ROMANCE: His Reluctant Heart (Historical Western Victorian Romance) (Historical Mail Order Bride Romance Fantasy Short Stories)

by Jane Prescott

  “Listen,” Rick said one day as they walked in the park. “I'm going to buy my way out and we're going to head west, all the way out to Colorado. The west side of the Rockies out there is sparsely populated. There are towns where people go to disappear. One place I've read about on the internet even has a sign up at the post office telling people that if they take pictures of the residents that they will be arrested and the film scrapped.”

  Jen's eyes grew wide.

  “What do you think is going on out there?” she asked.

  “I'm not sure, really. It could be that witness protection just loves the place. Or it could be the rich eccentric people move out there to be left alone. You'd be surprised how hard it is to be left alone in this country. But Colorado's Front Range does a good job of providing that place. You can go there and get lost in the mountains. And weed is legal. I've never smoked the stuff because the mob looks down on that sort of thing, and drugs in general. But maybe we could move out there and live like a couple of New Age hippies in the mountains. Of course we'd have running water and all of that jazz. You know what I mean. I'm not talking about living under a bridge or anything.”

  Jen had agreed and they'd set a date. As the date approached Jen wondered more and more whether or not she'd made the right decision. It was easy to just tell herself yes, but she knew that deep down there were other ways she could go about raising the child. She knew that she could pull off being a single mother, and that it didn't have to turn into something out of a thriller movie where she moved far away from her life in order to stay alive. The closer the day got the more antsy she felt about the entire thing. But she couldn't let Rick know. He wasn't joking around about buying out, and the amount of cash that he'd stored at her house for the drop off was huge. She'd never seen so much money in one place in her life. She wondered what it must feel like to be able to produce that amount of money on demand. Or maybe the feeling was more like the trapped feeling she'd had clinging to her for the past few months. Maybe Rick felt like his whole life had been kind of a waste since he'd only ended up making enough money to buy his was out of the mob.

  The day they left the sky was sunny and clear. They got on a train westward bound and settled in. Rick told her about all of the places they'd go and things they'd see once they made it out there. It was pretty great to listen to him talk, to know that he loved her so much that he was willing to do all of this. Because love was a word they hadn't thrown around yet, or even said once. But as the train chugged away from the station Jen realized that this was love, the amount of sacrifice for each other. This was the thing that so many people went their entire life without finding. And like with so many other people, love was the thing that might end up tearing them apart. Because who knew how each of them would adjust. Who knew what would happen. They could move out there and end up hating it, end up resenting each other and everything about the mountains and the hippies and the pot and the tourists. They might end up worse off.

  Jen rested her head against Rick's arm as the train slowly picked up speed. The rhythm of the engine was something she felt in her soul. She smiled as she thought about how their baby would enter the world in one of its most beautiful places. She just hoped that Rick and herself could do right by the child and each other. She hoped that end the end it would all be worth it, and neither of them would have any regrets. Jen fell asleep and didn't wake again until their next stop. It was dark out, but for the first time since they met they were alone together, without anything darkening the sky above them. Jen felt at peace for the first time. She felt homeward bound.

  THE END

  Desiring the Bad Boy Navy Seals

  When I walk into the club, I stride, great big swallowing steps that eat up the floor in front of me like it’s made up of nothing but candy. Except that I’m not sweet. I can feel the eyes on me, the sway of my slender hips cutting the air around me, the black leather skirt I’ve got on swishing from side to side.

  The men flock to me like flies to honey. I know what they see. They see the dark slash of my hair, falling all the way down to my butt. They see my eyes and they know; they can feel the dark energy rising up in me. It’s been a month since I’ve doffed the collar of Master Slick, and it’s been a very lonely night indeed. There are still nights when I pick up the phone and for the few moments that he picks up the phone and I can hear his voice and breathing, I find myself aching in all the familiar old ways. We broke up and I haven’t been able to bring myself to find a new Dom, but I think that tonight is my night.

  I see my mark, a man relatively well-known around here. The things I’ve heard about him make me think that he’s exactly what I need; so much of what I enjoy about this particular lifestyle is purely psychological. Some subs require the whips, the contraptions, the strappings, but for me, the best part is mental. The idea of surrender, the vulnerability that comes with placing your soul and body into the hands of another—I feel charged just thinking of it.

  My moniker is Little Iliana.

  The man and I lock eyes, but I look demurely away, sending the signal that I would like him to display his alpha male prowess. There is a communication in this world that goes beyond actual words, and this man understands my meaning. He crosses the room with two Grey Gooses in his hands, sits down next to me and we sip our drinks silently for a while. The only thing touching is our eyes. His are a steely gray, and we take stock of each other. He is powerfully built, a stocky man who has that broody quality about him that reminds me of Master Slick. I sip my drink while he watches, and then pause. He tells me to finish the rest of it. I comply. He tells me to eat the olives off the toothpick. I chew. Then he tells me to dance, and when I get up, his eyes skim my body up and down. I am not sure I like the way he is issuing orders without really getting to know me, but maybe that’s just his personality. In either case, I feel like dancing.

