Under Wraps

by Patricia Green

  New Dawning International Bookfair

  Presents

  An Erotic Romance

  By

  Patricia Green

  Copyright © 2010 Patricia Green

  Under Wraps

  Chapter 1 - St. Joseph, Missouri

  T he dingy room's lone occupant heard laughing voices approaching along the hallway before the lock tumbled open. "Shh," Jake Fletcher said from beyond the portal, his voice thick with drink. "Got to be careful. Never know what he mighta been up to since I left him this mornin'."

  A woman's voice cooed delicious fear as the distinct click of a gun being cocked permeated the stale air. Dusty rays of yellow light widened as the door slipped open, allowing Fletcher to find his prisoner in the dimness.

  He was pretty much as he had been left: sitting at the foot of the white iron bedstead, hands manacled to the frame, legs shackled together with a foot or so of steel chain between. His own stink had long since ceased to bother him. A week of living in the same dirty clothes was nothing compared to the pain in his head whenever he moved, or the stinging ache of his right thigh where a bullet had torn off a respectable chunk of his flesh. Despite his discomforts, he watched Fletcher release the gun's mechanism and holster it, apparently satisfied that his prisoner was harmless enough.

  "Come on in, honey," the burly man said. "He ain't got free." He pulled off a battered Stetson and threw it toward the chair which, besides the bed, was the only furniture in the cheap hotel room. Stringy hair, of a color somewhere between corn and piss, hung in dirty mats to the man's shoulders.

  A woman slowly shadowed Fletcher into the room. At first, illuminated only from behind, the manacled man thought her somewhat shapeless, uninteresting, bundled in a heavy gray cloak. As the gas lights were lit, he saw she was just a girl. Her face was young, despite the heavy paint she wore to make herself look older. She couldn't have been more than nineteen.

  Fletcher must have had another good day at the card tables in the saloon downstairs. It was his habit to buy a whore when he was feeling like a big winner. It was the second time in the four days they'd been in this hell hole.

  The girl's green eyes darted around the room, settling on the prisoner. He watched her expression change from curiosity to fear. "What's he lookin' at with them yellow eyes?"

  Jake sat on the bed and began pulling off his boots. "Prob'ly wonderin' what you got hid under that cloak."

  She turned away and undid the crude frogs which held her wrap in place. Dull, lank hair slid over her shoulders and obscured her face as she bent her head. "I don't like the way he's lookin' at me. It makes me nervous. Can't you make him turn around or somethin'? It's like havin' a... a cat sittin' there. Watchin'."

  The cape slid to the floor. Beneath it was a violet, gauze wrapper, its once sheer fabric now fraying at the hem and spotted with liquor, food and a few blood stains as well. The wrapper hung open, and her childish, conical breasts jutted forth, her brown areolas huge and obscene on the pale whiteness of her skin. She wore a black satin corset, so ill-fitting it hung on her skinny frame, a pitiful decoration rather than a foundation. Her hips were slim, lacking the maturity of a woman's curves, and her womanhood had the barest covering of pale brown curls, leaving little to the imagination. Her only other item of clothing was her black high-button shoes, new and shiny, with tall heels to give her height.

  Jake's brown plaid flannel shirt met her cape on the floor, revealing his filthy red underwear. "I kinda like him watchin'," he said. "The dirty Mex can only dream about it. Who knows how long it's been since he had hisself a woman? Maybe since he was in Salt Lake City."

  The girl swaggered toward Fletcher and began what she must have considered a seductive unbuttoning of his undershirt and then his pants. "What's he wanted for?"

  The tawny-eyed prisoner turned away and closed his eyes when the bounty hunter grabbed the girl's flat bottom and kneaded it.

  "Robbed a couple a banks and killed four people, includin' a U.S. Marshall." He sighed his delight at something she was doing. "Gonna hang him in Salt Lake City, I expect. If I ever get enough money together to get him there."

