Bedtime Stories

by Johnson, Jean

  Baron Oger confronted them not more than a minute after they left the chapel with the blessing of their patron god Cheren still dampening their brows in an oily blue dot. Or rather, he confronted Marc. He met them on the winding garden path leading through the back gardens to the rear entrance of the manor.

  “I tried getting ahold of Her Majesty via scrying mirror,” Oger growled, glaring down at the shorter man, “but it seems the dowager queen is currently experiencing a bout of religious fervor and is ‘contemplating her life.’ Which means I cannot ask her directly to confirm your presence here.”

  Marc tossed his hair and stroked the cat in his arms. “It’s not my fault her relatives have been dropping like day-flies. Her Majesty is probably busy confessing her sins and purging her guilts in the understandable effort to avoid spending part of her afterlife in a Netherhell. Besides, I’m supposed to be here as an independent investigator of the nature and status of the Calabas estate. It wouldn’t do to connect me too strenuously with a potentially interested party.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, Siona watched this languid, foppish version of the normally sane Arithmancer give the larger man a wink . . . and then purse his lips. Oger paled and backed up. Marc smirked and strolled past him for a few steps, then turned and spoke again.

  “I’ll need access to all books, scrolls, logs, journals, letters, receipts, and other forms of record-keeping bright and early tomorrow morning. Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s been a terribly long day of traveling already, and I’ll need to spend what is left of this evening preparing my mathemagics for the morrow’s accountings.” He paused, glanced around the lantern-lit shadows of the garden, then stepped close enough that Siona had to suppress a sneeze at the musky-sour scent of the baron’s body odor. “If you have any specific instructions on what I should or shouldn’t find . . . slip them under the door. I’ll set up a catch spell to hold them confidential until I can attend to whatever you have in mind.”

  Baron Oger stepped back. His lip curled up. “Are you flirting with me?”

  “Hardly. I save all of my passion for my sweet puss. Isn’t that right, Boots?” Marc asked, lifting Siona and turning her so that he could nuzzle her face with his own. She licked his cheek above his beard, doing her best to look like an affectionate, pampered cat. Cuddling her to his chest, he gave the baron a superior smile. “I am, however, smart enough to seize an opportunity, or even just see the possibility for it. Particularly if there is some profit in it for me. I am an Arithmancer . . . and manipulating money is just one more form of mathemagics, isn’t it?

  “Sleep well, Your Excellency,” Marc added over his shoulder as he turned back toward the manor. “I certainly intend to . . .”

  AN hour later, as soon as the last chalk mark sealed most of their suite against any possible intrusion, physical or magical, Siona unfurled herself into her human form and smirked at her ersatz husband. “You are unbelievable. Whatever gave you the idea to act like that around him? Did you want to risk having him throw us out?”

  “It’s a trick I learned from a classmate from my primary schooling years. Well, not a classmate, per se,” Marc amended, putting his chalks back into their pockets on his satchel. He had marked all of the walls, plus the edges of the ceiling and the floor in shades of blue, white, pink, green, and silvery gray. “Eremen Gestus was an extraordinary eleven-year-old con artist. He would affect a brash, over-the-top personality to distract anyone and everyone around him during the luncheon break . . . and while we were all distracted, he would swap out bits of lunch brought by the others.

  “Pocket breads, fruits, even baked sweets would end up in his hands, if we weren’t careful. And though many of us swore time and again we wouldn’t let his antics distract us . . . sooner or later, his little theatrics and gestures would draw our attention away from guarding our sticky buns and our pasta bowls, and there would go a spoonful of this and a nibble of that into his mouth, and down into his gullet.” Wiping his hands on a rag taken from his satchel, Marc smiled wistfully. “It took me more than three months to realize he never brought food of his own from home. I don’t think his family had any to spare. Not and still afford to give him an education.

  “When I realized why he did it . . . I didn’t begrudge him the way he cadged his meals, since it spared him his dignity. He went on to be quite famous—I’m sure you’ve heard of him, Gestus nii Vestas?”

