Victoria's Demon Lover - By Alia Bess Page 0,44

nightfall and Jack coming onto the cottage for his supper and for her. She glared at Jasper. “I am not.”

“Something bad will happen if you stay,” Jasper insisted. “Please go home.”

“I am home.” Victoria looked at the tidy cottage and the vines of ivy and tiny roses that climbed over the stones and into the thatch of the steep roof. This was a fairy tale house. With a fairy tale man. She nudged Jasper away from her skirts with her foot. “Go away. I am enjoying this.”

The monkey demon glowered at her. “I like you, Victoria. I am only trying to help.”

She pointed at him and he ducked. “Go.” He did. She turned back to her laundry. Then she weeded the garden, then she stirred the soup, then she swept the cottage. She fed the three men their mid-day meal when they tromped in, tired and sweating. They ate in silence then went back out. She cleaned up, folded cloths, and learned to use a flatiron. She rubbed the blisters on her fingers as she waited for Jack to come in for his supper.

She fed him, sitting across the wood table watching as he ate his soup and the coarse bread she found in a basket near the hearth. She would have to learn how to bake bread. She wondered if she practiced back at her other house with her other stove she could come back here knowing how to do it right. She had a book on artisan bread baking on the shelf in her kitchen. Either way, she smiled to herself as she moved around the cottage, lighting oil lamps and the tallow candles as the sun set. Jack went out to the barn to tend the animals for the night and she closed and barred each of the shutters on the windows, pausing at the window where she and Torgal had spied on the lovers on their wedding night.

Jack came in with a smile. “Maggs. Finally. The day is over. I have been thinking about this moment all day.” He pulled her to him and bent to kiss her. Victoria opened her mouth and took his lips. Her back seemed to turn to jelly. His hands held her tighter as he felt her relax. She put her arms around his back, feeling the great strength there and breathing in the warm scent of his body. An honest man smell. No perfumes or deodorants or nasty cologne. Just warm man. He had rinsed himself from the barrel at the forge before coming on for his supper, but in a land where soft soap was a luxury he retained the glowing scent of honest labor. Victoria loved it. She breathed him in some more and was reminded of the soft coat of a horse. When she was a teenager she used to lean in to breathe in the scent of her horse in that warm place on his neck under the mane as she brushed him. This is what Jack smelled like. Like dust and fur and warmth.

She squeezed him tighter and he gave her a soft laugh as he nuzzled her neck under her hair. “Come, woman. Time for us.”

She started on the laces of her dress. He laughed some more and helped her. He said, “Yesterday you snapped at me that you were too tired from all the baking.”

“I am not too tired tonight,” she answered softly. She let him finished unlacing her dress and went for his breeches. The leather belt was unfamiliar and fastened with a loop and tie rather than a buckle. She tugged at him, making him sway to catch his balance. The leather came away and she unfastened the buttons that held the homespun wool to his hips. It fell to the stone floor. He stepped out of it and tugged her dress over her head. They stood there, naked, looking at each other in the candlelight.

“Ah, Maggs, you are a sight,” he smiled. “The loveliest woman in the village.”

“Ah, Jack,” she tilted her head shyly, “you are magnificent. The finest man in the village.” And he was. That happy feeling came over Victoria again as she took his hand and led him to the bed against the wall.

He took time touching her and brushing his lips over her breasts and fingers. He put his big hands on every part of her body, exploring her like he might examine one of his tools before using it. She wiggled into the soft bedding