ROMANCE: His Reluctant Heart (Historical Western Victorian Romance) (Historical Mail Order Bride Romance Fantasy Short Stories) (5 page)

*              *              *

              BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ—

              BZZZZZ. BBZZZZ.  BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.

              Dear God Almighty, make it stop.  Make the buzzing stop.  No, no, no, I want it to go away, there is no chance at all it is 9 A.M. already.  Is there?

              I crack open one eyelid and check the clock.  It’s true, daybreak is here already. Ugh, I never feel good when I go to bed late, but when I recall the places my imagination took me last night after that story, I smile to myself and know it was all worth it.  I curl my body up off the bed and start busying myself, getting ready to go to work.

              It’s 9:26 A.M. and I’ve got one foot out the door when I recall that the last chapter is due by 9:30 A.M. for quality review.  “Shit, shit, shit,” I grumble as I run back in, slamming the door behind me.  One glance at the screen and I save all my changes to make sure I don’t lose the piece from last night, two more clicks, a few lines of typing, and I’ve sent the chapter out to quality control.  Phew, safe.  I swipe my keys off the table and head to work.

              It’s not until I have firmly established myself behind the wheel of my car and have driven about four miles that reality sets in and I slam my hand against the steering wheel, inadvertently hitting my horn and pissing off the drivers in front of me.

              Oh God.  Oh anybody who is listening up there, if you even exist.  Did I just save   the changes with Christopher’s name splattered all over my piece?  A horrible feeling slides all the way down my chest and settles in my stomach, making me take one step closer to puking all over my dashboard.  The entire half hour drive to work, I keep oscillating between having sent it in in the highly inappropriate form and having changed it back.  The dread is so tangible by the time I get to work that my hands are shaking as I open up my email account and click the download icon next to the attachment I sent out the QC department.

              I open it.  Scan it.  Find CHRISTOPHER MELLINS smackered all over the pages like seeds in a watermelon and mentally start digging my way to China.  I quickly shoot off another email asking for the draft back, saying that I know it’s highly irregular, but I’ve got to make a very key change otherwise it will offend our readers to no end.  Jeff from quality control sends me an email back saying he already forwarded it to the staffers there and if there’s anything offensive about it, they can edit it out themselves.  I know that the QC staff is limited and that they go on a roundtable schedule with each of the writers, so I ask him who’s got my piece this time; if it’s Sally, I can bribe her with double fudge chocolate cookies to allow me to change the piece before it gets into the wrong hands.  After all, she’s a red-blooded heterosexual lady, she’ll understand.

              Jeff emails me back saying that he doesn’t have time to look himself, but he’s forwarded me the schedule for the week and I should look myself.  Heart pounding so loudly I feel it reverberating in my ears, I scan up and down Thursday’s lineup, find my name, and slide my finger up to match it to my reviewer.

              CHRISTOPHER MELLINS.

              That’s it.  I’m fired.  I’m fired so hard and so fast that I won’t even have time to clear out my cubicle.  There are strict company guidelines about this; no fraternizing with any authority figures, and now I’ve gone and screwed that up.  There’s no way Christopher won’t think I’m not flirting with him, and then I’ll be charged with creating a hostile work environment.  And there’s not just the work aspect of it—I have just announced, quite publicly and directly to the source, that I imagine Christopher helping me finger myself.

              Oh Lordy Lord, Vishnu, Hashem, whatever.  What am I going to do about all this?

*              *              *

              For the rest of the day, my heart races like I’ve shot up on heroin.  I keep excusing myself to the bathroom because I don’t want my co-workers to see me with my head between my legs trying to regain control of my breathing.  Sally asked me what was wrong as I was coming out of the restroom and I almost told her, then realized I didn’t need anybody else telling me exactly how badly I messed up.

              All day, I’ve been waiting for that stern e-mail in my inbox from Christopher telling me to come into his office so that he can sit me down and tell me in no uncertain terms that I better get a big box for my things and not be so bold as to expect a recommendation.  And the curious thing is that all day, my inbox has remained blank; I got a (1) icon next to my name on my account and almost swallowed my tongue, but it turned out to be Sean asking me where that paper on Italian fig trees came from because he’s writing one of those nerdy pieces where the people like their genus and species named exactly right even though nobody’s boning the fig tree.

