Hi Everyone, Well I was hoping to have this out before Christmas but I've flat out... So, it's a little late. This is UNBETA'D, so if there are any mistakes, they're mine... I didn't want to intrude on my beta's christmas time with her family. More A/N at the end...
Sandy

P.S. There is a lemony time at the end of the chapter, so be aware if you don't want to read it... it won't matter to the outcome of the chapter.

Chapter 30

"Remember to call me tonight; I don't care what time it is, just call... alright?" Mrs D was just containing the tears that filling her eyes. Somehow, I didn't think she was too far away from losing it altogether. She'd been in this state since last night and I'm pretty sure that if we didn't get going soon, Lissa would be a blubbering mess right along side of her.

"I will Mom... you know I will." Yup... her eyes are starting to water...

"Bye Sweetie, be safe, have a good time and don't do anything that you'll regret." Mr D had come up behind Lissa's mom and put a hand on her shoulder. Personally I choose to think it was his way of telling his wife to let us kids go...

"You know me Dad... caution is my middle name..."

"Not for long..." I mumbled into Dimitri's massive arm, somehow he managed to merge the snort of laughter into a sniffle.

"Be good..." he whispered.

"So, are you two driving first?" Mr D asked the guys.

"Yeah, I think its best that way," Dimitri said, "...the girls are way too pumped to be let loose straight away, we'd be lost in the first hour."

"I'm a fantastic driver." Liss whined.

"Yes, of course you are dear..." Mrs D said smiling. "You 'immaculate' driving record shows just how 'fantastic' you are..."

"Oww, sounds like a juicy story there." Tasha said raising her eyebrows.

"It is... There are lots of stories actually and they're all perfect for those long hours driving." Mr D said.

"Oh, you'll have to brush up on your story telling skills, Dimka. Just be sure that he tells you the one about what he did in the science room, senior year."

My eyes widened and I smiled when Dimitri closed his eyes and moaned. "Oh, sounds like someone was a naughty boy in his youth after all... interesting." My breath caught when he looked at me... One eyebrow lifted as his lips puckered in an expression that screamed 'You have no idea how naughty I can be...' He knew his message had been received by the smirk he gave me before turning to shake Mr D's hand.

We'd all stayed at the Dragomir's the night before; all of us wanting to spend as much time together as we could. We finally did get away, but no, we didn't manage to do it before the floodgates opened.

The first stop on our travels was none other than Tasha's place to pick up Christian's car... We decided to take two cars for a number of reasons. I knew that spending anymore than an hour in a car with Christian would seriously test the limit of my patience and I'd end up throttling him... The other reason is that as couples, we would most definitely be needing time on our own over the coming months.

"Here Rose." Liss said leaning forward from the back seat; handing me a book of some sort.

"What's this?" I asked.

"I wouldn't touch it Rose..." Christian smirked... "It's called a book and it has this really weird curse attached to it... it makes its owner smart."

Oh, it's on...

"So, you've never seen one then huh? Maybe it's you she should be giving it to..."

Dimitri and Lissa started laughing; Christian just smirked at me. "You walked right into that one babe." Liss giggled. "It's a journal; I got one too. I thought we could write about our travels..."

"That doesn't include single night time activities either, Rose." Christian said trying to be smart.

"Well then, Lissa's will be a boring read then won't it."

"Christian..." Liss said, putting her hand over his. "Please stop, you know she'll just keep firing them back."

"Now I can see why you're taking two cars." Tasha said dryly as she sat beside Lissa.

=x=

From our first day, we tried to pack in as much fun as we could. Liss and I had searched the internet after deciding which way we were going to start and it all snowballed from there. From Laser Tag and Dodgems, rock climbing, hiking, swimming and skiing; we did it all. We even stayed on a ranch for three weeks and did our own version of cattle farming.

Towards the end of our stay there, we were out at the yards branding the calves. It had been long, tiring work and we were all exhausted and sweaty. The ranch owner, Ellis, told Christian to go push the last calf up into the crush but to do this, he had to walk through the large cattle yard. It was shin deep in manure and slippery as hell. To my amazement, he made it to the other side and got the calf where it needed to go but that's were his good luck ran out... I'd never seen the 'windmilling' arms and legs move only seen in movies and cartoons actually happen in real life until that day... but Christian showed it was a possible human movement.

