Chapter 1
“Where do you want to go?” He had asked a week before the ceremony.
“Go?”
“Honeymoon? We are getting married, right? Honeymoon usually follows. Tradition and all.”
“You want to go somewhere? Now?”
“Why not now?” Tony breathed against his chest then reached for his hand.
“I know, it’s just - I know you are almost finished with -”
“Sunshine, I promised you, you come first, we come first. It’s December, but we could take the jet and go anywhere you want, somewhere warm, where no one knows us. We could just disappear for a few days.”
Stephen threaded their fingers together and after a moment’s hesitation, cleared his throat. “I did get some time off - Christine made me - take some time off. I honestly don’t care where I am, as long as I am with you.”
Tony sat up, still holding onto Stephen’s hand, then smiled down at him. “There must be some place you have dreamed of seeing. Paris, Vienna, Venice?”
“You’ve seen them all.”
“Yes, but not with you.”
Stephen brought their joined hands to his mouth, and smiled as he heard Tony’s sharply indrawn breath before he placed a gentle kiss over his knuckles. “Do you know what I want most?”
“Tell me?”
“A couple nights, just you and me, a little B&B, room service, no television, no phones. Just us. Doesn’t matter where. Then we come home and get on with things, get on with whatever happens next.”
Tony blinked at him, then leaned down, and with a single touch of his lips, without a word, promised him anything he could ever want. “Have I told you that I love you today.”
Stephen glanced over at the bedside clock and shook his head. “Nope. It’s three minutes after midnight, so I’m certain you haven’t.”
“Damn. I love you.”
“Yeah, doll-face, I know. If there is some place you want to go -”
Tony shook his head. “Nope. If I never get on another plane, that’s fine with me.”
Stephen rolled his eyes at him. “Stark.”
“I want you to be happy.”
“While you give yourself a panic attack?”
“It’s the thought that counts?” Tony asked with a grin and the bambi eyes that Stephen still had no answer for.
“There’s a place near my old med school. Could never afford it. One of those snooty frou-frou places.”
“Done. Will be done later this morning.”
“What if it’s booked up?”
“I’ll buy out the place.”
Stephen couldn’t help but laugh, then he wrapped his arms around him, and rumbled into his hair, “Love you, doll-face. There are days when I can barely breathe when I think about you.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. One day, I’ll get used to this, to you, to us, but for now -”
“I’ll never get used to you. Never in a million years.”