mind when you disappear on me, because I know you’re there. I can feel you with my hands. I like feeling you with my hands.” He squeezed Derek’s cock to emphasize his point. “I like feeling you with my lips, too. I like rubbing my cock next to yours. I like putting your cock in my mouth. I like putting my cock in yours. I can’t wait for winter. I have this fantasy of making you kneel before me next to a big roaring fireplace. I’ll pretend I’m the master of some kingdom and you’ve been sent to pleasure me. Then I’ll tie a bow around your chest and pretend that it’s Christmas morning and you’re my present. I’ll lick you all over and enjoy every part of you. I want to take you back to that beach where we went that first weekend, but this time we don’t take any clothes. I want to take you up to that clifftop we stopped at. Just imagine, at sunrise, you watching the sun come up while I suck you off.”
And Derek could imagine it all. He thought about the clifftop and the beach and shuddered with arousal. Then he thought about kneeling before Sam in front of a fire. At wintertime. As in six month’s time. Sam still wanted them together then. He came, spurting white streams of fluid that spattered all over the kitchen floor.
“That’s it. That’s it, baby,” Sam whispered, urging him on.
Finally, when Derek was done, Sam gently pulled up his pants for him and carried him to the bedroom. Derek liked it when Sam carried him around. Derek like Sam around, full stop.
~~~~~~~~
Chapter Thirteen
THEY DIDN’T MAKE IT TO the romantic getaway that weekend, but booked it for the following weekend. Sam wanted to wait until that weekend before he fucked Derek. Just that idea made Derek disappear throughout the week and he spent more time than usual trying to make people not bump into him.
Sylvie came to visit him again and he finally showed her what he’d been working on.
“This translation,” he said, pointing to the scanned copy of the particular page in the valet’s journal. “It uses this phrase that confused me for a while, but then I found the same phrase in this book.” He worked from scanned copies and photographs of the book, because the actual artifacts were stored away. He pulled up a picture of another journal that had survived several hundred years. “This is the journal of Padre Pedros, a monk of questionable religion, but one who was faithful to the North Abarran family. It covers the late 1780s. He tells of the confession of a minor baron who’d transacted a bunch of illegal property confiscations before he’d been found out. The monk says the royal prince, Prince Alphius, kept the confession in his domestique tresorie. Just like the valet called it. I searched the records and during that period Prince Alphius’s main residence was Castle de Fleur. His son inherited the castle, and from that line came the current Earl of Bourgmont. I believe there’s a safe in Castle de Fleur that they called a domestique tresorie. And I think I know the location.”
Derek pulled up another photo, this one a sketch. “This is a sketch made by a butler in 1826 who worked at Castle de Fleur.” It was a gruesome sketch, showing the dead body of a young woman slumped back against a delicate couch, her head thrown back, her skirts askew.
“Oh, dear,” Sylvie said, frowning at the picture. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen this. What in all horrors is this picture about?”
“A death in the castle. The woman in the picture was a maid by the name of Nicola Frambosi. Only twenty years old. She was found murdered and the sketch was done from memory by the butler, Louis Duggin. He was one of the first on the scene when Miss Frambosi was found. He made the sketch for the authorities who were investigating. The official report says they believe Miss Frambosi surprised thieves in the act and was strangled. There were several items of value missing from the castle.”
As he pulled up another document to show Sylvie, she clucked her tongue. “How terrible, but I’m missing your point here, Derek.”
The next scanned document flashed up on the scene, the essential words highlighted, reporting the murder of the poor maid.
“The maid was murdered in the small sitting room adjacent to one of the main bedroom suites. The