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CHAPTER SEVEN
News travels fast, it seems.
In two days, word had spread, gotten out, and by the time that April made it back into the castle that evening after her walk with Arizona, it seemed that everyone was aware of the good news.
There was going to be an heir, another one.
But April wasn't sure that she could handle all of the pressures already being pushed on her.
She was followed, at every step and around every corner, as though nobody dared leave her alone in fear that something tragic might happen.
It was nice to have people concerned about you, but there's also always a moment or two where you would prefer to be alone.
So, she walks, into the evening before Jo serves supper, and she chats with Arizona about the day's events.
Arizona was a tall blonde, born up in the North much like April. She had wed a second cousin of Jackson's so she happened to spend quite a bit of time around the Avery Caste with her.
She stays for dinner sometimes, when her husband is otherwise busy and when Jackson is too preoccupied to join his wife.
"I must go." She speaks, sending the redhead a small smile.
April frowns, "Do you have to go right away?"
"I'm afraid I have to, Ca- Alexander demands my return." She grasps the other woman's hand, "It's been lovely seeing you."
She doesn't question her slip-up, her stutter, but she nods and accepts Arizona's goodbye.
"I'll see you tomorrow?"
"Definitely."
So, she leaves, and the red haired woman finally breathes out, finding her alone in an empty dining hall.
She sits, waiting for Jo to make an exit from the kitchen.
After a moment, she stands, hands flat against her still invisible belly.
Pushing open the door to the cookery, she glances around with a frown when she notices an empty space. There were no staff, no servants. Not even any food served or waiting.
It wasn't that she was hungry, just that she expected to receive the girl's company.
Jo usually came out with her, their, supper. She tended to chat with the future queen, usually more often when Jackson doesn't join the table.
"What in the-"
Spinning back around, she feels her arms fly up to her chest as she bumps into someone. They grasp her forearms, stopping her from moving, holding her in safe place.
"Are you alright, My Lady?"
She recognises him as one of the servants, the young man who tends to cater to her husband's requests and who spends his free time with Jo.
"I am. Do you know where everybody has gone?"
The boy, who couldn't possibly be any older than sixteen, raises his brows, letting go of her arms gently. His name is Ross, she thinks. She tends to remember him for his chocolate eyes contrasting perfectly with his darker skin tone, and he was the son of Chef Bailey.
"We were given the night off, My Lady. It is strange, really, since it almost never happens." Ross rambles, blinking and hand fluttering about, "But Lord Avery said that you were aware of this? Jo said you were to be in your chambers by now?"
"At half past seven?"
"I don't know, My Lady. I'm just a messenger, it seems." He shrugs, clearly almost as baffled as she is.
April nods slowly at his every word, patting a hand to his shoulder. "Thank you."
"And congratulations." He calls out when she walks past him, heading for the door.
She just turns, smiles, before she goes back on her way, in search of her husband or someone with an ounce of information.
Perhaps slipping into the room had been a bad idea.
She was sure that she was not supposed to be hearing this.
"His heart is weak, My Lord. I'm not sure how much longer we have left."
She hears a sigh, sees her husband place his hands to his hips from where she stands.
"Will he make it though the night?"
"At this point, the odds of him making it through the next four hours are poor."
Spotting Jackson drop his head, gaze to the ground, she steps forward, coming out of her shadows.
"My Lady-"
She stands beside Jackson, palm against the low of his back and the other hand on her stomach.
"What are you doing here?"
"I am your wife."
As though that's reason enough, as though that will explain everything he needs to hear right now.
She is here for support, for him. He needs help, and aid, a little comfort in this moment.
"You should not be here." Jackson informs her, lifting his gaze to look at her sideways. He drops his hands again, swallowing a breath and turning his body away from the sick man in the plump bed.
April continues to stare.
He isn't well.
His skin is pale, most likely due to a lack of hydration and fluids. He seems weak, like he wouldn't even be able to lift a finger. He makes small coughing sounds every so often, a little too rough than what should be considered healthy.
"You need me."
It's a fact.
He needs her, might always will, probably always has.
