Melinas Men

Chapter Ten.

Chapter Ten.

So, Carmichael was my confidante somehow. And I don’t know why he did what he did but I wasn’t willing to ask. He was either on my side, thinking Jack will give me happiness. Or he was waiting for a massive blow up. Either way I somehow had agreed to go out with Jack this afternoon. I didn’t know how this was going to work out, but I hoped he had a plan.

This was our first proper date, after a week of knowing each other and secret glances, and Jack pushing the limits. But this would be the most riskiest thing we’ve done.

I made sure I looked good, but not like a princess. I wore my black slacks with a beige short sleeve blouse tucked in. I tied all my hair back in a high pony, my hair flowing over my shoulder. I tried to look effortless but not like I didn’t try at all.

At five o’clock on the dot I heard a soft knock on my door, I jumped out of my trance and headed for the door, it was Georgia.

She was grinning from ear to ear, “so you finally listened to me.”

I chuckled, “not everything’s about you Georgia.”

“Very well, could you go to the stables please,” she smirked.

I rolled my eyes as Georgia sauntered off looking like the cat that caught the mouse. I seriously hoped they had a plan put together if my parents did come back from wherever they were and wondered where I was. But let’s face it, now that Prince Eric was gone, my mother would be off and not bother knowing what I was doing. There wasn’t much mischief to get up to around this place, until now.

I walked to the stables, wondering what on earth I was doing. My stomach was doing somersaults and my nerves were fried. I had never been out with a man without supervision of some sort.

As I got to the stables I saw Jack waiting inside for me. He looked whimsical with cream chinos rolled up his calves and a oversized white button up shirt with his tattoos poking through.

“What the hell Melina, I’ve been waiting for hours,” he began.

“Excuse me, I only knew about this a couple of seconds ago,” I flew back in defence.

Jack just laughed, “I’m just kidding. Sorry, I realise it’s not as funny as I thought.”

“You’re an i***t,” I smiled, shaking my head, “so what are we doing?”

He thought for a moment, “a part of Carmichaels butlers job is shovelling s**t. So here we are.”

“You’re definitely not dressed for that,” I looked him up and down, “at least I’m wearing black.”

I didn’t buy it for a moment.

“Yes, and you look good in it. Will you stop asking questions and just follow me?”

I crossed my arms, “I like knowing where I’m going before I walk off with strange men.”

“We’re a bit past that aren’t we?” He raised a brow at me.

I couldn’t keep my straight face anymore, he was just so cheeky, “fine.”

“Okay, so if we walk in a perfectly diagonal line no one from the house will see us walk into the forest,” he told me, beginning to walk.

“We’re going into the forest! So you are going to murder me?” Even though this sounded crazy, my feet didn’t stop as I walked toward to property line alongside Jack.

Jack laughed, lifting his shirt up, “I didn’t bring any weapons with me.”

I caught a glimpse of his skin above his pants, it was all black, white and grey.

“I don’t see anything else either, so you’re not prepared for anything.”

“You got me there, maybe I have something set up in the forest,” he told me.

“Weapons and maybe a shovel to dig my grave?” I queried, jokingly, hopefully.

“Can you stop being a cop and asking so many questions?” He looked down at me, the sun catching his hair.

The sun was still high in the sky and it wouldn’t get dark for hours now that we were in Spring.

“That wasn’t a no,” I mused.

He rolled his eyes, “no, Melina. I am not going to murder you. It wasn’t my intention anyway, but with all these questions, who knows?”

We both laughed. It was light and casual, and enjoyable. It was about a ten minute walk diagonally from where we were to where we’d enter the forest.

“So you’re not going to let me ask any questions about what we’re doing?” I asked, about three minutes in.

“Nope,” he popped the ‘p’.

“Okay, tell me something else then,” I said. Wanting to know more about him, and not be in silence.

“Like what?” He looked down at me for a brief moment.

“I don’t know,” I thought about it for a while, “do you have any brothers or sisters?”

“I have an older brother, although I hadn’t seen him in about fifteen years. He’s ten years older than me, and moved away as soon as he could.”

