Billionaire Romance: Strike to the Heart (New Adult College Second Chance Age Play Older Man Younger Woman Romance) (Contemporary BBW BDSM Wealthy Rich Alpha Male Hero Short Stories)

by Grace Rawson

  Max had never left her side while she lay broken in the hospital bed. She’d awoken from her haze to see him bent over her bed, tears flowing freely as he bargained with God for her life. She’d tried to reach out to him, to tell him that she was fine, but her arms were impossibly heavy; her lips cracked and dry after weeks in a coma. All she had managed was a soft groan, which had Max standing straight up and running to call for a nurse. She was finally awake and the joy and relief were evident on his face. He touched her face, made her promises about their future together and she’d fallen back to sleep, the pain and broken bones too much for her to bear. She slipped in and out for days before she was finally able to stay awake long enough to start physical therapy. Within a week, she was ready to go home, and Max talked her into living on his sprawling ranch outside of Pinedale. The property edged up to the Wind River Range and went for as far as the eye could see. Sydney wasn’t sure if she was ready for forever, but the promise of a real bed and a home nurse to help her recover in the fresh mountain air was enticing, so she said yes.

  Max devoted every waking minute to caring for her, carrying her out onto the porch each day so she could watch his horses and enjoy the warm sun. She hadn’t asked what he’d done with Concerto. She’d heard enough in the hospital as she slipped in and out to know that he’d been badly injured. There would never be another horse like him, and Sydney grieved for that quietly each night as she lay in bed. She’d ride again; her physical therapist had insisted that it would help her heal. But for now, just looking at the horses in the pasture tore at her heart.

  Sydney looked up as a truck and trailer pulled into the drive. Max had a cabin and stalls available on his property, far enough from the main house to afford quite a bit of privacy for the people who rented it. It was a common sight to see them pulling in on their way to the cabin.

  The truck drove straight to the house, apparently unsure of where they were going. Sydney still couldn’t stand on her own yet, and was about to call for Max when the screen door to her left flew open and Max hurried out. He spoke to the driver for a minute and she parked the rig right there on their front lawn. Max walked to Sydney, his face covered with a broad smile.

  Oh no, she thought, he’s bought me a horse. Sydney didn’t know what to say to him. She wasn’t ready, but it was clear from his face that he’d done this for her and she didn’t want to hurt him.

  He took the porch steps in one leap and scooped her up out of the chair. He carried her to the trailer as the woman opened the door and unhooked the horse. Sydney was trying to find the words when the horse began to back cautiously down the ramp. Her throat constricted with unshed tears as a scarred and battered Concerto carefully picked his way off the trailer. Max looked at her and her tears spilled freely. Somehow, Concerto had survived his fall, though his coat showed the leftover marks of his pain. He walked slowly, a slight limp in his bandaged leg. The vet walked him up to Sydney and she buried her face in his neck. He was alive and he was here.

  Max whispered in her ear, “Concerto belongs to you now. If there was any doubt before it’s gone now. I’ve seen to that. You never have to worry about your father coming for him again.”

  Sydney started sobbing, rubbing her hands over his neck and through his mane. Her fingers caught on a tiny braid. She’d probably left it in the last time she’d prettied him up for some event. She pulled the band on the braid and started working the braid out when her fingers brushed against something hard. She pulled on it as she unwound his hair and the object out in her hand. The thin, simple ring was beautiful. Sydney looked at Max, confused. He smiled at her and winked, his intention clear. Not only was he giving her back her horse, but he was giving her the rest of his life. Sydney looked deep into his eyes and said the one word that would make everything right in their world.

  “Yes.”

  THE END

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  Bonus Story 1 of 6

  Alien Attraction

  Jamie Gettner steps down from her SUV and looks around the surrounding area. Walls that are at least twenty feet high and made from everything imaginable, from car hoods to sheet metal, run along the perimeter of the Astara camp near Elk Ridge, Montana. A small shack sits beside the only door visible in the wall. A single guard stands beside the shack with an automatic rifle in his hands. Jamie notes that he is wearing a gasmask. She can’t believe that people still think that the Astara will somehow infect them. Her supervisor from the Gazette, Larry Davis, walks around the back of the car and stops beside her. He lets her take the camp in before he lays a hand on her arm.

  “Are you sure that you want to go through with this Jamie? I’ve heard that the Astara can be very aggressive toward outsiders. Especially if you belong to the race that has kept them in these camps for nearly twenty years.”

  “I know that Larry, but I’m a big girl and I can take care of myself.” She pats her purse and the small revolver inside. “I just want to get a perspective on how they go about their daily lives. Maybe if we show the world that they are not dangerous...” She lets the sentence go unfinished.

  “You know that the likelihood of the government ever letting these things out is a shot in the dark, don’t you?”

  “They’re not things, Larry. They are Astara. I hate when people say ‘things’. It’s like they’re saying that these beings don’t have souls.”

  “Do you believe they do?” Larry asks.

