keptherwaiting | 1863, Texas

1863, Texas

Jasper leans against the doorway of the barn, his gaze on the house across the way. The women, of course, were given the house, and he knows there's no danger for miles, yet he keeps watch. His gaze, in particular, resting on one candle-lit room.

The rest of the newborns are in the barn with him. Except for the one that Lucy pulled for the night as a companion. It's not the first time one of them has picked a lover to share a few hours with and it probably won't be the last, but it irks Jasper nonetheless.

Not because of Lucy, or that, just -

It makes the men even more obnoxious, especially when well-fed on top of it. Jasper would prefer them hungry now. At least their hunger distracts them from this. This is just -

His gaze drifts to the group behind him, where the others play a game of cards. The whispers from the corner make his jaw clench. The way they talk about the three woman.

- Obnoxious.

His gaze drifts off back to the house as Liam, the youngest of them, breaks off from the group and comes to join him. He braces himself. The boy is barely sixteen - he wishes Maria hadn't turned him. He can't control his feelings like some of the older newborns. He's more zealous when hunting, more anxious when hungry, and -

"Do they do that often?" he asks in a hushed whispers. "Take lovers?"

- Hornier, than the rest, on nights like these.

"Sometimes," Jasper grounds out, his jaw clenching tighter.

"Maria too?"

Jasper fights the urge to growl. “Stop talking and get back with the others,” he snaps instead, jerking his chin toward the group.

One of the older newborns looks up at the disturbance - Campbell, already grayed around the hairline - and he beckons the teenager back over to them. "C’mon, kid," his voice gruff as he meets Jasper's red-eyed gaze, all-knowing like he's the one with Jasper's powers, before he focuses on the kid again. "You ever play? We'll deal you in this time."

Jasper nods his thanks as Liam scurries back to the group and he looks to the house once more, back to the candle-lit window.

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The rhythmic knocking of a headboard against the wall is going to make Maria throw herself out of said candle-lit window. Lucy had taken the room next to Maria's chosen one and God, Maria regrets letting her.

A clay figurine on a shelf falls onto the floor; a little angel who has now lost her head. Maria frowns at it. She's going to get absolutely no work done with Lucy's current appetite.

Though, she can hardly blame her. It's been far too long since she's allowed herself any sort of companionship. Why bother, after all, when she's just going to kill them before the year is over?

Pacing to the window, Maria leans out of it, the wind picking up the tendrils of her hair as she stares out over the farm they've taken. Her eyes focus on the vampire standing at the barn door, his eyes focused on her window. Jasper.

Her lips purse, twist to the side to stop the small smile that threatens to show itself. She's grown fond of him and his usefulness to her. And, well, he's not hard to look at either. She pulls herself back inside after a moment, chewing on her lip.

Feet moving before she can think it through, Maria wanders downstairs, drawing her shawl tighter around herself, as if the cool night air affects her. Nettie is humming a song by the fireplace, scrubbing at a stain on the dress in her lap. The dress the woman of the homestead wore earlier. She smiles brightly at Maria, waggling her fingers in a hello before returning to her task and song.

Arriving outside, and in front of Jasper, Maria's mind finally catches up with her feet and she feels oddly out of place. Unsure, and she doesn't like that. Tossing her hair back over her shoulder, she glances inside the barn, just past the Major, at the newborns playing card games. "Buenos noches. ¿Cómo va todo?

Jasper draws himself straighter and he's glad he'd hissed in warning for the others to shut up before Maria heard their talk. At least - he studies her carefully - he hopes she hadn't heard them talking.

He's also surprised to see her here. She's normally pouring over her maps at this point, planning her next moves. He doesn't want to think about what may have brought her out here.

(Or who may have brought her out here, if it's not him.)

"Sí, perfecto, gracias. Están jugando a las cartas. Yo - Cecesitas ayuda con algo?"

Her lips lift at the corner at his nervousness, his eagerness.

"No, just out for a walk," Maria murmurs, watching him with a tilt of her head. "In addition to controlling emotions, you can feel them, poderosamente?"

A plan starts to formulate itself. She's not sure which way the plan is going to go yet, though. But either way, Maria thinks she'll have fun.

And it's been a while since she's had fun.

He frowns, slightly.

" - Yes, ma'am?"

She feels eager, and he wonders why she's asking. She already knows all of this, as he'd been happy to prove his assistance to her as soon as he learned of his powers.

He's always happy to provide her his assistance.

"¿Necesitas algo de mí?"

She glances at the group of newborns, who have stilled at her presence, even if they can barely see her in the barn's opening. The young one she changed--his name starts with an L, she thinks--watches her with a teenager's hunger.

Maria stifles a sigh and turns her attention back to Jasper, reaching out to fix the collar of his shirt. Lets her hand linger for a moment. It throws him off balance, she can tell.

"Lucy is driving me mad," Maria murmurs, stepping to Jasper's side and sliding her arm through his, making him walk with her. "I'm begging you, Jasper, just to fiddle with her emotions, make her less...annoying, perhaps?"