  The violet wrapper floated over the end of the bed to lie limply near the prisoner. He felt its passing and opened his eyes for a moment. Jake's belt buckle hit the floor with a dull thud along with his pants; her shoes clattered with a regular sound soon after.

  "What's yer name again, gal?"

  "June."

  The bed creaked and vibrated against the chained man's back.

  "Did Mable tell you what I want, Junie-girl?"

  The girl gave a little shriek of surprise. "Yeah, but I ain't never done it before. You ain't gonna hurt me, are you mister?"

  Fletcher’s belly laugh was muffled against the girl's body. "Naw. You'll like it. But first you gotta get me real hard, Junie. Know how to do that?"

  There was a pause. "Yeah, I guess you do. Mmmhmm."

  The prisoner tried to block out the crude, wet sounds of June's work. He pushed Fletcher's moans and her giggles from his mind by concentrating on his pain. Pain in his head from being struck twice with the butt of Fletcher's rifle. The first time had been nearly a week ago and had taken him completely by surprise.

  He'd been at the docks watching cargo being loaded. Once the ship was filled with crates and sacks, the crew dispersed to quench their thirsts at local taverns. He found himself pulled along in their tide and agreed to have a drink before heading back into town. A few drinks later, as he left the bar, someone behind him hollered, "Esteban Garcia, you son-of-a-bitch!" There was a blinding flash of pain, and then nothing.

  Sometime later, tied and trussed like a steer awaiting branding, he awakened slung over the back of a horse. Nausea welled in his gut and his head ached; he raised it anyway to see where he was and with whom.

  Jake Fletcher, was a bounty hunter. He made his living capturing and frequently killing, known criminals for money. The man was stubborn, determined, and more than a little crazy. Esteban Garcia was worth five thousand dollars if brought in alive to face trial in Salt Lake City. He was worthless dead. The prisoner was grateful for this, even if Fletcher grumbled about it incessantly.

  Just when that first cut on the back of his head was beginning to heal, the blood never washed from his thick black hair, the prisoner had seen a way to escape. He stood a good eight inches taller than Fletcher, and outweighed him considerably, but Fletcher wasn't stupid.

  He was vigilant about keeping the big outlaw restrained at all times.

  It had taken three days, but he'd managed to figure out a way to cross his feet just so, leaving enough play in the ropes to allow him to slip out of his boots. If his feet were free he could take a horse as Fletcher slept and, bound hands or no, Fletcher would never catch him.

  Fletcher obviously had some sort of intuition. The kind of twisted knowledge that kept a man like him alive. Another sharp crack with the butt of his rifle had re-opened the prisoner's scalp wound and laid the man low before he'd gotten free of his boots.

  Jake wouldn't kill him, but if he had to he'd bring him in senseless. They were gonna hang the bastard anyway.

  The next day they'd arrived in the dusty little town at the edge of the western frontier, St. Joseph, Missouri. Fletcher had checked them into this filthy hotel above a rowdy saloon. The bounty hunter needed money for their trip with the government wagon train to Salt Lake City and time was growing short. The last train of the year would be leaving the following Monday, just three days away. Fletcher grumbled about trying to cross the continent alone, and he whined that he didn't have enough money for proper supplies anyway.

  He manacled Esteban Garcia to the iron bedstead and went to find a poker game. That evening he brought back a whore and the prisoner had
gotten a revolting look at another side of Jake Fletcher.

  Two days later, Fletcher had put a bullet through his prisoner's thigh for another attempted escape. "I'll put a hole in ever' place that don't count, greaser. I ain't made my livin' at this fer ten years by trustin' no rope or chains to keep you bastards in place. I got eyes in the back o' my head and ears like a coyote. You an' me got a date with the hangman in Salt Lake City, an' I don't care none whether I bring you in on yer stinkin' feet or drag you by yer boots. You only gotta be breathin', nothin' else much matters."