  “Look around you. They’ve built a society inside the confines of their walls. To build a society implies that they want to make something for themselves and their children. That is the very basic proof that they have souls. Wanting something better for yourself and those that you care for.”

  “You can get as philosophical as you want. I still think that this is a really bad idea.”

  Jamie opens the back door of the SUV and grabs up her backpack. Inside are a few notepads, some pens, a laptop with charger, and a digital camera that she hopes to use to take a picture of all the Astara in the settlement. She also grabs a handheld digital camcorder to record footage. She pushes the ‘on’ button to make sure the digital camcorder is charged up. It comes on with a couple of beeps. She pans around the inside of the SUV to make sure that the picture is good and everything is still working properly. With a flick of her wrist she closes the camcorder. Turning around, she gives Larry a smile and places the strap of the camcorder around her neck.

  “Your opinion is duly noted Larry, but I’m still going in. You’re not changing my mind on this one.”

  “Fine.” He throws up his hands in defeat and walks with her to the small door set into the side of the wall. “But promise me you’ll be careful.”

  A guard opens the door for Jamie and she steps inside. Before the guard closes the door she turns around and waves to Larry.

  “I’ll be careful. Like I always am.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of.” Larry calls to her as the door swings shut.

  The door closes with a resounding thud, and for a split second Jamie wonders if she has made a terrible mistake. Nonsense, she tells herself, you can always knock on the door, show your ID to the guard, and he’ll let you out. Now calm down and think about the reason you are here. You’re a reporter, so start acting like one.

  Taking a step forward, she lets her eyes drift around the camp. Near the walls, the houses are stacked one atop another making them more like apartment building and less like shacks, but she can’t help but notice the material that the shacks are made out of. It all seems to be junk. Here and there a fresher piece of steel or tin shines like a diamond among the horde of rusted and junked metals. Clicking on her camcorder, she pans it around and gets a panora
ma of the surrounding area.

  Young Astara run in all directions as they play some type of game that she can only guess is much the same as tag. The only difference between the small Astara children and human children is the hair and eye color. No human on Earth has ever had yellow or orange eyes without contact lenses, and no human has ever had blue or green hair without some kind of dye. A few older adult Astara are milling around near a small well. They look much the same as the children, only each adult Astara has an identifying mark that runs horizontally across the bridge of their nose. It seems to be some kind of birthmark or something.

  Jamie pans the camcorder over to film the adults standing around the well. As she does she notices that a few of them have small tattoos on their necks. The four Astara with tattooed necks step away from the well and start toward her at a quick walk.

  She raises her hand in a wave and offers a friendly smile to them, but they don’t acknowledge either. Taking an involuntary step backward, she almost bolts for the door, but she steels herself and lowers the camcorder.

  “Hello. I’m Jamie Gettner. I’m a reporter with the Gazette. I was wondering if you would like to have your picture taken for my article on this camp.”

  “Human.” The Astara in the lead, a tall, whip-thin alien with long orange hair pulled back in a ponytail, almost spits the word.

  “Yes, I’m a human, but I just want to observe your lives for a month or so, and find out how it is that you live. I don’t mean you any harm. In fact I’m trying to help you because if you ask me these camps you live in are not justifiable at all.” She waves a hand around at the walls for effect. “I think that keeping you and your families locked up behind walls is wrong and something should be done about it.”

  “Sure you do. Human.” Once again the leader spits the word ‘human’. His voice is filled with rage as he continues to speak. “Do you know how many of my kind you killed when you shot us out of the skies? Do you?”

  “I didn’t shoot anything. I was a very young child when that happened.”

  “Sure. All you humans are the same. You all want the same thing. Now I think it is our turn to give you back a little bit of what you’ve given us.”

  The man darts forward with eerie speed and grabs Jamie by the arms with hands that clamp down like vices. She struggles against him, but his hold is like iron. Leaning down so that his lips are touching her ear, he whispers to her.

  “You should have stayed in your fancy high-rise, human. Now you’re gonna pay for what your kind has done.”

  The other three Astara advance toward her with grins on their faces. One of them pulls out a piece of metal that is about a foot long with a large chunk of leather attached to it. Jamie has seen enough television shows to know that the weapon is called a blackjack. The leather is usually wrapped around something hard and sewn together. She knows that it is an effective weapon for causing lots of damage.

  “I promise you that I had nothing to do with what happened twenty years ago!” Jamie says, as she begins to panic. She struggles fiercely against the Astara’s grip, but gains nothing.

  The alien with the blackjack raises it in the air and steps forward with a smirk. The blackjack whistles through the air. I should never have come here. Now I’m probably going to die in this camp. Just before the blackjack makes contact with her skull something blurs in front of her eyes.

  The sound of the blackjack smacking against flesh and bone is loud in the small courtyard. Jamie opens her eyes and sees another male Astara standing in front of her. He is unlike the others. His shoulders are broad and heavy with muscle. The hair on his head is shaved into a mohawk and is black instead of blue, green, or orange. Even his eyes are a different color. Most of them are yellow or orange, but the newcomer’s eyes are gold in color. The alien that was holding the blackjack is now lying on the ground with blue blood oozing from a wound on the side of his head. At first Jamie is sure that the Astara is dead, but he groans and rolls over. She isn’t sure what happened until the golden-eyed Astara speaks.

