I stood up from the table and took off my gown. Jack followed suit and I marveled afresh at his naked body. My eyes were drawn inexorably to the long column of his weapon. At his castle, he had used that thing to give me pleasure the like of which I could never have even imagined. I wanted to feel that pleasure again, but I also wanted to please him.
We kissed, and the feel of his naked body, pressed tight to mine, was almost enough to make me orgasm again on the spot. Gently, he guided me to the bed and began to kiss up and down my body.
“No,” I said, pushing his head away.
“No?”
“My turn.”
I turned him onto his back and kissed from his mouth, down his neck, his chest and onto his belly, where my lips soon met his swollen cock. Jack sighed as I planted a row of firm kisses down its length from tip to the sac at its thick base. I basted him my tongue and then, on an impulse, sucked one of his balls into my mouth, making him moan in pleasure. I switched to the other and then kissed my way back up to the tip of his heavy arousal.
I paused a moment and then took the big, pulsing head into my mouth. Jack grunted happily as I sucked at him, growing in confidence all the time. I felt his hand on my backside and then jumped slightly as he probed between my legs to find my core. As I sucked at him, so his fingers treated me once more until I was writhing with need.
“Now.” With a smile, Jack gently pulled me back from his member and laid me back upon the bed.
“Oh yes,” I breathed.
We went beneath the covers and Jack positioned himself between my legs.
“Oh Jack… Oh! Jack!” I was almost embarrassed at climaxing so quickly, but the feel of him entering me – that feeling I had feared never to know again – took me over the top almost on the instant.
It took a little while, though not as long as last time, for Jack to penetrate me to the fullest, but I soon had all of him inside me, filling me, stretching me, moving within me so my whole body sang with impossible pleasure. I curled my legs about his as he thrust gently back and forth within my willing tunnel. I draped my arms around him, cupping his slowly pumping buttocks, so deliciously firm. I kissed him deeply, my mouth locked to his, tasting him as he took me to heaven.
I came twice more at the mercy of his strong, confident body, his movements so assured, his technique so skilled. I had nothing to compare him to, of course, but Jack seemed to be the most talented, the most tender and the most perfect of lovers.
“Would you like to go on top?”
“Can I?”
“Of course.”
Without leaving my body, Jack rolled over, taking me with him, guiding me so I was seated astride him. He placed his hands on my hips and set me rocking back and forth in a gentle rhythm that set up pleasurable echoes reverberating through me.
I was a good horsewoman, and I rode Jack like the stallion he was, pleasure unfolding in my tummy, my hands pressed to the hard muscles of his abdomen.
“Darling, darling, darling,” I moaned as my next orgasm built. “Teach me. I want to know it all.”
“There are an infinite number of ways to make love,” replied Jack, the strain on his own body finally starting to tell in his voice. “But I’ll see what we can get through in the time we have.”
As I climaxed, he rolled me onto my side, lifting my leg so he could enter me at a different angle. He went harder and faster now, his own needs demanding a swifter pace, but I found I adored this, too.
“Jack. It’s happening again.”
“For me, too.” He kissed me. “I love you, Marianne. I will always love you.”
We orgasmed together and I felt his mighty weapon swell inside me as it delivered its payload and my body exploded once again.
For a while, we lay in a sweating and sated tangle, enjoying the intimacy and kissing a lot.
“What will happen when darkness falls?” I asked.
“They will come looking for me,” Jack replied.
“We’ll have to leave?”
“Can’t stay here.” He smiled at me. “I won’t allow anything to happen to you or your father. I hope you know that.”
“I trust you.”
I reached for his weapon and felt it respond to my touch.
“Is it ready again?”
“For you, it will always be ready.”
I lay on my side and Jack went into me from behind, kissing down my neck as he stroked in and out of me, reaching around with one hand to play with my clitoris. He went slow then fast then slow again, varying his pace and with it the sensations he wrung from my body. With impeccable timing, Jack brought us both a mutual climax at five minutes to one, giving us a few minutes to compose ourselves before lunch arrived.