              The next day is no better because I begin wondering what happened on Christopher’s end when he read the story.  Maybe he thought it was a typo or a glitch.  Oh God, I should have emailed him directly, shouldn’t I have, saying that it was something like that.  Would he have bought that?  What must he be thinking, reading that and thinking that I meant it?  I mean, of course I meant it.  I’ve wanted the man’s bod ever since I laid eyes on him, but he didn’t need to know that!  And then there’s that whole thing that the girl is being basically raped by a pirate—what was I thinking?  How could I unleash the full scary volume of my kinkiness upon the world?

              By day four, I’ve convinced myself that I just about don’t care. Seriously, it’s cruel to make me wait this long to get fired.  I may have made him uncomfortable, but this is affecting my sleep and my psychological well-being.  I have completely had enough.  By day five, my impatience has morphed into anger and I am readying myself to walk into Christopher’s office and quit.  I cannot work like this.  I am running behind all of my deadlines and every time someone so much as sneezes, I think it’s a notification on my email account and nearly jump right out of my skin.  I have neatly packed everything on my desk and found an empty crate to use instead of a box.  Sally peeks in to see what I’m doing and I tell her to mind her own business; she slides back into her cubicle with a huff, but I don’t care.  I get up to leave when I see that I have a new e-mail.  From Christopher.

              My stomach bottoms out and I flop down into my chair because my knees can no longer support the weight of my body.  Here it comes.  All right, I’m ready for it; let’s just get it over with.  I click open the e-mail and read.

Dear Andrea (he writes),

  Check your work mailbox.  Get back to me.

-Chris Mellins

              Is this how they’re delivering pink slips these days?  Because if it is, it’s surprisingly low-tech.  Our work mailboxes are arranged like cubbies and are constantly crammed full of fliers, memos, coupons, and things nobody generally pays any attention to.  I guess that’s a handy a place as any to stuff a “You’re fired” notice.

              Except that when I pull out the mess of papers from the cubbyhole, there’s nothing pink in there except an old birthday card from Sally that’s too girly for life itself.  I flip through the stack, but the only thing that’s new and undoubtedly from Christopher is a manila envelope with a little yellow Post-It on top that says in Christopher’s long and loopy handwriting: Open at your desk with nobody watching.

              What kind of game is this man playing?

              I head back to my desk and I’m in luck because everyone else has gone out to lunch; the place is nearly empty.  I check left and right and then push my swivel chair close into my desk and open up the envelope.  Inside is a small sheaf of papers.  The top reads, CHAPTER SEVEN: A NEW KIND OF MUTINY

              What’s Christopher up to?  I guess he’s going to make me keep reading to find out.

              Meg was sound asleep in Captain Edwin’s cabin when the door came crashing open and a man hit the floor with such alacrity it’s a wonder he didn’t break his kneecaps.  Shocked awake, she clutched the bed sheet to her chest to try and preserve her modesty.

              Not that there’s much left.  Over the past two weeks, Captain Edwin had explored and plundered her body until there was nothing that Meg did not know about herself anymore.  He had been right, so right in fact that Meg did not even feel ashamed that she had succumbed to his experienced advances.  She recognized that she was not in the ideal situation to learn about her body for the first time, but now she spent her days in this haze of feelings and thoughts from the nights that made them all blend together.  Since she was not yet allowed up and about the ship, she whiled away the hours daydreaming about the smell of Edwin’s skin, the masterful way he bent her over the edge of the bed and stroked the length of her creamy white back in tandem with the rocking of the ship over the waves. 

              Every conceivable position had been explored after Meg overcame her natural shyness.  Edwin had taught her to ask for exactly what she wanted, no matter how strange it may seem; he said he preferred to know if there was anything he could do.  The hardest part of all for Meg was to trust that Edwin wanted her as much as she did him.  Of course, it was clear to the rest of the crew that their captain was head over water wheels for the genteel lady on board.  Captain Edwin had sailed miles off of their charted course and they had not had any looting in weeks.  There was a rumbling on board, talk of the captain having his wits wiped by a woman, and how it was bad luck to have a female on board at all.