“From another marriage?” I asked.

He nodded, “his mother and my dad were married, they went their separate ways when my dad got the job at King Angus’s castle. Jacob, my brother, stayed with his mum.”

I nodded, that seemed very complicated.

“He’d come visit on the weekends, but he wasn’t all that interested in where we lived.”

I decided to leave that where it was, it seemed a little too intense.

“So you’ve always lived at the castle?”

He nodded.

“That’s nice,” I nodded.

“Yeah, there was always something to do as a kid. I helped my dad a lot and me and Eric ended up being like brothers. Until I moved away for a while when I was eighteen.”

I didn’t say anything, but Jack answered the question in my head.

“I went looking for my mum. It wasn’t good what I found.”

We walked in silence after that. I felt like I was pressing too much and didn’t want to. I knew Jack could have found a lot out about me by now, but everything about him seemed very serious and intense.

The time went quicker than I anticipated and we were already at the property line. The wildflowers that lined the forest were amazing up close. But Jack kept walking into the forest.

“Where are we going now?” I asked, slowing down.

“No questions, remember?” He smirked, giving me nothing.

“Fine,” I quickly caught back up to him.

The walk became more strenuous and ended up being an incline over a couple of rocks but nothing I couldn’t handle. I watched Jack ahead of me as he did it with ease.

Before too long we were on top of a hill, there was a clearing full of grass and daisies, and right in the middle was a picnic blanket spread out with a picnic basket. It looked adorable.

“Did you do this?” I gaped at it in surprise.

“Yep,” he looked very proud of himself and it was very attractive.

“You did so well,” I smiled, walking towards the picnic blanket. I noticed candles all around in case it went dark. The view from where the picnic blanket was was absolutely amazing. From the side we came we could see the green forest and then the house peeking out from the top. On the other side it was just forest as far as the eye could see, all dark and green with a few blossoms of colour from the wildflowers. It was just us and the horizon.

“I’ve never seen this place,” I told him. I turned to see him sitting on the rug beside me. I sat down with him.

“Yeah I thought higher ground was better just in case for some reason people were hunting,” he said. It wasn’t hunting season so no one should be. But every now and then people did break the rules.

“It’s so nice.”

“I’m glad you like it,” he said, “I won’t lie, Georgia gave me the idea, but I found the spot.”

“The spot is the best part,” I said, smiling at him genuinely.

He opened the picnic basket and I could see fruits and little sandwiches as well as scones, my favourite.

“I’m guessing you didn’t make all this either?” I asked, laughing.

“I did not,” he laughed, “but I did choose to bring this. I figured you actually liked beer more than champagne.”

He pulled out a six pack, taking two out he cracked them open and passed me one.

I took a sip and almost moaned as the beer delighted my throat.

“Yeah, I’m not actually allowed to drink them. Champagne only, or red wine if I’m lucky,” I laughed.

That was mums rule, women should only have a champagne or wine glass in front of them or else it wasn’t classy. Better for our figure too.

“You’re right, your family is sexist,” he told me, deadly serious.

I almost spat my drink out in laughter.

“What about when you finally leave this place? Will you drink beer?” He asked.

“Behind closed doors of course,” I laughed.

“You’ll be allowed to do a lot more things behind closed doors,” he said slowly, looking straight into my eyes.

I looked down, hot under his gaze, I knew exactly what he meant.

“Does it bother you?” I finally built up the courage to ask. I wanted to know as soon as I had told him.

“Does what?” He asked.

I rolled my eyes, “don’t make me say it.”

“I’m going to make you say it,” he gave me a cheeky grin.

I rolled my eyes, “that I’m a virgin.”

He thought for a moment, making me squirm in anticipation of the answer, most likely on purpose, “no, it doesn’t bother me. I quite like it.”

“Really?” I was surprised.

“I’d like my wife to only had been mine.”

At the same time we both went silent, for the same reason. What did that mean for us?

A couple hours later and on to our last beers the sun was starting to set. We had been talking for hours but there was still so much to say.

