Siobhan fell into step behind him, pausing here and there to smell the flowers. Barton, utterly entranced, stared into one of the ponds as a pair of multicolored fish circled around each other. Siobhan clapped her hands over her mouth as he surged forward to try and catch one and succeeded only at splashing face-first into the water. She grabbed his collar to drag him back to the path.
A man—middle aged, probably, though Siobhan had given up trying to tell how old vampires were beyond a loose guess by that point—met them just inside the manor.
“We got a call that you would be coming,” he informed them pleasantly. “From Minako. We expected you to be here sooner, actually.” He added, as an afterthought, “Marcus, by the way. The primary caretaker and tour guide for the manor.”
He was a plain-looking man, with a narrow, pointed nose, and eyes—a deep blue beneath the bronze—that were just a bit too close set to suit his face. His hair was short, slicked back, and a mousey shade of brown. He was just right to be a tour guide, Siobhan thought; he wouldn’t overpower any of the attractions.
“We stopped in Australia first,” Jack supplied, dropping both bags on the floor. “It’s been…an adventure.”
“Should I assume you aren’t going straight out into the maze, then?” Marcus asked dryly, picking up the bags.
Jack groaned and dropped his face down into his hands. “No,” he confirmed, dragging a hand down his face. “It’s been…a day. I don’t have enough brain cells left to describe it beyond that.”
“They got cooked out of us,” Siobhan added, and though her words came out a bit more sulkily than she had intended, she couldn’t really bring herself to care that much.
With a laugh, Marcus shouldered the bags and turned toward the stairs. “I’ll drop these upstairs, and you can just do…whatever, then. They’ll be in the first room on the left.”
*
They spent that night exploring the manor until the sun rose and they fled to their newly assigned room to nap for a couple hours. When they woke up, they found Barton rolling indolently on a pile of pillows on the floor that hadn’t been there before, and there was an empty bowl by the door.
“We don’t get many dogs at the manor,” Marcus confessed later. “I couldn’t help it.” And really, Siobhan couldn’t argue with that logic. Not coincidentally, Barton spent most of the day after that following Marcus around the manor.
Most of the day after was spent idly exploring the manor until sundown, when Siobhan stepped outside and went trekking for the first piece of flat, unobstructed ground she could find. She sprawled out on her back, staring up at the sky. It seemed like it had been an eternity since she had last had the chance to just watch the sky without a ship rocking beneath her. Few things were better than firm ground below and the endless expanse of the Milky Way above.
Jack joined her twenty minutes later, lying down beside her in the grass. They were silent at first, but it was comfortable.
“Tell me about them?” he asked eventually, lifting a hand to trace it loosely between a few stars in no particular pattern. If he caught a few stars that were actually linked in a constellation, it was entirely by coincidence. “I don’t know much about them, other than the big dipper and the little dipper.”
Slowly, Siobhan grinned. “I can do that,” she agreed easily, and she sat up slowly. Lifting a hand, she pointed to one particularly bright star. “That is Deneb,” she explained, “and if you follow it this way all the way to Albireo,” she dragged her finger in a line accordingly, “then you’ll see the rest of the body of Cygnus, the swan. You can see the wings coming off the second star from his head, just behind Albireo. That’s why it gets called the Northern Cross sometimes.” She let her hand fall back to her side.
“Cygnus could be a couple of things,” she added. “He could be Zeus, disguised so he can seduce Leda, or he could be a friend of Apollo’s son Phaethon, after getting turned into a swan out of sympathy from Zeus while trying to save Phaethon from drowning.”
“Sorry, I’m still caught on Zeus turning into a bird to seduce someone,” Jack replied, his tone slightly shell shocked as he pondered the idea. “How would that even work—actually, no, don’t explain that. Please. I don’t really want to know.”
Siobhan patted his shoulder. “Ancient Greeks were weird,” she informed him. “They came up with even weirder gods to make up for it.” She grinned slyly. “Trust me, that’s not even the weirdest way Zeus has fucked someone.”
She carried on quickly after that, before he had time to question the statement. Greek mythology was an impressive rabbit hole to fall down, and it was better saved for when they had…possibly an extra week or two.
She tipped her head back more, gaze darting until she found what she was looking for. She lifted a hand again, tracing it back and forth across an almost eerily straight line of stars. “That line makes up part of one of the wings of Aquila, the eagle. The one in the center, the really bright one, is Altair. And if you follow them,” she traced one finger along them, “then you can find a sort of diamond shape to make up the rest of the wings, with another bit branching off. I’m…not actually sure if that’s supposed to be the eagle’s head or tail.” She snorted.
“Why is Aquila such a special eagle?” Jack asked, glancing from where she was pointing, to her face, and back again.
“He was either the one who held onto Zeus’s thunderbolts and ran errands for him, or he was the one who ate Prometheus’s liver every night in retaliation for giving fire to humanity,” she replied, as easily as if she was saying ‘it’s dark out.’
Jack blinked slowly. “Do we know what any constellation actually represents?” he eventually wondered wryly. “Or are all of them ‘choose your own adventure’ stories?” His mouth twitched into a wry smile for a moment. “If so, one of them should definitely be a story about people on an ill-fated road trip.”