Jasper snaps of fingers directing one of the other men to take his post as Maria leads him away from the barn.

If he’s disappointed by this being her request, he doesn’t show it.

(He shouldn’t have expected otherwise, truly.)

“I could - interrupt her, if you want,” he answers in a murmur. “I’d have to get a little closer.”

He doesn’t particularly want to interrupt Lucy - as, the closer they get to the house, it sounds like she’s having a great time - but if that’s what Maria wants...

They enter the house, Nettie raising an eyebrow at Maria as she continues to hum her song. She's changed into the dress now--it's far too fancy for every day use, and she looks like a child playing dress up in it--and she giggles at Maria's glare.

"Finalmente," Nettie mutters under her breath, laughing again when Maria growls softly at her.

Finally? About Jasper? Please.

"I made a mistake," Maria murmurs, keeping close to Jasper as she guides him up the stairs. A whisper, as if sharing a secret with him. "When I let Lucy take the room next to mine."

She leads him into her room, moving to the window to close it as Lucy lets out an annoyingly loud moan and the knocking of headboard on wall doubles down. Her lips purse as she looks out the window again, her fingers tightening on the sill.

"What do you think of it?" Maria turns to look at Jasper, her hand settling at her waist, fingering the boning of her corset idly. "¿Los apetitos de Lucy? Nettie's?"

Drawing closer, Maria ghosts her fingers under his chin. "¿Te pones celoso?"

Lucy and the vampire in the next room are affecting him more than he thought it would. The feelings emanating from the room are a lot. He’d barely paid attention to Nettie.

He feels hot, which is impossible, and hotter still when Maria ghosts her fingers under his chin.

“Celoso? I - “ ( He is, yes.) “Well, all the men are a little more - agitated on these nights.”

The headboard bangs louder against the wall, the movements more drastic, faster, and Lucy -

Jasper swallows hard, throat suddenly tight.

“ - They’re almost finished. Did you still want me to interrupt them?”

Her head tilts to the side, a sly, coy smile playing on her lips. "No," she shakes her head, hair tumbling around her shoulders. "No, they can finish."

Maria rests her hand on his chest. "Estas tan tenso, Jasper. Don't you want to relax?"

Stepping back, she shrugs her shawl off, tossing it over the back of a chair sitting in the corner of the room. "You work so hard, mi soldado."

Her hand on his chest, there and then gone as she goes to pull off her shawl, has him feeling weak. He’s watching her carefully, trying to think -

The feelings in the other room now, reaching a crescendo. Lucy’s moaning, gasping, cursing -

God.

He clears his throat.

“I - Trabajo duro para ti. Mi primera preocupación eres tú. Si estás bien, puedo relajarme.”

He doesn’t want to hope this is anything more than just another debriefing. Just because Lucy’s having fun doesn’t mean Maria pulled him in here for the same. Does she even relax?

She laughs, under her breath. Relax? Her? Unlikely.

Even here, she is on a mission. Does she even know how to relax, anymore?

“Nosotros estamos seguros aqui,” Maria murmurs, spreading her arms out to encompass the room, the farm. “You don’t have to be on alert now, Major.”

The way she says his rank, a purr, a caress. A pet name. She comes closer again, slow and predatory, her smile just the same.

She cups his face, drawing him down to her, so her lips are a hairsbreadth from his. “Besame.”

Jasper’s not sure if it’s the emotions of the other room, or just the way Maria looks at him, says his rank like a pet name, or just the command - ”Besame.” - he abandons all propriety he’d tried to maintain.

He surges forward, closing that last little space between them, and he kisses her.

And he doesn’t care that it is a command, he only thinks finally.

The only thing that betrays his nerves is the timid hover of his hands before he settles them on her hips to pull her closer.

Maria lets herself relax a little into the kiss, her hands sliding into his hair to keep him in place while kissing him.

When she pulls away, she’s smirking, moving her fingers to trace the shape of his lips. “Come to bed, Major?”

There are so many questions he wants to ask - Why him? Why now? Is it just going to be the night? Is she sure?

But Jasper doesn’t ask any of those, especially not where he asks if she’s sure; Maria wouldn’t be asking - demanding? - if she wasn’t. He knows that much about her already, even without his powers to help him.

He only glances at the bed - he’s never actually done this before - and then, with his hands on her hips still, he guides her back to the bed with him.

He sits down on the edge of it, bringing her to stand between his knees, as he looks up at her. He can hear Lucy and the other vampire moving about in the next room now. They’ve finished but he doubts for long. The desire is strong.

As strong as what he has felt for Maria naturally and his gaze, not that he means for it to be, is worshipful, filled with his own desire and by the others’.

His hands tighten on Maria’s hips. “What do you want?” he asks in a near-whisper.

And the words left unsaid: He’s hers to command.

She appraises him, her hands at his shoulders, then neck, tilting his head this way and that way.

Leaning forward, Maria licks the length of his neck, her teeth scraping against his skin.

“¿Has hecho esto antes? Or am I to be your teacher, Major?”

His gaze flicks to the connecting wall.