All it took was one wrong move and down he went! Once he was down, he had more than enough trouble getting back up and by the time he did, he was nothing but a six foot three, blue eyed, fly ridden, walking, stinking pile of cow shit! It was the funniest thing I'd seen in all my life, I think I actually tore a stomach muscle laughing at him. Two days later, we could still smell it on him; hence why Liss had taken to sleeping on a cot in our room.

A month into our journey, I bought myself a little laptop and every second or third day we'd type out an email of our adventure to Lissa's mom and dad. We knew they worried about us, so it was our way of alleviating their concerns. In the spirit of walking the bridge that my parents had started to build, I emailed them as well, although their emails were less jovial in nature than Lissa's.

As the end of October and cool air of Winter approached, we contemplated taking a quick flight home for Christmas as it would have been the first time we'd not spent it with family, but Mr & Mrs D told us to stay where we were and have fun. She'd actually started looking forward to our emails and photos. So, that's what we did. Personally, I think she was living vicariously though us and having almost as much fun.

By the 18th of December we'd made our way to Utah; Cooper Mountain to be exact. We froze our asses off but we had an absolute ball... Between the skiing, snowboarding and tubing, we also went ice-skating, ate s'mores around the fire and I even got Dimitri to make snow angels with me. But it was Christmas Eve that the guys went and melted out cold assed hearts... They took us on horse drawn sleigh rides. I can't speak for Christian, but Dimitri certainly got lucky that night...

Christmas morning Liss and I decided to spoil them right back and made them breakfast in bed, but once our bedroom door was closed behind me, I took it that step further and managed to set up his breakfast on me... I put the tray of food gently on the end of the bed and quietly stripped off. Then I lay down beside his sleeping self and strategically covered myself in blueberry pancakes and whipped cream... thank God for central heating.

I was too worked up to wait for him to wake up on his own so I reached out, gently scraping his nipple with a fingernail. It hardened instantly making me smile, I did it again and the watched as his eyes fluttered open. When he focused and saw me looking back at him, I was gifted with breathtaking smile... But that only lasted for about a nanosecond before he realised I was his 'All You Can Eat' breakfast bar... When his eyes came back to mine... I could tell he was very hungry! The only thing he said before diving into his breakfast was '...you forgot the ice-cream.' That was my cue to reach down to the floor and pick up the small tub of vanilla Ben & Jerry's... By the time he'd finished, he was full... I was full and we were both extremely sticky!

January saw us travelling through New Mexico, Arizona and California. We couldn't be in California without going to Disneyland... two days running of course! I think we actually managed to go on every ride that they'd let us on... Christian got into trouble from Lissa when he stared at Tinker Bell a little longer than he should have...

She then screamed the house down at the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror... My ears were still ringing ten minutes after we left the ride... Apparently, she doesn't like the feeling of free falling... who woulda guessed..? And no, I'm not currently smiling. Personally, my favourite was Space Mountain; who doesn't like a roller coaster? Christian apparently!

Dimitri's favourite was the Indian Jones Adventure; which we had to go on twice... He was quite at home in his long, brown duster jacket... Although, he did like the Haunted Mansion quite a bit; I learnt that Dimitri really likes Jack Skellington.

=x=

It's now been five months since we drove out Mr & Mrs D's driveway.

There were times when Liss and I would need girl time and we'd drive together for a day or two, leaving the guys together. We even managed to go out without them... although that didn't happen until just over two weeks ago and it was a huge step for all four of us.

Dimitri was especially nothappy with letting me out of his sight, at all, even more so when we said we wanted to go to a bar... We had a huge fight that finished with me in tears and him walking out of our hotel room... Liss and I almost didn't end up going because of it, but I was stubborn enough to say 'Fuck him', and go anyway. It was a week later that Christian let it slip that Dimitri had followed us the whole night anyway...

I spent the week after that little revelation driving and rooming with Liss... I was a mess really but on the outside, I looked as though I was doing just fine in my anger... Then he had to go and ruin my bad mood... In my stubborn, pouting, 'ignore everything' mode, I'd somehow missed the fact that Valentine's Day had snuck up on us all, Dimitri hadn't though.

Flashback...

It's been seven days since I've spoken a word to Dimitri... I miss him so damn much. My whole body aches for him. I just want to feel his arms around me, his lips against my forehead, to hear his voice directed at me... But he won't even acknowledge that he pissed me off; even if his actions were only out of worry for my safety.