“Do you need something to eat or drink?” I asked.
“I can manage.”
“I…” I looked up at him, unsure of how to ask. “I think I would like you to drink my blood.”
Jack smiled and stroked my cheek. “Thank you. But let’s leave it until later. It is more special while we are making love.”
After our lunch break, we returned to the bed and I was anxious to try something new and exciting. Jack placed me on all fours, knelt behind me, and soon his hardened weapon was slicking in and out of me at a delightful rate, his hips smacking against my upturned bottom. The feeling made me desirous of something else.
“Spank me,” I gasped.
Jack was happy to oblige and his right hand descended with punishing force on my defenseless bum, even as he continued to pump his hips. I relished the double pleasure, reminded of how we had gotten together and squeaking in high-pitched delight at each deliciously painful smack.
It was a long afternoon of love-making; intimate, adventurous, frantic, sultry, but above all, loving. As the light from behind the curtain began to dwindle, Jack put me on my back and we returned to the wonderful simplicity of face to face and heart to heart.
“Oh Jack…” I had lost track of the number of times he had brought me to orgasm.
But this time, as the sensations built, he brushed aside the hair from my neck.
“Ready?”
“Oh yes,” I exclaimed, desperate to experience this next step in our relationship.
There were no words for the feelings that suddenly captured my body. In the throes of orgasm, it was as if someone had poured oil on the fire. Jack held me close as he drank my blood and I felt his body throb against mine as he, too, reached that ultimate moment.
“Was it good?” I asked tentatively. I had no idea if my blood was nice.
“I’ve been told it is always best with someone you love, but I had no idea. Exquisite.”
I looked at the window. “The sun has gone down.”
“Yes.”
“We should get packed.” I tried to get off the bed but Jack held me back, kissing me again. I finally pulled away from him and began gathering clothes. I had never packed for myself before – quite a day.
“You said that my father and the servants would not remember hearing us?”
Jack nodded as he stood. “I will have to bite them first, but once I have done that I have a measure of control over them. As I have your father. I can make them forget.”
I frowned. “How do you do that?”
“I’m glad you asked,” he murmured.
The bleakness in his voice nearly cracked my heart in two as I turned to meet his gaze. Black eyes spoke volumes as panic set its claws into my heart.
“Jack--”
“Forget.”
Chapter 12
I wasn’t sure what time it was when I woke in the cavern in North Wales. The fire had burned low but still glowed enough to reveal Connery sleeping beside it. Hugging the blanket around me, I padded across the room and through the cave towards the exit. The first light of morning was streaking the cave walls and, up ahead of me, near the cave mouth, I saw the figure of Jack, seated on the floor, playing chicken with the sunlight. As the sun rose, the line of light crept along the
floor of the cave. Jack sat just beyond it, shuffling back as it moved forwards, keeping to the shadow but staring out into the light of day.
“You’ve made him think about her again.” Bathsheba’s voice, coming from behind me, made me jump. It might be the most words I’d ever heard her string together since I’d met her.
“You know about Marianne?” I asked, keeping my voice low so Jack would not overhear us.
“More than he thinks I know,” replied Bathsheba. “I’ve picked stuff up over the years. He misses her. More than he cares to admit. He enjoys the role of the international playboy, and God knows he has more than his share of women, but he still misses that one.”
“What happened to her?” I asked.
Bathsheba shrugged. “What happens to humans? She died.”
“He never saw her again?”
“He saw her. But she never knew who he was. He kept an eye on her to make sure she was safe. She married. He was a good man, I understand, someone she loved maybe even as much as she loved him. She had children – obviously, or you wouldn’t be here. She lived a happy life and a long one – by human standards.” Bathsheba watched the still, silent figure of Jack, silhouetted against the encroaching sun. “He visits her grave whenever he’s in this country. Leaves flowers, even.”