“So what do you actually do, for your job?” I asked.

He laughed, “not much really. I just go places with him, grab his drinks for him, if he forgets his phone in his room I go grab it.”

“And they pay you, that’s not bad,” I shrugged.

“I’m pretty sure they took me in to give me a fresh start and just needed to validate it on the books,” he said, “I’ll take it. I’d like to have a real job one day though. Maybe once Eric gets married and leaves the castle.”

“What will you do?” I asked.

“Construction, maybe?” He answered like it was a question.

“Sounds like you have it all figured out,” I said, finishing my beer.

Almost instantly Jack handed me another, “I have nothing figured out. That’s the best part.”

“The best part?” I queried.

“Yeah,” he started, “you know? Not knowing what’s going to happen next. Just go with the flow and hopefully get a good surprise.”

“My life has never been like that,” I said, “and I do like knowing what’s coming for me.”

“Maybe you should try getting surprised for once.”

Jack leant over, his strong arm holding him up as he used his other to hold onto my jaw pulling me closer to him, I leant in following his lead as he kissed my softly.

As our lips parted for a moment I couldn’t help but say, “did you do that on purpose?”

Jack laughed against my lips, kissing me quickly again, “kind of yeah.”

“You’re so smooth,” I laughed against him, putting my arms around his neck I kissed him again.

Jack pushed me backwards lightly with his body until I was laying down and he was hovering over me, kissing me more deeply, his tongue pressed against my lips for access. I willingly let him in as I held onto the hair at the nape of his neck with one hand, my other exploring his muscly back. Every slight move he made made his muscles contract and I could feel every movement. Jack positioned himself between my legs as I wrapped them around his waist. Our hips were grinding against each other as our pelvises were perfectly aligned. I could feel something building up inside of me.

His lips moved away from mine as he kissed my chin, down to my neck, across my collarbone and one of his hands kneaded my breast. I needed more and before I could stop myself my hips bucked against his, in turn he pushed his down, pinning me to the spot as he unbuttoned my shirt with one hand before moving it back to my breast, underneath my bra. His fingertips moved over my n****e as he came back up and kissed me passionately. I clawed at his back trying to get him closer to me, my n****e became stiff and sore as he pinched it harder before he stopped and pulled my bra down, covering it with his mouth. His tongue lapped at my n****e, soothing it, while his hand moved to give the other n****e attention.

A gasp escaped my lips, and with that it all stopped. Jack quickly sat up, and my body almost whimpered at the loss of his. Quickly I sat up as well, buttoning up my shirt. Had I done something wrong?

I looked out towards the horizon and realised the sun had almost set now and it was starting to get dark. We sat there silently for a moment before Jack spoke, “I’m sorry, we should probably get back now.”

“Okay,” it’s all I could say.

Jack quickly started packing everything up.

We both stood up, ready to go.

As we did so something ruffled through the forest around us, first from then left, then just as quickly from the right. Both of our heads darted from left to right, following the rustling.

“What was that?” Surely no one had followed us out here.

“I’m sure it’s nothing, but we definitely should go. Hold my hand, it might be hard to see where you’re walking.” Jack told me, taking my hand in one of his. The other holding the picnic basket as we walked back towards the stables.

We got back much quicker than it took to get to the forest.

“You head back now, I’ll wait a while,” he offered to me.

I started to walk off, but I didn’t even leave the stables when I finally got some courage.

“Hey!” I turned back around and walked towards Jack, “what was that? It was like you’re hot then you’re cold, what did I —,” before I could finish Jack walked towards me and kissed me, both his hands holding onto my face.

“See, just like that, you don’t speak to me for ten minutes now —,” and he did it again.

“Just be quiet will you,” he said.

I looked at him confused.

“You didn’t do anything wrong, you did everything right. I want you so bad, just not like that. I had to stop myself.”

Now this is awkward, “well you could have just said that.”

“Could I?” He laughed.

He turned me around and then slapped my ass, “now go. Before we get caught.”

I couldn’t help but smile back at him before I left in a hurry back towards the house.