About a week later, but not on New Year's Eve -- the night before -- the nanny comes to the house, which isn't entirely unusual. By then, however, Danicka has told him they're going away. Neither of them have traditional jobs; his pack knows this is coming, Sinclair has been warned that she might be a little more On Call for New Year's; since becoming an Adren, she has only grown more dangerous in battle, the second-most dangerous fighter in their pack. But that's no different from ever, and the pack knows that's his anniversary, anyway, just as they know -- and Danicka knows -- that if he is needed, he will come back. That, too, is part of their life together. They share him with his mate and children, and Katherine, who saw him in the Underworld during the rite to beckon spring, knows perhaps better than any how dear it is to him, how vital. They all know that his mate and children share him just as freely with the war, a far costlier price.
They are going away. Danicka has packed his bag and refuses to let him look inside of it, which is rather presumptuous but also makes some sense: she's known him some time now. He can trust her. He sort of has to, because she's making him. They are going away, she says, for the week, returning on Friday, which gives her the whole weekend before she jumps back into the academic quarter.
But first, they are going to New York City. And it is frigid there, as it is frigid here, so on Monday afternoon when the nanny has settled in and they have run around packing the little extras and Danicka has kissed and kissed and kissed each of her girls and told them how precious and marvelous and amazing they both are about a dozen times, they pile into the cab that is waiting outside. It is the longest they will have ever been away from their children, and the longest trip they've ever taken together, too. Danicka is too excited in the cab to O'Hare to even cry.
She does cry on the plane to JFK, when they have to turn off their phones. She has to squeezes Lukas's hand as he assures her that it's okay. It's okay for them to have their own lives, Eliska and Tatiana will be okay, their nanny is amazing, they can call every day and skype if the place they're going has a good connection and it's okay. Danicka nods, and this time she isn't just crying because she misses them, she's crying because she really is worried about them being so far away, without her, without Lukas. He even tells her he'll find a moon bridge if they need him. He will get to them if they need him. And she sniffs, nodding in those coach seats -- an oddity, when traveling with Danicka -- and leaning on his shoulder as they take off.
The trip to New York is brief, and they never leave the airport. They do go into the terminal, however, to meet Jaroslav and Marjeta and Miloslav, sitting and drinking coffee and chatting and showing pictures of the granddaughters for close to an hour before Danicka says they need to head to their connecting flight: hugs and kisses then, back-patting, squeezes of arms, mentions of Happy Anniversary and Have a Good New Year sending them off.
They fly on Virgin Atlantic. And he has to know, when they go back to their gate, because it's displayed and because Danicka eventually has to give him his ticket:
for their third anniversary, she's decided to take him to the island of St. Lucia.
Which is why he wasn't allowed to pack for himself; he would have guessed something like this if she'd told him to pack for an island vacation.
--
This time they sit in first class, and Danicka sips some champagne and their flight attendant is ever so pleasant, but not very attentive. Having a werewolf of any kind in a plane is always dicey; having an ahroun of Lukas's strength and rage is risky, but Danicka, well... no one ever would say she was all that risk-aversive. So she takes him to St. Lucia, takes him from there to a hotel called the Cap Maison, to a room that is more like a home. It is the rooftop villa, the terrace boasting its own pool. The bedroom balconies provide a view of the coastline, the turquoise-colored waters. It is incredibly lavish.
And it is so warm. So warm that they are shedding their layers in the airport on the way to the hotel. So warm that most of their clothing is linen and light-colored and Danicka is going to only be wearing skirts and shorts and never a bra unless it's one to share with her husband in particular. Danicka tells him, as porters secure their language and she drapes her arms around his neck, that the terrace is completely private,
that they don't even need to wear swimsuits to sunbathe,
that they can just leave the doors to the balcony open all night.
--
Sheets of Egyptian cotton. Wireless throughout. Their own kitchen. This place, with its water and its beaches and their own private terrace, for the rest of this night, and the next one, and the first two-and-a-half days of the New Year.
Danickahttp://stlucianow.com/
http://capmaison.com/accommodation/oceanview-villa-suite-with-pool-roof-terrace/
LukasDespite that they rarely flaunt it, the truth is Lukas and Danicka are quite wealthy. Hers is an earned wealth, his the product of clever planning by his parents; both of theirs, one that they have nurtured and multipled through years -- decades -- of investments.