“Hard to believe.” It would be hard for anyone to see Jack as the sentimental type.
Bathsheba shrugged. “I think he uses her as justification. If he can’t have the woman he loves and no other woman will ever match up, then why look for anything deeper? Marianne justifies the shallowness of his existence. If love isn’t an option then pleasure is what you have. Doesn’t mean he hurts any less.”
“Why do you follow him?” I was genuinely interested.
“Initially, because he saved me,” replied Bathsheba. “I was turned by a vampire of a certain type. I didn’t ask to be a vampire, and while I’m not sorry that I am one, the violence with which I was turned…” The memory made her eyes burn with that hatred that never seemed far from the surface in the young vampire. “If I disobeyed him then he punished me by starving me. Do you know what it’s like for a vampire that can’t feed? It’s starvation combined with the DTs. Jack killed him.”
“To save you?”
Bathsheba smiled. “Do you know; we’ve never talked about it. I doubt it. He had something else to gain, I would guess. But he took me with him. He saw something in me. That I could be useful to him. That’s all it’s ever been between us. I’m useful to him and he’s useful to me. It works. But the thing about Jack is that, if I disobeyed him or ran away from him, then he would be angry, but he wouldn’t punish me. It’s my decision. He doesn’t think he owns me.”
“There is a lot of good in him.”
Bathsheba snorted. “And a lot of bad, too. But I’m not sure either of them really show. He’s just Jack. Looking out for number one. I don’t know if he’ll ever change.”
I looked at Bathsheba for a long time before speaking. “You should come back with Connery and I. You’re a great fighter. We could use you.”
Bathsheba shook her head. “Don’t try to recruit me to your lost cause. I’m no more of an idealist than Jack is.”
“You think I’m an idealist?” Maybe I had changed since meeting Connery but I liked to think that I was still as hard-bitten as they come. “I just don’t back down from a fight.”
“It’s not my fight,” Bathsheba retorted. Which was fair enough. “I’ll stick with Jack.”
“Out of loyalty?”
“Because it’s what I want.” She smiled, perhaps the first genuine smile I had seen from her. “And because it’s where I’m safest. He’d risk his life to save me. In a strange way, he’s more loyal to me than I am to him.” She paused as she considered this. “Maybe you’re right about there being some good in him.”
Obviously, Connery could not leave the cave in the daylight so I went to fetch the car. The gradient was steep and the car was not built for off-road, but I thought it could be coaxed up here. As I went, I passed Jack, still seated at the edge of the sunlight.
“Morning.”
“Good morning.” He smiled. “You slept well?”
He knew what I had dreamed of. “Thank you.”
“That was the end of the story.”
I considered what I had just heard from Bathsheba, and all that I had learned about Jack. “No, Jack. I’m not sure that it is.”
I didn’t wait for a response but carried on out of the cave.
Connery was awake by the time I returned and neither of us saw any value in delaying our departure. It had, in many ways, been a wasted journey, and yet I felt better for it. From a personal perspective, it was nice to know what had happened between Jack and Marianne, but I also felt that maybe we had learned some things worth knowing, we just needed time to think about them.
“Goodbye,” said Jack, as we left.
“I hope we meet again,” replied Connery, and I felt that he meant it.
“We won’t.” Jack shook his head.
“Are you going to wish us luck?” I asked.
He shrugged. “It won’t make a difference. I’m sorry, but you’re going to your deaths and you’re both too stubborn to back off. You’re a good couple in that respect but it’s going to kill you.”
“I can think of worse ways to die,” said Connery. He was brighter this morning, his good humor less forced than it had been of late. “Besides, whether you’re a hopeless nobody like me or the King of Nightmares, everybody fucks up from time to time.”
Jack made no reply.
We got into the car and drove away.
“You know,” said Connery, as we hit the road again, the sun glinting off our tinted windows, “we really should go out more with other couples.”