  “Gestus nii Vestas?” Siona repeated, startled. “The Magicless Wonder? The entertainer who has successfully challenged hundreds of mages to explain how he makes things appear and disappear without any traces of magic? You grew up in the same school as him?”

  “Primary school only, since I went on to the Academy to learn real magic, and obviously he didn’t follow, but yes. However,” he stated, moving close enough to cup her shoulders, clad as they were in the short-sleeved, short-cropped tunic he had bought for her to wear, along with the matching rose-pink skirt wrapped decorously around her hips, concealing her legs down to her ankles. “This is our wedding night, and I would rather you paid attention to me, tonight.”

  Twisting, Siona double-checked the wards he had scribed. “Did you remember to ward against the passage of excessive sounds, as well as intrusions and scryings?”

  “That’s what the pink runes are for.” Sliding his hands from her shoulders to her back, he stroked along her spine, subtly tugging her closer.

  When Siona looked back at him, he seized the opportunity to kiss her. His lips were sweet, warm, and slightly scratchy, thanks to his mustache and beard. They also grew on her rather quickly, coaxing her into responding with soft, savory nibbles. It had been a while since her last lover; she had forgotten how satisfying in and of itself a good kiss could be . . . and Marc was undeniably a good kisser.

  By the time it ended, her lips stung a little from the scratching of his beard, but she didn’t mind; his kisses were quite enjoyable. He had also loosened the ties of her blouse and had splayed his hands across her bared back. Siona smiled. “I take it you’ve done this before?”

  “Just because I’m an Arithmancer doesn’t mean I’m as passionless as my numbers and formulae,” Marc admonished. He smiled as he said it, rippling his fingers in a subtle massage along either side of her spine, then sliding them down to the ties of her skirt. “Besides, I tutored Stasia Nicolmo in applied statistics and Geomancy in exchange for lessons on how to please a woman properly.”

  Siona wrinkled her nose, remembering the girl in question. “Stasia Nicolmo? But she looked like a . . .”

  “As she put it, since she never had the looks to catch and hold a man’s attention, she always had to rely upon pure skill,” Marc told her. “She exchanged tutoring lessons with at least five other classmates and managed to graduate with decent grades. Last I heard, she had moved west to Nightfall to work for some guild in the brand-new kingdom.

  “But enough about her,” he added, drawing his hands around her waist. The action brought the ties of her skirt around as well, unwrapping the garment. “We need to focus on me and you.”

  Siona mock-frowned and tucked her hands around his waist, finding and tugging at the ties of his own trousers. “Not fair. If I have to get naked, so do you.”

  Marc grinned. “It’ll be my pleasure.”

  I don’t know why, Siona mused as she backed off, divesting herself of clothing and giving him the room to do the same, but somehow, getting naked so I can make love to my husband, and not just a casual lover, is rather titillating. Illicit, even. Possibly because it’s only temporary . . . but possibly because it is a commitment. A legal right to pleasure. In other words, she thought, moving back to run her fingers over the whorls of hair dusting his now naked chest, mine, all mine. Acres and acres, and it’s all mine . . .

  She paused and pulled back, looking down. His trousers had fallen, thanks to her own efforts, but while he was still wearing a loin wrap, it was the impediment to the removal of his trousers that had caught her attention. Smirking,
she looked up at him. “Perhaps I should start calling you ‘Boots’ as well?”

  “Just for that, I’ll make you remove them,” he quipped. He shuffled over to the side of the bed, sat, and stuck out his feet, draped in a tangle of cloth and leather. Kneeling, Siona untangled his clothes and removed them, noting with approval the contraceptive amulet tied around his ankle. She crawled up onto his lap when she was done, meeting his lips even as she straddled his hips.

  With each of them clad in a loin wrap and nothing else, she was free to touch almost anything she wanted. What she wanted to do most, she did: Siona ran her fingers through the hair on his chest. “Mmm . . . very manly. Last time I saw you, Marc, well, you still looked like a boy. Young and hairless. But this makes you look very much like a fully grown man. I like it.”

  Grinning, he lifted his palms to her breasts, gently cupping the soft curves. She shivered when he rubbed his thumbs in slow circles around their peaks, and shivered again when he spoke. “Alas, I can’t say the same, since you already had these when I first saw you . . . but they’re a very nice pair of these.”