  “Let her go Grum. Let her go now.”

  “I won’t do it Bol.” The alien holding her pulls her backward a step and tightens his grip. “It’s time that their kind pay for what they have done.”

  “She had nothing to do with it Grum.” One of the other Astara steps forward with his fist raised, but Bol turns to him and shakes his head. “Don’t do it Fi. I’ll cave your head in and you know it.”

  The remaining two Astara trade a glance and nod to each other. They back slowly away from Bol and the blackjack in his hand until they reach the well. When the reach the well they turn around and make a run for it down a street. Bol turns to Grum with a stern look.

  “Let her go! I don’t want to hurt you, but I will.”

  “Take one step toward me, Bol, and I’ll knock her in the head. You’re fast, but you’ll never be able to get to me before I smash her head in with my fist.”

  “You intend to hurt her no matter what I do,” says Bol. He looks at Jamie. “I promise you that won’t happen, but you’ll have to trust me.”

  Jamie tries to say something, but her throat is so dry from fear that all she manages to get out is a small croak. Grum hears it and laughs. As he begins to laugh Bol leaps forward with a speed that Jamie can’t believe is possible. The hand holding the blackjack flashes forward, but before it can impact, something hits her on the back of the head. As blackness overtakes her vision she feels the iron-like grips of Grum loosen. I’m gonna hit the ground face first. The thought is her last one as her vision darkens and she goes limp.

  *****

  “are...you...okay...nasty...hit...skull...please...up...”

  Jamie slowly opens her eyes, but the light makes her head feel like it is going to explode so she quickly closes them. From the feel of it she is lying on something soft and that doesn’t make sense to her. The last thing she remembers is getting hit on the head by the Astara who was holding her from behind. Grum...his name was Grum, she thinks.

  “Are you okay? You took a nasty blow to the skull. I need you to wake up if you can.”

  The voice speaking to her is husky and deep. It sounds somewhat like the voice of the Astara who kept the man with the blackjack from hitting her, but she isn’t for sure if it is the same. She can’t even remember the name of the alien who kept her from being hit, but she is sure that she heard his name.

  “Bol. Your name is Bol.” She opens her eyes just a slit.

  He is standing over her with a smile on his face. “Indeed it is. How do you feel?”

  “The lights.”

  “Of course.”

  She hears his footsteps retreat and then a small clicking sound. The lights dim in intensity and she opens her eyes all the way up. She tries to sit up and almost succeeds before the pain in the back of her head gets to her. Falling back with a groan, she puts a hand to the back of her head and feels a bandage.

  “Sorry that I had to cut your hair, but you had a pretty nasty cut on the back of your head where Grum hit you.”

  “You cut my hair?” She feels around on her scalp and sure enough she only has hair on the top of her head. “Why is my hair like this?”

  “I had to cut the back so I could get to the wound on you scalp. I figured that you would not want it left that way, so I styled it in the manner of our warrior women.”

  “A mohawk? Really?”

  “Yes. We have very few warriors that are women these days, but they still cut their hair in this way.”

  “Great. I’ve got a mohawk.”

  “I am sorry that you are not pleased with the haircut, but what is done is done and there is nothing that can change it. Would you like to sit up and try to drink something?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Let me help you.”

  Jamie begins to sit up on her own, but the Astara is there in a flash and holding her back with his strong arms. Her head swims as she sits up, but she manages to stay sitting up. Bol walks over to a small fridge at
the opposite end of the room and opens it. When he comes back he has a drink in a can. From the looks of the can it is some kind of really old soda, but her mouth is very dry and she is in no position to scoff at the drink. She takes the can and holds it high.

  “Beggars can’t be choosers.” She drinks deeply and is surprised to find that the soda is still carbonated.

  “That they cannot. Especially if they are Astaran beggars and inside the walls of the Camp Venogar.”

  Suddenly, Jamie realizes exactly where she is and how badly these aliens have been treated over the last twenty years. She holds the can out and studies it for a moment. “I’m sorry for snapping at you earlier Bol. I forget my manners sometimes. Thank you very much for the drink.”

  “Do not apologize. It is how I am used to being treated by humans.”

  “Please don’t think we are all like that. We aren’t. I for one think that keeping you and your people in these camps is a disgusting misuse of power by the government. Let alone a criminal act. I truly am sorry.” She holds out a hand. “My name is Jamie Gettner and I am a reporter with the Gazette.”

  “Long life to you Jamie Gettner of the Gazette. I am Bol previously of Sendara now of Camp Venogar.”

  Jamie shakes his hand and takes another drink of the soda. As she drinks she looks around Bol’s home. It seems to just consist of one room with a kitchenette and a curtain for the bathroom area. He catches her looking around and waves a hand around the room.

  “It isn’t much, but as you said before, ‘Beggars cannot be choosers.’ It serves me well enough and it keeps the rain and snow out.”