He can hear the other two so clearly, Lucy’s voice high as she talks about nonsense, the voice of the male vampire low, asking her questions; and the sounds of them moving, intimate touches still -

“There wasn’t time,” he says, a little defensively. “Just - teach me.”

His fingers drift to the fastenings of her skirt.

“I learn fast.”

She laughs. “A fast learner—that you are, mi amante.”

A pet name he’ll earn tonight. Maria has no doubts she can teach him exactly what she wants him to know.

Her hands tug at his shirt, pulling it from the waist of his pants, up and over his head to drop on the bed beside him. She moves in closer, her teeth nipping at his collarbone, not breaking the skin.

But, as always with her, the threat is there. “Move against the headboard,” she commands, batting his hands away to undo the ties of her skirt herself. The red fabric falls to the ground, leaning her in the shift and corset she wears. “Shoes off, first.”

Mi amante is a new one certainly. It’s usually the Major, or just Jasper. Or you, if she can even bother at all.

But mi amante makes him feel impossibly hot, his want for her intensify.

He wants to be, yes.

Jasper kicks of his boots and then scoots back on the bed as requested.

He’s still watching her worshipfully, his gaze now roving along the curves the corset hugs her in all the right places.

He licks his lips. Hungry, and not for blood, for once. A different kind of hunger. A kind that makes even Lucy and the vampire next door gasp again as it trickles out of him before he can reign it in.

His slip makes the room incredibly hazy for a moment, and she pauses in hitching her shift up, her knee pressed against the mattress.

Even her own desire had been tempered, before that, by her need to not be lost in it. To have a grip on herself, iron tight.

“Mierda,” she whispers, blinking back the heady desire as he reigns in his emotion. Maybe this won’t be so easy, after all.

Maria climbs over him, sitting herself in his lap, her hand at the base of his throat, the other tangling in his hair to pull his head back so she can kiss him again, hot, heavy, all tongue and teeth.

Her hand on his throat should scare him - he has seen what she can do to a man - and yet, he just meets her in the kiss. All tongue and teeth, hot and heavy, all his hunger and desire for her being made known in just the force of their kiss.

At least, he’s trying to keep it just between them. It’s a little difficult when the woman he’s been lusting after for however long is suddenly in his lap.

His hands slide around her to her behind, grabbing at her eagerly. He doesn’t know if he’s supposed to touch her - he doesn’t care.

Not now, when they’re finally like this.

Edited 2020-08-10 17:57 (UTC)

Her hips move, rolling her back into his hands, her fingers tight in his hair, pulling.

She’s not kind. Even now, even here with him. She doesn’t remember how to be kind without a hidden agenda.

And his emotions betray him, as much as they push into her. He’s wanted this—she isn’t blind. She isn’t stupid.

It’s a means to an end, Maria reminds herself, her hand leaving his throat to grab his wrist, to bring his hand to her breast, squeezing roughly until he gets the idea. Moving her hand between them once he does, fingers teasing at the waist of his pants.

Jasper pulls out of the kiss with a gasp, to stare at his hand on her breast, at the way her corset pushes her up, almost spilling out of the shift. And the way the garment shifts when he moves his hands, his thumb grazing her, gentle even though she wanted it rougher, and how he can pull it down enough to see -

He ducks his head, kissing at her collarbone, teeth scraping along before he buries his face between her breasts.

“Mierda,” he breathes, panting against her skin.

He feels like everything he feels for her will just explode out of him. He can tell he’s not holding it in very well. He’s struggling.

Her finger stroke his hair, gentler than any move she’s made so far; suddenly aware of how tenuous his grasp is, how if she wants to enjoy this, she may need to slow down.

“Lo siento,” Maria croons, pulling his head back so she can drag her fingers over his lips. “Podemos ir mas lento.”

She sits back in his lap, her hands deftly undoing her corset—why does she even bother, she wonders, with wearing it? Something to do with Lucy’s influences on her fashion choices, she’s sure.

Once the garment is undone, Maria shrugs out of it, tossing it across the room. Her hands find his again, guiding them under the shift, along her hips, waist, just under her breasts; voice a purr once more: “Touch me, Major.”

Jasper sucks in a breath to focus himself and he tries to block the other room out. The only thing that should matter to him is Maria. He’s been coveting her for some time, and now that’s he’s here, given this opportunity, he wants her to feel good.

He swallows hard and his fingers follow the soft curves of her breasts, just the barest of touches as he strokes at her skin.

“Es usted tan hermosa,” he murmurs. “Quiero darte lo que quieres.”

He’s sure she’s heard these words a thousand times, and he wants to be different for her. Wants to prove himself for her. That he can be different from the ones before.

He focuses a little of what he’s feeling into his touch as his fingers stroke gently over her.

Perhaps trying to bed an empath was not her smartest plan. His emotion threatens to take her over, make her crazy with the desire he feels for her.

Then again, maybe she can use this to her advantage as well.

Pulling her shift over her head, Maria leans forward, pressing herself against him, chest to chest, kissing along his jaw and chin, his mouth. “I want you,” she murmurs. “And I know you want me.”

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