              But Edwin paid no attention to any of this.  His efforts were concentrated on getting Meg to come out of her shell.  For some reason, the silly girl had no idea how wild she was driving him.  He had never felt this way about a woman before, but perhaps it was because he had never been with a woman this enchantingly innocent.  The way she held her bottom lip between her teeth when he buried his face between her thighs and grabbed the sheets below her haunted his passing hours; instead of the horizon before him, instead of the ship splitting the waters, he Meg on her stomach, asking him to cover her with his body, to enter her the way only boys are entered, driving him crazy with the intensity of her sweetness and the wantonness she kept so close to her heart.  How he wanted to realize her true potential as a seductress!

              Which is why the punishment he had devised for the mutinous crew member was a special one.  He had discovered the man leading a covert meeting down below the galley and had dealt him one swift blow to the ear that had knocked him right off his feet.  He recognized him as Sean McSully, the youngest and most hotheaded of the crew; the boy was barely nineteen but had the long, rangy muscles of a man who has worked his life on a ship, and with just the right amount of scars left over from tavern brawls to give his face character and an air of danger.  Add to that steely gray eyes, a mop of long blonde hair, and what Edwin judged to be a cock of enthusiastic youth, and oh yes, Sean would fit the bill quite nicely.

              Once he had picked himself up off the floor, Sean tried to lunge himself at Edwin, only to be soundly rebuffed by a swift blow to the stomach just above his groin.  Meg heard herself gasp with shock; she had never seen the violent side of Edwin before.  It had been so easy to imagine him as the tender, masterful lover rather than a captain of a rough and rowdy crew that needed to be soundly checked at every juncture.  She saw Sean rise repeatedly, only to find himself licking Edwin’s boots every time he tried.  Finally, snarling, Sean retreated to the corner of the room where he looked at Edwin with murderous eyes.

              “I’m glad you know your place now, Sean.  Because if you try to attack me again, I’ll leave more than just your lip bleeding,” Edwin told the enraged youth who was wiping his mouth.  “Meg,” he said, turning to the nude woman in his bed, his tone considerably gentler.  “Help our young usurper to a chair, will you?”  Meg reached for her gown where it lay on the silken chair next to the bed, but Edwin stopped her with a glance.  “Do it as you are now.”

              Cheeks burning with the shame of another crew member seeing her this way, Meg rose from the bed, the gentle curves of her body drawing the eyes of both men.  She reached her hands out and Sean grabbed them roughly, eliciting a growl from Edwin.  “Gentler or your next touch is going to be from my blade, and I guarantee that won’t be half as nice as what Meg is offering,” he said, and Sean’s motions were considerably more cautious.  They settled him onto the chair and Edwin stood back to survey the scene.

              The wickedness of his thoughts pervaded his actions, and he settled himself behind the nude Meg to guide her, hand over hand, over Sean’s body.  Together, their palms rubbed his shoulders and their fingers tiptoed a path over his collarbone.  Edwin bent Meg’s head down and bade her to kiss Sean’s neck; below them, without his consent, Sean’s cock began to stiffen.  He growled with frustration and tried to swat Meg away, only to find Edwin’s fingers clasped firmly and painfully on the delicate flesh of his earlobe; the message was clear.  The flats of their hands drew circles around Sean’s dark brown nipples and slipped lower and lower down the flat valley of his belly until they intertwined with the coarse hair of his pubis.  Sean groaned aloud when their fingers brushed against his cock and gripped the armrests even more tightly.

              “Meg, kneel before him,” Edwin instructed, and Meg did as she was told.  Edwin followed and bent her head down until she was facedown in Sean’s lap.  “Open your mouth.”  She did.  “I want you to do what you did to me the other night.”  Meg opened her mouth and to Sean’s wide-eyed surprise, took him deep inside of her and began to work him up and down against the walls of her cheeks and throat.