She is his wife, and he mother of his unborn child, and his future Queen. She is his, his comfort and soothing. She is his blanket on a cold night, his ice when he feels too warm.
"I need you.
And he is going to, now and forever.
Because his father is not well, and he's going to be the one responsible, and he will need her by his side. As his support, his reassurance, his hope.
She will give him courage, and strength, and a child. She will share her life with him the way he wants, needs, her to. She will be his. She will be there. She will want him to need her.
Feeling his hand grasp her own tenderly, her breath hitches at the sensation. It's nice, and simple, and he's never quite touched her like that before.
"Come with me."
When her back comes into contact with the wooden door behind her, she stops him, palms to his chest.
"Wait."
"What?"
"I have to ask you something."
He backs away, slides his shirt from his body in the process, toys with the strings of his pants.
April sighs, licking her dry lips as she moves. She chews on. Her lip for a second, hands patting down the sides of her dress before she rests her fingertips loosely on the ties of her gown.
She watches as Jackson sits down on the bed, elbows to his knees and head dropped again.
Maybe now isn't the right time, she thinks.
He seems challenged, damaged, and though she's never lost a parent she can almost understand what he's going through.
Taking a shallow breath, she walks toward him. She stops right in front of him, knees bumping above his and she lifts her hands to the long straps of her dress.
"Do you like this?"
"Is that what you wanted to ask me?"
She ignores him. She knows what she's doing, what he needs.
"Do you like this?"
Jackson lifts his head, green eyes catching sight of her hands on the material. "It's... lovely." He frowns, aware of what she's trying to do but unsure of how she's choosing to go about it.
Her fingers move across the red gown, tapping along her collarbone and at the base of her neck. "What about this?" Her hands move further south, between her cleavage and across her breasts.
"I do." He nods, kicking his legs out and leaning back on his forearms.
She grins wickedly, pulling down the straps of her dress, letting the cloth gather at her elbows. "How about now?"
"I'm not sure."
She slips them lower, resting just below her now bare breasts. Gone is the innocent good girl who came here months ago. She was a woman now. A woman who knows what she wants and knows exactly how to get it. It was as though there was some chemical reaction going off in her brain, and a monster in the pit of her stomach that was telling her what to do.
April lets him pull her closer, dragging the material of her dress towards him and pushing it past her hips. "Now?"
He leans forward, forehead pressed to her belly and nose caressing her pelvis. "Not yet."
His hands slide the dress down her frame, letting it pool at her feet and allowing her the space to step out of it.
His palms run up the outsides of her creamy thighs, thumbs tracing the insides. He presses a soft kiss to her pelvis before grasping her hips gently and drawing her closer.
She moans softly when he kisses and nibbles along the insides of her thighs, her hands flying to rest against his shoulders.
"How about now?"
Her voice breaks, squeaks,
"Almost."
She suddenly feels him grab her behind, lifting her up to swing her to the side, her back colliding with the mattress beneath him. He turns sideways, hands cradling her face and lips damp.
She lies down silently, giving him full control of the situation, of her.
He kisses her once softly, a little too quickly, before he brings his lips down to her collarbone. His teeth graze her skin innocently before he continues down, skimming past her chest and heading straight for her belly button. He licks her flesh, tongue lapping at her skin and she can't help but let her eyelids drift close.
His hands move to her knees and he pushes her legs apart, shifting to pepper kisses down the creases of her skin. She keeps her eyes sealed as he moves, her voice pitching high notes from deep in her throat when she feels him press his lips to her centre.
A hand moves toward her core, fingers tracing her slit, as he sweeps his tongue across her bundle of nerves, repeatedly and expertly.
She calmly keeps her mouth closed, teeth clamped and biting into her bottom lip. "Uh." She nervously twitches, body arching off to the side as she feels him slowly start to bring her to climax, thumb tapping rhythmically and furiously at her nub.
"Jac- Eh!" She groans, eyelids fluttering like wings as she writhes, almost convulses beneath his touch.
She almost doesn't want it to end, like she might die if she finishes, if it ends. It's like there was something that was stopping her, that didn't want her to win. It was like experienced something so great, so unique and earth-shattering that you were holding off on its end.