  The bed knocked against his shoulders, yanking him from his bitter memories. It stopped after a few minutes.

  He balled his hands into fists, frustrated rage building with each artificial mew of pleasure the girl made. He couldn't allow Fletcher to take him to Salt Lake City. One of them was going to die trying to get his way, that much was obvious. But which one?

  Chapter 2 - Boston

  Glee tried to compose herself before entering the parlor. She knew Aunt Ulalie would be aghast at her appearance; she always was. Her Aunt would also be quite taken aback by the two eunuchs. Glee thought she had planned for that, at least, during the six weeks it took to reach Boston from Constantinople. The worst confrontation would be over her Aunt's disapproval of Glee's plan to find a suitable lodging of her own and closet herself away to finish her father's book.

  Perhaps that bit of knowledge could wait a week or two, until she settled in. It had been two years, she reminded herself. And the last visit was so brief that she had barely caught her breath. "Coward," she chided herself softly.

  Her slightly pointed chin tilted up, she straightened her shoulders as she opened the parlor doors.

  Her cousin Esther turned toward her first, and Glee's jaw tightened at the glimmer of pity in the girl's dark-lashed, turquoise eyes. Esther is so young, Glee reminded herself. Just nineteen. And very sheltered.

  "Oh, Glee!" Esther fluttered forward to embrace her older cousin, coming up on tiptoes to place a kiss on Glee's smooth cheek. "Oh, you poor thing! What you must have been through in that awful, horrible place! Oh, do sit down and tell us all about it."

  "Really, Esther…" Ulalie purred from her bright green chair near the hearth. "Do stop going on so." She offered Glee a well-manicured hand. "Glee, dear." Her pale blue eyes traveled over her niece's figure from gray turban to black high-button boots and narrowed. "You look unchanged, if a little pale."

  Glee took her aunt's hand and bent to kiss the pudgy, rouged cheek she offered. There was more gray than brown in the woman's hair now. "I assure you, Aunt Ulalie, I am well."

  "Please sit down, dear."

  Glee took a seat on the floral settee next to her cousin and waved away a proffered plate of biscuits. Her uncle helped himself, humming a nameless tune, seemingly oblivious of the tension in the room.

  Ulalie's gaze did not leave her for a moment. "We were very sorry to hear about your father, Glee. Poor Eric, drowned in that heathen country. It was really too bad that you were stranded there as well. Martin tells me that he had to negotiate your release."

  "Actually, they treated me quite well. Until the Sultan's third son took an interest in me." She blushed. "That was somewhat unpleasant, of course, but Uncle Martin arrived in time to forestall any problems."

  "How very timely of you, Martin," the older woman said without inflection.

  Martin blustered and preened. "Yes, er, well, luck favors the man prepared, m'dear. And here's our dear niece, right as rain."

  "That's right, here I am," Glee said with forced gaiety. "I've brought two new servants with me, I'm afraid. I hope you won't mind, but the Sultan insisted that he give them to me as a gift. Refusal was out of the question. I have several ideas about what to put them to work at and a few projects I'm planning, so I don't think they'll be in the way."

  "Fine, fine," Ulalie answered, fussing with a linen handkerchief.

  A girl brought in a tray of tea and coffee. When she left, Ulalie nodded to Esther to pour. Glee ignored the round-eyed expression from her cousin as she asked for coffee and four spoonsful of sugar. She gracefully took the cup and sipped as the others received their tea.

  Ulalie took a deep breath, then began a gentle harangue. "Glee, my dear, you know things cannot go on as before. Thirteen years of wandering the globe is scandalous enough. Now that your dear father is gone, you'll really have to settle down and stay in one place for a while."

  Glee removed her spectacles slowly. Ulalie appeared startled by the thick-lashed beauty of her turquoise eyes, the Montrose blue of both her husband and his late brother, but tilted at the corners and exotic, as Glee's mother's had been. Lips tightening, Ulalie pressed her shoulders back, sitting up straighter than ever.