I burst out laughing.
“That’s a good sound to hear.” Connery grinned. “Sorry if I’ve been difficult recently. Or jealous or whatever.”
“Well, he’s a very handsome man.” I now felt safe to say things like that, knowing that Connery’s concerns had been finally put to rest.
“If you like tall, exquisite and wealthy.”
“I prefer tall, rugged and sexy.”
“Glad you decided to settle.” He paused a moment. “Do you think he and she…?”
I shook my head. “I doubt it. I don’t think he’s Bathsheba’s type in that respect and I think he’s too smart to try anything.”
“She’d want to be with a warrior, not a playboy.”
“Yeah.”
“I hope she finds one.”
“Me too.” Bathsheba had terrified me when I was at Castle de Coeur, but actually talking to her had been revealing. She was still pretty scary, but I felt I understood her a bit. Maybe even liked her, too. Certainly I thought she deserved happiness. Maybe she could find it in Milan while Jack was busy screwing his way around the local population. I guess we all deal with loneliness in different ways. “Everybody deserves to be happy.”
“That’s a nice thought.”
I took a deep breath. “You should know – if only because I don’t want to keep anything from you – I was listening last night when you and Jack were talking.”
I fancied I could see Connery replaying the conversation in his mind as he drove, trying to recall if he had said anything that he would not want me to have heard.
“Okay,” he said finally. “Anything you wanted to…”
“Thanks,” I interrupted.
“Thanks?”
“For caring.” Even when I had been snapping at him for his jealousy, his motives had always been good ones. He had been concerned more for my losing my soul to Jack than about his losing me.
Connery looked blindsided. “Did you think I didn’t?”
“Thinking it and seeing it are two different things.” I sighed. “I’ve been with a few guys in my life. I think it’s safe to say that none of them cared about me. Some said they did but their actions said something different. You’re
the only one who actually followed through. I’m not used to it yet and maybe I can still barely believe it.”
“Well, get used to it,” said Connery, firmly. “Because I’m not going anywhere.”
“Me neither.”
“Well,” Connery beamed, “I’m glad you eavesdropped. Anything else?”
“Yes.” This part wasn’t going to make him so happy. “I heard what actually happened in the catacombs when he killed the 1st King. And it’s given me an idea.”
“Yes?” I could already hear the uncertainty in Connery’s voice. He knew I was going to propose something dangerous.
“Jack said, the King doesn’t see humans. I’m human. I can get close to him. I can kill him.”
I heard the low sound of Connery drawing in a long breath. It was like the lull before the storm of the argument that was obviously going to follow.
“Ursula, if it was that easy then Jack would have said so. The King may not be able to see you, but let’s not forget; that’s how he got killed last time. It’s not as if he’s blind. When Jack fought him, he had gotten out of the habit of using his eyes. He may have learned his lesson. You’re relying on him making the same mistake twice.”
“I don’t think you can just say; okay, now I’m going to see humans,” I argued back. “It’s a big change and someone that old has a right to be set in their ways. Especially if they’ve been dead a while.”
“That’s only part of it,” Connery wasn’t done. “Even if – and I stress the word if – the King can’t see you, he’s not the only one down there. He’s surrounded by wraiths, who can definitely see you.”
“We’ve been knocking them out for fun for the last two months.”
“They will be very different when they’re defending their master,” said Connery. “And we’ve been tackling no more than two or three each at a time. Who knows how many he’s got down there by now. It could be a hundred or more. Most importantly, you said ‘we’ve been knocking them out’. I won’t be down there with you. No one will, Ursula. That’s the ultimate issue here. That’s the reason this is so impossible. No human is going to get through those wraiths – not even you. For that, you need a vampire. But no vampire can even enter the catacombs without surrendering their minds to the King. It’s a catch twenty-two. A human can kill the King but can’t get through the wraiths, a vampire could get through the wraiths but not while the King’s alive.”
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