She doesn't feel like she can end, so she pulls away, hips moving out of his range, almost like she was rejecting him. She thinks it's an odd quirk, that her hips can move all on their own without her controlling them. Like they've had enough, like they don't want to stop, like the pleasure was too great and it almost becomes painful to witness.
But he pins her, hand to thigh, and tongue to sensitive skin, and she dies, in every sense of the word without actually dying. It's like a bomb exploded in your insides, like incredible torture that you can't help but love and it's an endless joy.
"Now." He tells her, pressing his lips back against the insides of her legs pulled up at his head and smirking into her tainted flesh.
She wants to hit him. For joking, for teasing, for making her feel such a thing. It was like her brain had been telling her that she didn't want to finish, didn't need to, and that if she did she would be on death's door.
He pulls back up at her side, collapsing down beside on the bed, a smile on his face.
"You are definitely a sight."
She's not sure whether to take that as a compliment, so she just rolls to the side, hitches a leg over his and straddles him, hands to his chest and pushing him back down this time.
"Do you like this?" She starts up again, grinding her jittery hips into his clothed ones and running her thumbs down his jugular.
"You riding my cock?" He quips, fingertips roughly digging into her waist. He had forgotten for a brief moment there that she was carrying his child. But as long as he wasn't too rough than there shouldn't be a problem. Jackson blinks, licking his lips and eyeing the woman above him.
"Yes. Do you like it?"
"Can't you feel that?"
She nods, pushing further into him and biting her lip, "Definitely. It's so... hard."
He smirks, pulling her closer and running a had up her back.
He isn't sure when things had changed; when she'd gone from being his virginal wife to an animal in the bedroom. It was definitely a change for the good, at least he thought so. How could he not?
She wasn't shy, though she still tended to blush at certain things. But that was to be expected. She was lovely, and decent, and she didn't deserve to be treated like anything less. She deserved to be treated like royalty, like who she was. She wasn't common, or cheap, or a whore like his father had so kindly suggested he opt for.
She deserved romance because she was kind. She looked like she should and acted as such, but what goes on between a man and wife in their bed is a private matter.
Why should anybody ever know just how corrupted he had made her?
She was his.
He was the only one that needed to know how to please her, pleasure her, love her. He was the only one to touch her, fuck her, make love to her.
He was the only one to love her.
He comes to the realisation when he feels her hands fondling the loose ties of his pants and stops her hands.
"What are you doing?"
"Hopefully-" She gestures down to his pants, freeing her hand and continuing with her travels. He lets her slip the garment from his body before she resumes her place above him, legs spread over his.
She leans down this time, lips pressing to the crook of his neck, pink tongue tracing his own flesh. She keeps shuffling lower until she reaches his navel, hands grasping his sides, a groan emitting from the back of her throat when a loud banging sounds at the door.
April rolls her eyes, giggling when he grasps her hips and pins her beneath him again, leaning back and letting his hands lightly tap down her legs.
"Yes?" He shouts to the door with a proud smirk as she shivers under his body, back arching when he slips his hand down her front again.
"My Lord, it's your father."
"Is he-" April begins quietly, only loud enough for Jackson to hear.
He hushes her, hand over her mouth as he breathes out in silence.
"I warn you, it is very urgent."
He moves at that, rising above April and stepping away from the bed. Quickly retrieving his pants off of the floor, he stands back up, pulling the cloth up his legs.
She kneels on the bed, pulling the sheet up to shield her body for when he opens the door. She doesn't want his guards to see her in her pride.
He pulls his forgotten shirt over his head in a hurry, leaving the small buttons open as he walks toward the door, unbolting it.
"I can come with you-"
He silences her by backtracking his steps and cupping the sides of her face between his hands.
He needs her. He needs her comfort, her aid, but only in the sidelines right now.
"I love you." He tells her honestly, forehead pressed to hers and lips dry. He smiles softly, thumb pinching her chin before he spins back around and leaves the room.
"Okay."
She doesn't need to ask him anymore.