This morning I woke up on the edge of the mattress, yet again... for the fourth day in a row. I honestly didn't know how Christian put up with her sleeping habits; they'd actually become worse since the last time we had to sleep in the same bed.

Instead of waking her, I decided to just face another lonely, miserable day... I really wasn't sure how much longer I could stand not speaking to him. I got dressed in some warm workout gear and headed out for my usual morning run. I'd been running for about five or ten minutes when I saw a weird sign nailed to a roadside electrical pole...

I

What on earth? I thought to myself... I just shook my head and continued to run. Obviously, someone was playing a prank of some sort; either that or they forgot what else they wanted to write. I turned the corner at the end of the street and up ahead I noticed another sign nailed to yet another electrical pole...

Love

"Weird..." I said to myself, puffing. At the end of the street... another sign.

You

I stopped on the side of the road beside the sign and looked up... It wasn't anything special, just one word... or three as the case may be... I looked around me but no-one was around, no-one walking their dogs or watering their lawns... I shook my head once more and continued on my run.

Another corner, another sign...

Will

That's when I started giggling... 'I love you Will...' I suppose that's one way to get a guys attention... The whole town, or the immediate area anyway, would now be giving this 'Will' guy a hard time.

I went down the slight decline at the end of the street and then turned right, as normal and as I turned the bend... Yup... another sign. "Well, I hope you got the message Will..." I said aloud. As I got closer, the word came into focus.

You

'You'... You what? I thought. You are the love of my life? You are my heart? You are wonderful? Oh Will... I thought, don't be an unapologetic Ass, learn to say sorry... I looked down and shook my head as I continued on again.

I was way more than halfway through my run by now and on my way back to our motel room, I ran around the bend in the road that I'd run each morning that we'd been here, three streets away from our motel and as I looked up, another sign greeted me.

Marry me

I stopped.

"Marry me?" I said quietly. I had to think back to all the signs I'd seen on my run... 'I Love You Will... You... Marry me?

"I love you... Will you marry me?" I said to no-one. Even if I hadn't been running, my heart would have been going just as fast as it was right now anyway. I turned around and looked behind me and just as in the other street, there was nobody around. I turned back to the sign and something further up caught my eye.

My breath caught... Tears burned at the back of my eyes...

A good fifty feet down the road stood Dimitri... holding a sign.

Rose?

Holy shit... I didn't know what to do, so I just stood there... Everything in front of me slowly shifted out of focus as my eyes welled with tears. They spilled over my cheeks as I blinked, trying to clear my vision.

As I wiped at my cheeks, Dimitri started walking towards me. Closer and closer he came, it didn't take long until we reached each other, faster than I would have expected, then I realised that I'd actually been walking towards him too...

"I'm so sorry." He said when he finally stood in front of me. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you I was following you, but I love you and my life would end if anything happened to you, I had to make sure you were safe; I won't say sorry for that though."

All I could do was nod my head...

"I'm also sorry that I haven't held you in my arms for the last seven, long days." He reached out and wiped the tears that continued to fall. "I love you Rose, more than anything; I'll never apologise for that."

I gasped when he reached around and pulled something out of his back pocket as he bent down on one knee in front of me.

"I never want to spend another day without you. You give me a reason; a reason to wake up of a morning, to go on, to laugh, to love... for everything... and I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Rosemarie Hathaway, will you do me the honour of being able to call you my wife? Will you marry me?"

I swiped furiously at my eyes... I couldn't see the bloody ring!

"Yes..." The word squeaked out of my emotionally constricted throat. I coughed a bit to try and clear it... I had to have another go... "Yes... Oh fuck yes..." I yelled out as I flung myself at him.

He's lucky... or should I say, I'm lucky that he's such a big man... He caught me and stayed upright on bended knee but we only stayed that way for a few short seconds before he tightened his hold on me and stood up. I cried as I buried my face into his neck.

"I'm sorry..." I cried. "I'm so sorry I'm such an irrational, moody, stubborn..." I stopped when he started laughing. "What?" I asked as I pulled away from his neck.

"You do know that the first step in recovery is admitting you have a problem, right?"

"Oh shut up..." I couldn't help but laugh even though it came out in this snotty, hiccupish sort of way. "I love you too and I'd love nothing more than to marry you, Comrade."

"Comrade...? What have I told you about calling me that name, woman? You know there's only one name you can call me that's not my given name." I returned the smirk that he was now giving me...