  She laughed, tilting her head back. Marc shifted, taking advantage of her bared throat. With the edges of his thumbs rubbing her nipples, he nuzzled and gently bit the exposed skin, feathering his teeth over her skin. The combination was simple, yet stunning, connecting not only her breasts to her throat, but her throat to her loins. Breath hissing in, she raked her fingers gently through the coarse fuzz of his chest and tugged lightly on the strands.

  Marc shivered under her. “Mmm . . . are you sure you didn’t tutor Stasia in anything yourself ?”

  That made her laugh a second time. “Maybe I’m just naturally talented. Or maybe I just prefer practicing on hairy men.”

  He pulled her close, pressing them together from pelvis to chest. Nipping at her ear, Marc growled, “Well, you’re married to me, now. For however long this marriage may last, I don’t believe in sharing.”

  That was titillating, too. Digging her fingers into his dark brown curls, Siona tipped his head back, baring his own throat to her lips. “I don’t believe in sharing when married, either.”

  “Mmm, good,” he murmured. “Then we’re agreed . . . we’ll have lots and lots of lovemaking together—and if we don’t get it right, we’ll just keep practicing until we do.”

  Chuckling, she nibbled on his ear. He growled again and nipped back, somehow finding a ticklish spot she hadn’t known existed. Squirming, Siona fought back to nibble while avoiding being nibbled on in turn. Somewhere in there, their mouths met, this time for a much more heated kiss than before. Fingers buried in her long black curls, tipping her head this way and that, Marc kissed nearly every inch of her skin from brows to collarbone.

  The pleased, hungry noises he made as he did so thrilled her. It had been a while since she’d had a lover, particularly one so enthusiastic. As the sole heir to Calabas—in the immediate family sense, before the odious baron began his killing spree—she had been caught up in learning how to manage the marque in a responsible, oath-sensitive manner. That hadn’t left a lot of time for pursuing anything other than a casual romp. This wasn’t a casual romp, though; for however long or short it lasted, they were married.

  Recapturing his mouth, Siona kissed him hungrily. She didn’t know if or when Baron Oger might uncover their deception, or how long it might take to find evidence solid enough to prove his guilt, or how to deal with him once they did. It felt right to seize the moment with this man. With her husband.

  Pushing him down onto the bed, Siona kissed her way down his chest, nuzzling her face into the crisp strands of his chest hair. Marc played with her curls, letting her be aggressive. She had to slip off the bed in order to kiss lower than mid-chest; by the time she did, the modest bulge in his loin wrap had formed a distinct ridge. Unbuckling the thong holding the wrap in place, she freed the spike of his flesh from the folds of cloth.

  The reddened head was peeking out through its little cowl, encouraging her to gently grasp and stroke it. Marc sucked in a breath, lifting his hips into her touch. He reached for her hands, curling up a little so that he could tug on them. “Come up here on the bed. If you’re going to play with me like that, I want to play with you, too.”

  She complied. He guided her into lying down diagonally on the bed, giving both of them enough room to stretch out past each other, heads to loins. Siona lifted her upper leg, bending her knee so she could brace it upright, but he didn’t accept her silent invitation immediately. Instead, he leaned over her thighs and kissed their soft skin. Enjoying it, she returned the favor, exploring the differences between the smoother, nearly hairless expanse of his upper thighs versus the hairs scattered with increasing thickness over his lower legs.

  His erection bumped against her shoulder and throat. Gradually, the accidental brushes became more deliberate touches, until with hungry little moans of her own, she kissed her way from his sack to his spike and back. He returned her efforts by nuzzling his way into her folds, proving within moments that he had been well paid for his tutoring efforts. Siona enjoyed it thoroughly, until he murmured something she couldn’t quite catch.

  Lifting her mouth from his spike, she pushed up higher on her elbow and craned her neck. “What did you say?”

  Beard glistening, Marc removed his head from between her thighs. He flashed her a grin. “Just a little spell I read about, a few years back. One which I’m sure you’ll enjoy.”