Laughing, Siobhan punched his shoulder and pointed out, “The stories are old, okay? Personally, though,” she brought a hand to her chest as she said it, “I think it’s the second one. I mean, Prometheus’s jailer sounds a bit more interesting than Zeus’s gofer.”
“Just a bit,” Jack agreed. He budged over a bit closer to her, until he could curl his fingers around hers. “What else?” Siobhan couldn’t tell if he was actually interested in the stories or if he was just humoring her, but she appreciated it either way. It was nice to get a chance to actually talk about it for a change, with someone who actually talked back. Barton was a very good listener, but he didn’t exactly talk much, and she imagined he was sick of the stories anyway.
Her fingers tightened around his, and she hummed thoughtfully. “Let’s find a harder one,” she mumbled, mostly to herself. “Ah, I know.” She lifted her free hand again, pointing to one moderately bright star. “That is Ras Alhague. It’s the head of Ophiuchus, the serpent bearer. Now, you have to pay attention.” She cocked her head to the side enough to grin at him before she began to trace out the constellation’s wobbling shape, which branched off every direction and consisted of over two dozen stars.
Jack blinked slowly. “That seems excessive,” he finally decided. He had already lost track of whatever shape it was supposed to be. “What makes Ophiuchus special enough that he gets to be so complicated? Or could this one also be a ‘choose your own story’ constellation?”
“He was a god,” Siobhan explained. “Ophiuchus represents Asclepius, Apollo’s son. He was the god of medicine. He learned how to resurrect the dead, which made Hades a little paranoid. So Hades asked Zeus to kill Asclepius. Zeus did, because honestly, no one really needs the ability to make zombies, but he put Asclepius in the stars to honor him.” She pointed to one star in particular. “That one there is RS Ophiuchi. Not so bright now, but it’s a recurrent nova, so at some point down the line, it could get super bright, only to dim again a while later.”
She turned her head to look at Jack as she finished explaining, her lips parting again to ask if he wanted to he
ar about anything else, only to pause at the look on his face. He just looked so fondly at her, as if he was utterly besotted.
After a few seconds, she cleared her throat and pointed out, “You’re staring at me.”
“Am I?” he asked, sounding entirely unbothered by the observation. “I guess I can’t help it. You just get really excited about this.”
Siobhan snorted. “Is that a good thing or a bad thing?” she wondered wryly, but rather than a proper answer, Jack sat up and kissed her, one hand cupping the side of her jaw and the other supporting his weight. Siobhan made a tiny, surprised noise against his mouth before she leaned into it, her lips parting as she practically melted against him.
For a few moments, that was all that happened, but it didn’t take long before the line between ‘passionate’ and ‘heated’ began to get a bit indistinct, and Jack slipped a hand up her shirt, his fingers skimming up her side. Caught on his wrist, her shirt was gradually rucked up as his hand moved higher.
The kiss broke, just barely, so Jack could cast a glance down at her shirt and ask lowly, “Can I?” He was still close enough that their lips brushed as he spoke.
In answer, Siobhan leaned away from him just enough to pull her shirt over her head and drop it to the grass, before she leaned back in to kiss him again, one hand lifting to thread into his hair.
One of Jack’s hands slipped around Siobhan’s ribs, gliding up her back until he got to the clasp of her bra. He fussed with it for a moment before he got it unlatched. With an amused huff of breath, Siobhan broke the kiss just enough to point out, “You know, we’re basically in public.”
“No one’s here,” Jack reasoned in returned, glancing around pointedly. “Unless you think the elephant is going to come take pictures, I think we’ve got plenty of privacy.”
Siobhan dipped her head in a brief nod, conceding the point with a snort. “Fair enough,” she decided wryly, and she let her arms fall so her bra simply fell off. A moment later, it joined her shirt. “Your turn,” she added, hooking two fingers in the front of the neck of Jack’s shirt and giving it a playful tug. “I’m feeling awfully underdressed in comparison.”
“Pretty sure I should be feeling overdressed,” he returned, his tone very reasonable as he gave her a slow once over.
“Either way, we need to fix it,” Siobhan informed him equally reasonably, giving the neck of his shirt another tug. Her hand dropped as he leaned back enough to pull his shirt over his head and toss it onto the growing pile.
Not to be outdone, Siobhan toed off her boots and sat up on her knees, shimmying her skirt, her leggings, and her panties down all at once. She kicked them off once they were below her knees, and they joined the pile with everything else, soon followed by Jack’s pants and his briefs. It wasn’t the neatest arrangement, but Jack had made a good point when he said that they didn’t have to worry about anyone seeing them. Why worry when they didn’t need to?
A myriad of socks joined the pile next, and just like that, both of them were as naked as the days they were born, sitting in the grass. It was actually sort of freeing, and there was a bit of a thrill in knowing that someone might be able to spot them from the manor if they looked out the right window.