"Yeah, I do... but I'll keep that name for later on tonight when I kick Lissa out of our room."

End Flashback...

Lissa had screamed so loud when I showed her the ring... which was bloody huge blingy by the way, that someone had thought she was being attacked and went to tell the owners of the motel... Not surprisingly, I hadn't heard the knock at the door, but when they saw that all was well and Liss was bouncing up and down while holding my left hand in hers; they rolled their eyes and went back to the office.

She immediately grabbed her cell phone and dialled her mother... after yet another round of screaming and desperate looks from me to Dimitri... we found ourselves watching tornado Lissa tear around our room, stuffing everything she could find into our suitcases... "Liss... slow down woman. We can't go home yet, we've still..."

"We have to!" she interrupted. I tried to give Dimitri the universal 'Help me' glare, but as usual, he didn't get it... "There's so much to do and you heard Mom... plus, she's ready for us to come home anyway so why wait..."

"Because we've still got nearly a month of stuff planned out, that's why."

"Two weeks Rose... we only had another two weeks. Plus we've seen and done so much already. Mom's busting to have us home and you heard what she said..."

Yeah, I did... so did the whole motel I'm sure! "Lissa, Dimitri only asked me..." I glanced down at my watch, "...two hours ago, we haven't even spoken about anything yet, right Dimitri..." I was pretty sure he heard the slight growl that accompanied the last part of that sentence though...

"Yes Rose... She's right Liss, we haven't spoken..."

"You'll have plenty of time to speak on the way home. Now... can I trust you two to get the rest of your shit together while I go and try to get Christian moving?" I just glared at her... "Well...?"

"Yes Lissa..." I groaned; there was no use arguing with her when she was like this, she would eventually win anyway so it was just faster and easier to agree with her. Exactly two seconds after the door to our room closed behind her, Dimitri locked it.

"Finally..." he growled as he walked towards me. I could see by the look in his eyes that he had other plans in mind than packing up. I looked down at the bedside table and grabbed the "Do Not Disturb" sign...

"Here put this on the door first." He laughed as he took it from me and returned to the door. Once that was done, he relocked it and turned to face me.

"Happy Valentine's day Rose." Yes... it is. But I wanted to get this show on the road. I hadn't touched him in a week and after his proposal, I was rather needy.

"Thank you... Master." Yup... that did the trick!

It didn't happen often these days, but Mini Me popped her head up and strapped on the leather chaps... She liked it a lot when Dimitri got all... 'mastery'. His chin dropped and his eyes narrowed as he took a step towards me. He growled again as I stepped backwards towards the bed... Obviously I'm not meant to move...

When he reached me, his hands gently ghosted down my arms until my hands were held securely in his much larger ones. His eyes lowered as his fingers came to the ring that now adorned my left ring finger. "You have no idea what this means to me; to have you wear this ring; my ring. To know you're mine..."

"I've always been yours." I said honestly.

"I know, but now everyone else will know it too... with just one look." Oh! Possessive, I like it...

He reached down and wrapped his arms around my waist; lifting me up before walking away from the bed. "Where are we...? Oh!"

He snickered seeing the realisation of where he was taking me... the bathroom. I really liked having a shower with Dimitri; I loved making sure to clean every inch of him, repeatedly. And I did... until we heard the pounding at our room door.

We quickly dried off and the dressed to the empty threats Lissa kept making of coming into our rooms whether we were dressed or not.

"So, our car Rose?" Lissa asked referring to Christian's car.

"Not on your life..."

"Good, I love you and all but I seriously need you gone."

"Oh! Nice Liss, some friend you are!" We laughed and parted ways, going to the correct vehicles for the first time in a week.

"I've missed you, Roza." Dimitri said once I was buckled in. "I don't care how mad you get at me; please don't ever turn your back on me. You're my life, I only ever want to protect you, keep you safe and happy."

I felt so guilty. "I'm so sorry... I promise I won't act like a little school girl ever again."

"No need to go that far babe." He smirked as he started the car.

I gasped and my mouth fell open in shock... Every now and then, Dimitri showed a whole new side to me, a private side that no-one got to see but me...

"Best close that mouth Rose, before I find something to put in it..."