And it is a wealth that, by and large, they shepherd carefully. They do not spend frivolously. They are not wasteful. Though they do not deny themselves, and would never allow themselves or their loved ones go without, they know the value of money and of frugality. Some -- much! -- of their furniture was secondhand. Their house is small, though large enough for all of them, and their gifts to each other more thoughtful and meaningful than grandiose and expensive.
And then, something like this. Something that makes it so absolutely undeniable that they are wealthy. That they are rich. That, if they wanted to, they could have the very best, and know how to enjoy it.
--
A stopover in New York City. An hour with the parents, showing off those many, many, many pictures Danicka took; a few steaming paper cups of coffee, some coffee cakes. Catching up, seeing each other, hugging, smiling, taking a few new pictures to commemorate the occasion.
And then: goodbye hugs, kisses, back-pats. An extra-long one from Jaroslav to his daughter-in-law, and then the two parties part. Jaroslav and Marjeta, who have become quite close to Miloslav, make their way out of the airport. Lukas and Danicka go back through security,
and to the gate,
and onto that long flight into the tropics.
--
They sleep on the flight. They have their own little pods in first class, but the pods adjoin, and they lower the screen between. Lukas sleeps with his hand straying into Danicka's side, fingers uncurled. He holds her hand if she lets him.
--
When they land it is morning. It is unbelievably warm, and the air smells like the sea. The airport is small, and it feels a little resort-like in its own right. A taxi takes them to the hotel,
where Lukas has already shed his outer layers and rolled his sleeves up,
where Danicka drapes her arms around his neck and tells him all that she tells him,
where he lifts her in his arms and swings her gently around the way he used to, and sometimes still does, when he hasn't seen her for a while and misses her terribly.
--
They are not the type to frenetically perform every possible tourist activity in whatever new place they have traveled to. They spend most of the first day idle and carefree.
At lunch they stray downstairs; wind through the local streets in summery clothing. The locals speak a version of Creole French, but it's not quite the same as the one Danicka sometimes heard in New Orleans. Still, English is enough of a global language that they get by without trouble. They eat at a small brasserie by the water, open to the sky, washed by the sea breeze. On the way back to the motel they find an open market and buy some fruit, bananas and mangos and guavas and two green coconuts that they ask the fruitseller to split open for them.
And they drift back to their room, which is actually a suite; they strip to swimwear -- or perhaps nothing at all, if Danicka is bold, though Lukas is a touch more shy. They sip from their coconuts and bathe in the sun and dip in the pool and dry out again. They look over the deep blue sea, the mountains at their back, and Lukas reads a local tour guide and suggests a sailing trip, and maybe a drive to the rainforests, and definitely a drive through a volcano.
As the sun dips lower they order room service. A spread of elegant tapas; the centerpiece a rendition of the island's national dish of green banana and saltfish. Lukas is a little apprehensive, but adventerous: he tries it, and it's good, but the truth is the heartier dishes are more to his taste.
It is dark when they finish dinner. Lukas has put clothes back on by then. Linen slacks and a shirt that he leaves unbuttoned. There's no glass in the windows and doors, and there doesn't need to be. The shutters are enough to keep out the gentle breeze. The temperature, even in the coldest hours before dawn, are well over seventy degrees.
They leave the windows and doors open. They leave only a few lights on. Lukas, whimsical and romantic-minded, finds some candles and lights them over the remnants of their dinner. He puts on some music, soft enough to be unintrusive, loud enough to be heard from the terrace.
Let's dance, he murmurs,
taking his mate by the hand, leading her out under the open sky.
DanickaThey've spent all day together, and that very long flight, with its flat beds and hand-holding. But he holds her and swings her like that, like he's barely seen her. And she just smiles, and smiles, and kisses him. She does not tell him Happy Anniversary just yet. Though truth be told, it really is their anniversary. She's contacted the nanny already to let them know they've arrived; everything is fine back home, because of course it is.
And they spend it in relaxation. They stroll. They don't speak Patois, but they do okay. Danicka shops here and there, her hair up in a messy bun, large sunglasses over her pale eyes, wearing a strapless sundress and a pair of slip-on shoes that do not really match but are comfortable and she is on vacation and so there.