  "I have been thinking much the same, Aunt Ulalie. In fact, I've decided to stay in Boston."

  Ulalie's face split into a very lovely smile, a reminder of the beauty of her youth. "Oh, Glee, how pleased that makes me! I had begun to despair of ever seeing you happily married and cared for."

  Glee's brow furrowed slightly. "I don't wish to mislead you, Aunt Ulalie, Uncle Martin. Marriage is not part of my plans. What I intend to do is take a small apartment or house here in the city and finish the book my father began in Constantinople. We worked so hard in the Ottoman Empire. He even lost his life in pursuit of a new thread of adventure for this novel. I feel that I must-"

  "Oh, no!" She looked to Martin, her composure shattered. "Martin, tell her she must not consider this outrageous action!" Martin frowned and turned toward Glee, but Ulalie continued. "Glee, how can you even think of living by yourself? No respectable woman would dare do so!"

  "I would not be by myself, Aunt. I have Amina, Erdogan and Hakki. I assure you I would be safe."

  Ulalie paled and swayed in her chair. "Esther, my salts, dear, hurry." The girl cast a disapproving glare at Glee and ran from the room to get her mother's smelling salts, chestnut curls bouncing on her shoulders.

  Martin stepped in. "Now, Glee, surely you can see how disastrous that would be. Consider how people would perceive it. Two women living alone with two foreign men." He waved his hands. "Albeit, two, er..." He looked toward his wife then plunged on, "…two eunuchs."

  "Oh!" Ulalie closed her eyes and waved her napkin feebly in front of her face. Esther returned with the salts and held the vial beneath her mother's nose until the older woman coughed and seemed to recover slightly.

  Glee walked toward the parlor door. "I am so very sorry to disappoint you, Aunt Ulalie. I love you and Uncle Martin dearly, really I do. But my life is my own. I am twenty-two years old and capable of making decisions for myself. I want to finish father's novel, and I will, even if it takes me the rest of my life."

  Martin cleared his throat and waved Glee back from the door. "Now, niece, there's more to this than meets the eye. Pressuring you is not my wont. Please don't force me to it." He noted the determination in his niece's rigid posture and sighed. "I had hoped to tell you later, privately, once you'd settled in here, but I can see I have no choice." He turned to his daughter. "Esther, please leave us."

  "But, Papa-"

  "Esther, do as your father says," Ulalie said, her voice firm.

  "Mama!"

  Glee sighed. "Really, Uncle Martin. Let her stay if she wishes. I have no secrets, and I don't see how anything you could say might be so very shocking."

  Martin frowned. "Glee, this is not-"

  "Just spit it out, Martin," Ulalie snapped.

  He turned toward the fire, irritation making the sag of his jowls beneath gray-brown mutton chop whiskers even more prominent. "As you wish. I told you that I had to bargain you away from Sultan Abdülmecid."

  "Yes, Uncle. I assumed that you had to threaten shipping contracts and trade agreements. Was there more to it than that?"

  "Perhaps you should sit down, dear."

  Glee's stomach rose into her throat. Uncle Martin was rarely a man who beat around the bush. Yet he was obviously trying to soften
a blow. She stepped toward a chintz covered wing-backed chair, wilting, staring into Martin's eyes trying to divine the answers she sought.

  "Abdülmecid had decided to have you for his second son, Akmed." She tipped her head in a short nod.

  "I thought it was his third son, Papa."

  "Be quiet, Esther." Martin continued slowly. "The trade agreements and shipping contracts between Montrose Shipping and the Sultan are very sensitive, not to mention very profitable for us both. Although I love you like a daughter Glee, I am a businessman and had to consider Montrose Shipping."

  "I see." Glee didn't see at all.

  "As a consequence, Abdülmecid and I compromised on the issue."

  "The issue is my life, Uncle Martin, let us not lose sight of that."