  I am swaying, I am rocking, I am totally in my body. I love it when I’m being watched by just one person; it makes me feel special, like I’m the only woman in the world. I am rotating my hips in the infinity signs to the heavy music that is pouring out of the speakers, crossing my midline with my arms, allowing the black bangles to slip all the way down my forearms. I am shaking my long hair from side to side when I spot Hank.

  My heart begins to pound so hard that I am sure the Dom can see it pounding against the sharp bite of my ribcage. I quickly look away; Hank appears to be uncommonly uncomfortable and I know that it is very difficult to make a man that disciplined feel out of place. He has weaved in and out of the crowd and is now standing on the fringes, watching me; I can see his reflection in the mirror I am dancing in front of, although I don’t think he knows it. There is something like shock in his eyes, and I know that I’ve just changed his perception of me entirely. God’s blood, what’s a man like that, a decorated Navy SEAL, doing in this club?

  Maybe I misjudged Hank all these years.

  Maybe he’s even more interesting than I first imagined.

  Maybe we’re more alike than I first thought.

  I dance and watch his amazement grow. He cannot unlock his eyes from the curve of my waist as I roll my hips forward and back, and then again, as I shimmy my shoulders, the soft swell of my breasts lush against the silk fabric of my top. I am an enchantress in that moment; I can feel it just as surely as a dog feels its owner’s energy through a leash. In our case, the leash is invisible.

  Given our history, I find it incredibly amusing that right now, I am the alpha. I was always the alpha. It just had to be in the right situation. I met a man who was a dog handler once; he introduced me to this soft, fluffy little Maltese and told me that when he first had the dog, it displayed dominance and aggression over him and all the other dogs in the house. Then he demonstrated the alpha roll and told me that no other Maltese he had ever met would allow a human being to do that to it.

  Watching him alpha roll that dog was a huge turn on. I had him eat me out by sitting on his face in one of my special chairs
, the kind that’s like a throne with a hole in it. By the time I was done, he was short of breath and his quads were aching, but he knew who was boss. And he liked it.

  Side to side and back and forth. I slide my hands down my thighs and use the flats of my hands to slide my skirt up, revealing my ankles and allowing the long slits of it to give flashes of my creamy skin underneath. A highway to heaven that is off-limits to anyone who I do not invite there first. A quick glance up reveals that Hank has turned a peculiar color and is unable to stare at me directly anymore; he’s got his eyes down and his shoulders are turning in a little. I recognize that pose. We’re back to the dogs again—when a dog is submissive, it stops puffing its shoulders out and acting important. Hank can feel who is in charge here, and it is certainly not him. What an interesting change that must be for someone who is a Navy SEAL, someone who is used to being the pack leader and directing others.

  He forgets that we are two of a kind. And he has always, but always, underestimated me. And if you know who I really am, you realize how dangerous that is.

  * * *

  What you want and what you end up getting are often two entirely different things.

  For example, when he came home on leave, the last thing Hank Leigh wanted to do was to go to some seedy little club in the middle of nowhere. However, when he learned that Iliana Reed was in town, his natural sense of curiosity got the best of him. After Iliana had dropped out of Stage 3 of their training, neither he nor George had heard from her again, and it had been a good four years since he had seen her last. He was given leave for two weeks and had rushed back to his childhood home, only to find that while everything looked exactly the same, everything was exactly different at the same time.

  It was his mother who mentioned that Iliana was back. Nobody knew exactly where she had been over the past few years, but she had returned right after her mother had died and taken back over the house. During the day, she worked in the pet shop over on Main Street, and as soon as she would close the store down for the night, she could be seen hopping into her car, a sleek black beauty, and driving in the direction of the town fifteen miles east, the one that was hopping with nightlife fit for a major urbanized center. She was young and entitled to a life, particularly after such a harsh tragedy, his mother reasoned aloud to him, but for God’s sake, nobody knew where the girl was going and where she was coming from. It was a small town and people talked; Iliana sure was a strange one was how Hank’s mother put it, probably thinking she was diplomatic as all hell.

  Hank couldn’t deny that last one, though. Iliana had always struck him as just a little bit left of center in the least political meaning of that particular phrase. She was a loner even during their SEAL days, which was strange because their training focused on creating a unit, people who would support each other and work together to complete their missions. But there was always that thing about Iliana, the way she would look at their training officers that made it perfectly clear she would never display that humility that is considered the proper character for SEALS.

  George, one of the other recruits and also hailing from their home town, had seen it a little bit differently. “She’s a girl, man,” he would whine to Hank every time Hank would try to bring up Iliana after she left. “It’s rough on us, but imagine what it’s like for the women, with their delicate lady parts and whatnot. A SEAL has a passion for excellence; maybe she just had a passion for cookies.” Hank would grind his teeth and try to focus, instead, on how good the other man was during their missions; his nervous energy would slough off and he would be alert, focused, and hypersensitive to the positions of his team.