Back at their room she lays out naked under the sun -- naked but for shades and her wedding ring, actually. The sunblock has faded and she lets herself tan, drowsing in those sunglasses, sipping fresh coconut water every so often. When she sits up to turn over she feels Lukas staring at her, watching her move, and she smirks at him, stretching, elongating her spine like a cat. Lying on her stomach, she watches him swim, watches the muscles in his back move and ripple as his powerful arms pull him through the water. She loves his body. She doesn't say it aloud this time, but she thinks he knows. She thinks he notices, when he plants his hands on the edge of the pool and pulls himself up, that she has to take a sip of air at the sight of him.
Between the pool and dinner, they discuss plans for the week, and Danicka is amicable to just about anything but actual plans and itineraries. She will go along with anything, it seems, and let anything happen. But they do take a break then to call back home. Chicago is only two hours behind, which may or may not have been part of Danicka's planning for this trip, but she wraps herself in a silk robe and beams at her children and their nanny, talking to them with Lukas at the laptop camera until they turn it off. She seems terribly happy after this, settled in a way she wasn't, even when lazing in the sun, even when taking a dip and making out with him in the water, even when she went back to her lounger to dry in the sunshine.
She is viscerally an animal. And she is very, very far from her young. To be with them, for a moment, confirms what Lukas kept telling her on the plane: that it is okay. That they are safe. That she is still their mother, and a good mother, and that being separated from her once in a while will make them stronger and happier.
--
She is wearing nothing more than that silk robe, her hair down in sundrenched waves, her skin starting to show the golden glow of her tan already, when room service delivers their food. She has one shoulder off, the robe very lazily tied, while Lukas gets himself dressed. Danicka seems quite clothing-averse, in fact, but he's never seen her in such a warm climate. He had no idea. She eats fruit and licks juice from her chin, one foot propped up on another chair, silk hiding her cunt from him, and she is drinking white wine and eating with her fingers like an animal.
They leave the doors all wide open. Danicka licks mouse from a spoon while he lights candles, turns on music, smirking to herself while he sets the mood in a place that needs no mood-setting at all to be romantic, to be languid, to be soft. He wants to dance.
And they dance outside, where they can hear both the music and the waves, where he can smell the sunlight in her hair and feel it on her skin where it presses to him through her robe. She is smiling, her eyes closed, when she asks him if he wants his birthday present now.
LukasThrough the day, there's a slow fire kindling between them. It first sparks -- well, if one is honest, perhaps it first sparked when he reached across the divide between their flatbed seats in the plane. When his fingers entwined with hers while he was aware of the first-class cabin all around; the flight attendants, the other passengers in their semiprivate carrels.
It builds, though, when they return to their room. When she sheds every last scrap of her clothes and lays herself naked in the sun, sunglasses over her eyes, her wedding ring sparking on her finger. He swims. She sips from her coconut. She smirks at him when she sees him surfacing from an underwater excursion down the length of the pool; sees him tossing water out of his hair, wiping his face clear and setting his elbows back on the edge of the pool
so he can stare at her. Eyelids half-lowered against the sun; light bouncing off the water into his irises. Licking his lips visibly as he watches her stretch.
They discuss plans for the week, which aren't really plans at all but just a loose list of things they'd like to do. She drowses, listening to him. He moves his lounger a little closer, and a little closer, and then
his dark head bent to her breast; her fingers threaded through his wet hair. He luxuriates in her like this for a while, but the sun is still high, and they are so exposed out here, and so: he ends up squeezing onto her lounger with her, his arms wrapped loosely around her, his head heavy on her shoulder and his legs intertwined with hers as he drowses.
When they wake they call the kids. And the nanny. And she is their mother, she is so their mother that Lukas's heart swells and aches. He waves through the computer screen at them, tells Tatiana to be good and Eliska not to worry. They sign off, and they turn the computer off.
--
And then dinner. And then that silk robe sliding off her shoulder. And his eyes on her, gleaming through the dark, catching the beads of juice she licks from her fingers; the shape of her nipples through that robe. He sets a mood, but really: it is a sort of game. A delaying tactic. He asks her to dance,
and this is the same thing.
She asks him if he'd like his present.
He is half-hard under those loose, lowslung pants. She can feel it where they press together, his arms loose around her waist. Then he is shrugging his shirt from his shoulders one arm at a time, as though he has little doubt of the nature of his present. Or perhaps as though he would like to give her a gift in turn; an anniversary remembrance, perhaps.
"Yes," he whispers. And her hair smells like sunlight and clear water. She smells like herself when he kisses her beneath her ear, tender-hot. "Yes, I do."
