along with two dogs and all the babies you would raise here.” He squeezed my waist then and I turned in his embrace.

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