  Hank didn’t pause to think much on why he wanted to see what Iliana did with her nights. He spotted her at the pet store one day, looking as shockingly young as she did during her SEAL days, but he couldn’t come up to her and greet her. He was not a man who liked to stand much for unnecessary awkwardness, and that was all he could picture happening if he went up to Iliana and talked to her. Because the truth of the matter was was that all the questions he had for her would not be ones that were appropriate. Where had she gone after the SEALS? If she hadn’t wanted to be there, why did she join them in the first place? Was it weakness that caused her to leave, as George had always theorized, or was it something else? Back when he knew her there, she had always had this look about her like she was waiting for the next hit, the next dangerous training session because she didn’t care if she lost the skin off her teeth as long as she could prove something.

  What are you running from? Hank wondered as he drove behind Iliana, making sure to stay three cars behind her on the highway to avoid being spotted, although he knew it was a stretch to imagine that she had been alerted to his presence in town as he had been to hers.

  His mind had been a pleasant blank before he had pulled into the shady little darkened parking lot outside the club. Iliana had pulled in and dimmed all her lights; it was already dark out, so he couldn’t see into the car, but she stayed in there for ten, maybe fifteen minutes. When she emerged, his heart almost stopped. Gone was the uniform of chinos and a T-shirt she wore at the store. The woman who stepped from the shiny black car was an ethereal creature if he had ever seen one. With her bird-like slim build and loose flowing hair, encased in silk, leather, and velvet, all black against the pale ivory of her skin, she looked like a dark fairy setting out for a night of frolicking amongst demons.

  It never even occurred to him that she might be one of the demons herself.

  It is only when he comes across the list of rules that Hank gets his first inkling of what type of club he has wandered into.

  1. No booze and no penetration.

  2. Everything must be consensual. If you see someone who intrigues you, by all means, ask, but wait until they are finished first.

  3. Leave your street clothes at the door ($2). Paddles, cat-o’-nines, and other items available for purchase at the rear end room under the EXIT sign.

  What is inside almost offends his sensibilities, but then he pulls himself up short. There are men in skintight latex suits being led on leashes held by women whose dark makeup gives them a slightly vampiric edge. Gorgeous women of all shapes and sizes, wearing collars or not, are being attended to by men. There are indeed paddles up for sale near the back exit of the club, and the line to obtain these toys moves fast, although it is easily ten-deep. The whole place reminds Hank heavily of a dungeon, the kind where he and George ended up on one of their missions; they ended up having to extricate the women there and lead them to shaking, relieved safety. Unlike that mission, however, the women here look as if they feel completely at ease. There is no familiar bar-buzz, seeing as the place sells non-alcoholic drinks, only, and there is a surreal feel to the space; this is where fantasy goes to live, and there is a group of people on a centralized platform suspending what looks like a bed onto a complicated pulley system. A closer look reveals that what he thought to be the bed is actually a very large box filled with straw; in the center of it lays a nubile young woman, her ankles and wrists bound together, a black satin gag tied around her mouth.

  His first instinct is to run to her, untie her, and punch everyone around her, but he notices that her eyes are burning with excitement and not fear; he would know fear anywhere, and this most certainly is not that. As men’s hands reach out and stroke her, she arches her back and leans into the caresses; Hank sees one of the men draw out a riding crop and slide it gently over the rounded expanse of her bottom. He lifts his arm, but before he can bring it down, Hank turns away. He is the interloper here; he has seen many things over the course of his lifetime, and he knows better than to interfere, especially when the rules of the club are so blatantly clear. There must be over a hundred people in this club; if none of them are running away screaming, then why should he panic over some sexual deviance? As it is, he avoids making eye contact as he uses his peripheral vision to scan for Iliana.

  He stops stock-still.

  There, on the dance
floor that consists of a reflective surface and many blinking lights, a slim-hipped young woman sways.

  He is riveted to her, the fall and rise of the top of her skirt riding low, the way the natural grace of her arms waves in time to the music. It is as if he has been transported back in time, when kings and noteworthy men would call upon the beautiful women in their royal households to dance for them, to serve them. She cannot see him, her eyes are downcast, but he watches her, trying his best to ignore the feeling of dirty rising up within him. He survived Hell Week, for Pete’s sake, that fourth week of SEAL training where candidates sleep for about four hours a night and run more than two hundred miles the next day. He should be able to stop from staring at a woman.

  The dance is over much too fast for his taste, as loathe as he is to admit it. Hank watches with regret as Iliana goes back to her seat, next to a man who looks as brutish as any I have ever seen. Is this actually her type? He looks as though he can choke a horse, and the idea of the man doing anything to her wiry little frame puts Hank ill at ease. He does not notice as he begins to gradually draw closer and closer to the couple. The man leans over and whispers something in Iliana’s ear, to which she laughs, the liquid in her martini glass swishing softly. Hank draws closer and closer, not thinking of what he is going to say and do—how will he even justify being here?—and then he sees the man put his hand on Iliana’s thigh.

  Hank feels himself darken, his focus narrowing on that possessive hand claiming the ivory-skinned thigh. He does not fully know what goes on in a place like this, but there is something so off-putting about what he is seeing that without even thinking about it, he comes over and clasps a firm hand on the man’s shoulder.