Siobhan planted a hand on Jack’s chest and gave him a shove until he tipped over backward, landing on the grass, his hands at his sides. He was grinning crookedly as she flung a leg over him and straddled his thighs, and he leaned up on one elbow so he could trail a hand up her stomach, his fingers dragging along her skin. She hummed contently and shifted her weight back and forth before she closed her fingers around his cock. His erection was only at about half-mast by then, but that was a situation she could definitely fix.
She stroked his cock experimentally, the strength of her grip and the speed of each stroke fluctuating until she finally found the combination that had him panting beneath her. With slow, tight strokes, her thumb sweeping over the head on each upward drag, soon enough his cock was erect and weeping, precum leaking over Siobhan’s fingers, and he was groaning with each stroke, his nails dragging absentmindedly along her ribs.
When her hand slowed and came to a halt on his cock, Jack very nearly protested, his mouth opening on the words, though he closed his mouth once again when he saw her straightening up on her knees and he realized what was about to happen. His hands settled on her thighs before sliding upward to grip her hips, just in time for her to position his cock at her entrance.
She sank down slowly, her hands on his abdomen and his fingers tight on her hips. When he was fully sheathed within her and she was perched on his hips once again, she paused for a few moments, adjusting to the way he filled her. He wasn’t her first (and she was willing to stake money on her not being his first), but it had still been a while since the last time she had done this.
Slowly, she lifted herself up, his hands tightening on her hips as she did. As she lowered herself back to his lap, she rocked back and forth, just to see his eyes close and his head tip back against the grass.
It was slow, but that only made it all the better. Each lift upward was methodical, and each drop back down was a steady slide to feel each inch of him, periodically ending with her rocking on his hips to feel him shift within her and to feel his fingers clench against her hips.
It was only when each breath left Siobhan’s mouth as a thready moan and Jack was groaning and panting on the grass that the careful, slow rhythm began to pick up, until Siobhan was bouncing on his hips and Jack was lifting himself off of the ground to meet her each time.
With a low, drawn out moan, Siobhan’s head fell back, her hair tickling over her shoulders. Her eyes closed, her hands clenched into fists against his stomach, and every muscle in her legs and her abdomen stretched taut, until it felt like she was either going to snap or fly apart into pieces. With a final shuddering sigh, she came. For just a moment, she sat still atop his hips, until his grip on her tightened once more and he began to lift her again.
It took only a few more shallow thrusts before he came, his back arching like a bow and his hips stuttering upward until he went limp beneath her, his hold on her hips gradually relaxing.
For a few moments, neither of them moved, save for their chests heaving as they panted for breath. Eventually, Siobhan lifted herself up, his softened cock slipping out of her, and she tumbled down to the ground beside him, landing on her side before she rolled onto her back.
The grass was cool against Siobhan’s back afterward, and she absentmindedly ran her hands back and forth through it. Carelessly, she plucked a few strands of it between her fingers and idly wove them together. Her stomach twitched every so often as Jack traced a finger in aimless patterns along it, lying on his side to face her.
“So, that was something,” she observed eventually, stretching her arms up over her head and arching her back. “We should’ve tried this out in the maze so we could smell like pepper afterward.”
Jack wrinkled his nose. “Because that wouldn’t get suffocating really quickly,” he grumbled good-naturedly. “Besides, I think you smell nice.”
Siobhan rolled her eyes. “You are such a sap,” she scoffed, nudging him with her knee. He muffled a laugh against her neck and kissed her shoulder.
“Only occasionally,” he protested. “I’m an asshole plenty of the time, too.”
“Not really,” Siobhan returned, shrugging the shoulder that Jack wasn’t leaning his chin on.
He nosed at her ear. “You’ll ruin my reputation, talking like that.”
“I don’t actually know your reputation,” Siobhan replied, “but I’m pretty sure it involves you being an overly helpful nerd. Or maybe a golden retriever. Or a collie.”
“Why a dog?” he asked, and though he sounded like he was pouting, there was a crooked smile on his face.
“Helpful, loyal, and eager to please, but sometimes you get a bug up your butt and are a bit of a prick,” Siobhan explained wryly. “And you really like Barton.”
“He’s a
good dog,” Jack protested, as if Siobhan was in any way unaware of that fact.
“That just proves that you’re a dog,” she sniffed primly. “I’m a cat,” she carried on in a lofty tone. “I’m pretty and adorable, and I rule the roost until there’s a bigger cat around.”
He snorted out a laugh, his breath warm against her neck. “Right, right, sure,” he assured her. “We’ll just go with that.”
She turned her head to squint at him. “I feel like you’re being sarcastic,” she mused, feigning offense.
Pasting a look of wide-eyed innocence onto his face, Jack slowly sat up. “Come on, we should probably head back in,” he suggested, sitting up on his knees and reaching for the pile of clothes. “I don’t know about you, but I’d like a shower.” He sorted through the pile haphazardly, pulling his own clothes onto his lap and dropping each article of Siobhan’s clothes onto her stomach. Pouting, she sat up and began to disentangle her skirt, leggings, and panties from each other.
The Vampire's Bond Trilogy: The Complete Vampire Romance Series Page 13