Oh fuck... The full out guffaw, complete with head thrown back, must have said everything that needed to be said about the look on my face... I couldn't have been more shocked and speechless by his words than if he'd suddenly gone extremely pale and sprouted elongated eye teeth and said... 'I've come.. to suck.. your blood, HA HA HA!' Although, I may have let him do that; he made me go into some sort of blissed out state when he gave me love bites...

In the hour after we'd driven off, Dimitri had told me the story behind the ring; it was actually his mothers, the only thing that she'd kept from her ass of a husband and that was only because it had been his mother's ring. I kind of liked that it had history. After that we'd spoken a lot about where we wanted our future to go; living arrangements, a timeframe to getting married, work... those sorts of things. Since being away, Dimitri had been training all of us in Tae Kwon Do and even though Liss and Christian were quite good, they didn't take it all that seriously, at least not like me.

Sparring with Dimitri was... exciting. As I got better, he became more willing to land hits. His opinion was that I would never improve if I didn't have some sort of fear of getting hurt... and improve I did. We learnt over time that if we really wanted to go at it, we did it when we were alone because our full on sessions normally turned into something else. One time in Los Angeles, we nearly got caught when Dimitri had me seeing stars against a wall...the good kind of stars. God that was a fantastic lesson!

Remembering those lessons soon had me all worked up and I had missed him a lot during the last week, and I was one behind after our shower. I turned to my left and looked at the profile of his gorgeous face... My eyes followed the sharp line of his jaw until it disappeared behind the silky strands of his long brown hair. I took in his strong neck and watched as his chest moved with the pull and release of air in his lungs. His narrow waist, his muscular thighs... and the pot of gold in between...

I was vaguely aware of the change in my temperature, my breathing... I bit my bottom lip and closed my eyes when I realised that I was squirming in my seat... apparently Dimitri noticed too...

"Feeling restless are you Roza?" He said smirking... The shit...

I'll show you restless... I thought to myself. "I wouldn't say restless, no, more like... hungry." Then I leant across the centre of the car... "Hungry for you." I whispered against his cheek. I could feel more than see the smile that pulled at his mouth; I could only imagine that his eyebrow would be lifted as well. While running the tip of my tongue around the shell of his ear, I unbuckled the seatbelt as it was digging into my hip, he didn't seem to notice...

I reached for his right hand that was gripping the steering wheel; wrapping my fingers around his before whispering to him one last time... "Hang on tight my love..." I moved my hand down to his waistband... "...and concentrate... real hard."

There was no mistaking my intentions as I popped the buttons of the fly of his jeans. He said nothing; did nothing to stop me, just turned his head slightly to look down at me... By the time he turned back to the road, he was hard. He shifted his hips slightly, making room for me to release him; he wanted this as much as I did...

"Oh shhhhit!" he hissed through clenched teeth as I took him into my mouth. It wasn't long before I felt his hand weave into the hair at the back of my neck. I couldn't do everything I normally do because his jeans were in the way, but I still made it good for him... "Oh hell Rose..."

Quickly, his breathing sped up and his ab muscles tightened; he was close... He tried to move me away but I didn't want that... It wasn't something I did very often but I knew that there was nothing in the car to clean up with... so what's a girl to do? So I did...

"Not that I'm complaining, but what brought that on?" Dimitri asked once his breathing slowed a bit.

"I've missed you... a lot! Plus, I owed you one." I smiled as I listened to his laughter.

"I love you Roza. There are drinks in the back if you want one." He said before kissing me.

A few hours later when we pulled over for a pit stop, I was a little confused at the looks on Lissa and Christian's faces. "What's up with you two?" I asked them.

"Nothing, nothing at all." Liss said smiling.

"Hey Dimitri, I thought you were a good driver."

"He is..." I said in defence. "Why would you say that?"

"Well we couldn't work out what all that swerving was about a few hours ago... We were wondering if you were drunk... but then we realised it wasn't you doing the drinking..."

Oh crap!

Dimitri and I stood in the carpark as we watched our friends walk into the truck stop laughing their asses off...

"Or does that count as eating Rose?" Christian called out just before the door closed behind them. Dimitri was barely keeping himself from laughing too...

"I'm never going to live this down..." I said as we started walking again.

There will be probably one more chapter to the story after this unless the characters take over again... (like Dimitri did in this chapter) I had NOT planned on the end part of this chapter... AT ALL... it was all HIM! I was just as surprised as Rose and Lissa... I have no idea how long he had that planned! Also, there are some piccies of the ring on my facebook page too if you'd like to have a look...