  The moment he said one, her loins throbbed. It was a subtle vibration, but a distinct one. Blinking, Siona eyed him. “Did you just . . .”

  “I am an Arithmancer. Numbers are my specialty.” Smirking, he paused, pursed his lips, and carefully enunciated, “Four.”

  The subtle thrumming became a distinct buzzing in her flesh. Siona gasped, hips bucking. Rolling onto her back, she squirmed in the attempt to escape, but she couldn’t. It stayed with her, enervating her senses. “What did you . . . ?”

  “What, don’t you like that number? How about five? Six? ” he asked. The tremors strengthened, spreading from the little peak at the top of her folds to the base of her spine, making her buck again in surprise. “Or would you prefer three?”

  The intensity backed off, allowing her to unclench her hands from the bedcovers. It didn’t fade completely, but it wasn’t quite so strong. “How . . . how high does it go?”

  “Five plus five . . . but I won’t say the exact number just yet,” he added. He waited until she stopped arching her back before continuing. “You’re not quite ready for that.”

  “Gods, no!” she breathed, panting through the pleasure stirred by the vibrations. Then she reconsidered when he curled himself around so that he lay the same way, allowing him to massage her breasts. He rotated them in time with the restless circling of her hips, until Siona panted, “Well . . . maybe . . .”

  “Did you know that most people consider mathematics—the plain, non-magical kind—to be quite boring?” he asked. His tone was idle, but his fingers were not. They toyed with the peaks of her breasts.

  “No, really?” she managed to pant.

  “Oh, yes. I consider it one of my missions in life to instruct people in all the joys of counting.” As she relaxed under the lessened sensations, he smiled, abandoning her breasts for her thighs. Nudging them apart, he stroked through her now palpably slick folds for a few moments, then probed into her depths. “Ah, yes . . . I do believe you are now receptive enough to learn all about three of my favorite numbers.”

  Shifting over her, Marc settled between her thighs. Ready and willing, Siona lifted her knees, giving him more room to find the right spot. But he didn’t do more than prod.

  “My first favorite number is zero.” He waited a moment, allowing her to absorb the lack of vibration. “Before it was ‘invented,’ math was sometimes awkward to calculate. And if I say it twice—since I’m the one who cast the spell—it’ll end the magic. But I won’t. Not just yet.”

  Siona sighed, glad the buz
zing had come back. She tried to coax him closer with her hands and her heels, but he didn’t move. Giving up, she raked her fingers lightly through the manly fur on his chest. “What’s the next number?”

  “My next favorite number is pi,” he added, bracing his weight comfortably on his elbows and knees. “Three . . .”

  He pushed in a little. Moaning, Siona arched her hips up into his. “Mmm, yess . . .”

  “Point one . . .” He backed out a little, then pushed in again. “Four . . .” He pressed in a little deeper than before, accompanying the increase in tremors. “One . . . Five . . .” Out and in again, matching penetration to vibration—then a sudden thrust of word and flesh, “Nine!”

  Siona gasped. Fingers clutching at the bedding, she waited for him to move, to match the intense pleasure buzzing madly through her flesh. She tried lifting her hips into his to encourage him to continue, but he shifted with her, avoiding all but the smallest of frictions. Frustrated, she finally growled, “Move!”

  “Move? Like this?” Marc asked, lifting his hand and wriggling his fingers in an aimless flutter.

  “Spike me!” Siona ordered, not caring if the term was crude and beneath her station. “Spike me hard !”

  Flashing her a grin, he complied. Vigorously. Even better, he leaned down close enough to tell her what she could only presume were the decimal numbers associated with pi, given how randomly they were placed. With each flex of his hips, he matched the strength and depth of his thrusts to the value of each number growled.

  Somewhere in there, at a depth of mathematical understanding only a mathemagician would bother to memorize and recite, she shattered in bliss. Thankfully, he gasped out a zero between thrusts and shuddered a few strokes later in his own orgasm. Sagging gently onto her, considerate enough to brace some of his weight on his elbows, he pressed soft kisses to her shoulder and collarbone.