ROMANCE: His Reluctant Heart (Historical Western Victorian Romance) (Historical Mail Order Bride Romance Fantasy Short Stories) (6 page)
Authors: Jane Prescott
“She ca—can’t—” Sean started to sputter, but a soft slap on the cheek from Edwin quickly silenced him.
“She can and she will,” Edwin said, running a hand down the clean line of Meg’s smooth white back. “I can, too.” And with that, he lifted Meg up by the hips until her lovely pink nether parts were waving high in the air, and buried his face in her, tending to her with his mouth and fingers until she was wet and ready for him. Without making any bones about it, he ran his cock a few times over the open entrance and eased himself inside of Meg, who began bucking her hips in rhythm to his thrusts without releasing Sean from her mouth; her naked tits, pointing slightly against the gravitational pull, bounced back and forth as Edwin’s pace quickened. When it got too much for her, she slapped her hands on Sean’s thighs and gripped tightly, his cock falling from her as she moaned helplessly with pleasure, spraying Edwin’s cock with her juices.
Edwin pulled out from her and she fell to the floor, still throbbing with the feel of him inside of her. He laughed aloud as Sean’s still-erect cock bobbed in the air, far away from any pleasuring source. “None for you, Seany-boy,” he chortled, and the anger on the young man’s face was evident.
“But, but that’s not fair!”
Edwin’s laughter stilled and he walked over until his face was mere inches from the young man’s face. Their eyes locked, and Edwin could see Sean’s fear so clearly it was almost painful. For a minute, no one spoke, and then pirate Captain Edwin delivered his decree.
“This is your punishment, Sean. And if you cross me again, it won’t be a woman’s mouth waiting to swallow you, it will be the sea herself.”
And with that, he scooped Meg off the floor and threw Sean out on his naked tail.
I walked to Christopher Mellins’ office in a daze. I know not if I was supposed to find him, but what else could a story like this one mean? Was it simply a nod to my writing skills or was the man of my dreams sending me a message?
“Christopher?” I queried as I pushed open the slightly ajar door. He turned in his chair, my long-haired, lanky, denim-clad prince, and I beheld him in his glory on the throne of the kingdom of writers.
“Andrea!” his face melted into a gorgeous smile, those dimples begging for my fingertips. “I see you’ve brought my story, come in, come in,” he said, gesturing at the seat before him. “What did you think?”
“It’s an interesting twist,” I said, nervously bending the envelope in my hands. “I don’t know that I would have thought of it myself.”
“Well that’s why I’m here. To offer a different perspective.”
“But Christopher… I take it you read my chapter. That was a misunderstanding—”
“Was it? I’d like to think not. You see, Andrea, writing is not the only place where you need to be able to adapt to a new perspective. In some parts of the world, there are people who believe that kissing is disgusting, a mashing together of the mouths. In other, orgies are completely normal.”
Was the man sane? “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because, Andrea, another perspective on this ‘misunderstanding’ is that I’d like to explore what you wrote about us in the real world. So I figured I would let you know in the same unique way you clued me in.”
My mouth hung open.
“Close your mouth, it’s not that shocking. Oh, and Andrea?”
I swallowed hard. “Y-yes?”
He smiled again, and in that moment, I trusted him with everything, my life, my heart, my future. “Call me Chris,” he said, and that was the end of that.
THE END
Jerry and Dillard had been cowhands for a long time before they'd decided to become cowboys. It might sound silly to think of the two as mutually exclusive, but it certainly is a case of every square being a rectangle but not every rectangle is a square—it wasn't until the two armed themselves and sent a pack of cow thieves running for the hills with slugs flying past their ears that most people realized that the pair were a force to be reckoned with. Not every pair of cowhands is a force to be reckoned with.
For a while the two had gotten sick of tending to cattle and decided to be the security crew for a few of the stagecoaches that banks used to move money around the western frontier. There was plenty of country in Colorado that made it easy to ambush a stagecoach, and even trains. The work had been fun and demanding, always changing from one day to the next. But on the other hand it had also been dangerous, and it eventually it would catch up with them. One of the larger banks out east was tired of dealing in numbers when it came to security, especially when it didn't matter how many men were there if they all broke and ran at the same time. So they'd come to the Jerry and Dillard to try and strike up some kind of bargain. Well, they hadn't come, they'd sent someone.
“My name is Bell,” she introduced herself as soon as she walked into the saloon. “And I'm glad to make you two gentlemen's acquaintance. I think we are about to have a long and very profitable relationship. Do you mind if I use the outhouse?”
Neither men said anything, and Bell left her hat on the table in front of her seat.
“Whatever bank we're dealing with sure must be from progressive New York to put make a black lady large and in charge like this,” Jerry said. “Kind of makes me think maybe we could make it, after all.”
“Shit, maybe,” Dillard said. “I ain't never been out to New York but let me tell you something, I bet they'll be paying us a pretty penny to make sure everything goes smoothly. Whatever it is they want to talk to us about.”
Jerry looked down into his drink and nodded. That had been the part he hadn't been so sure about, when they'd gotten the wire from New York saying such and such bank was going to be sending out a representative to their area to make sure that money was moved around in accordance with the will of the some of the higher up people at the institution. Neither Jerry nor Dillard had any idea what that meant exactly, and it had been explained to them in often bombastic terms that they both thought was meant to inform, but also to confuse anyone who might be tapped into the telegraph line and listening in.
But it wasn't like it was rocket science. There would be a stagecoach. There would be money and presumably this Bell person who had just arrived. And then there would be the two of them with their guns, mean looks, and bad attitudes to ward off anyone who might think it a good idea to try their luck knocking off a bank coach. And that was exactly what had been going on all over the front range. The front range was the Rocky Mountains just west of Denver, with a corridor of settlements to its east like Denver, Colorado Springs, Fort Collins and others. Bandits in the area had grown smart to some of the bank coaches tricks and had increasingly been able to get away with a great deal of money. This, of course, meant either a lot of dead stagecoach men, or a lot of stagecoach men turning sides and selling out the banks to the bandits, if not just making off with the loot themselves.
So people like them, he'd told Dillard, were more and more in demand. They'd pissed off all of the local bandit games through their past jobs as cowhands, busting and hanging cattle thieves, that most nobody round these parts would willfully tangle with the two. They were what some of the Spanish speaking people called, “Bad men,” in broken English. Whether or not they were “bad” in the sense of being morally corrupt or “bad” in the sense of being stone cold killers wasn't something either of them worried about. They couldn't really afford to worry about it, and Jerry was especially aware of this being the brains out of the two of them. Not that Dillard was slow, by any means, he just didn't like to think about things that weren't money, booze, or pussy. So that meant that as far as planning went, Jerry was pretty much on his own. But he kind of liked it that way, anyway. What use would it be to have two minds competing to create the master vision that would in the end, with some luck, create a great deal of wealth for both of them.
Like openly being against racism and being more than willing to work with any race had landed with them this job. The telegram preceding the one that had told them of the obfuscated plans had asked them what they thought of race. Jerry had sent back, “Race is a social construct.” That, combined with their reputations as bad hombres was enough to get them hired. So here they sat, waiting for Bell to get back from the out house. And in she walked. And now that they both weren't shocked to see a black woman running the affairs of far off rich white men they both basked in the beauty that she radiated. She had high cheek bones and caramel colored skin, an ample behind and bust. She was the kind of woman that reminded a man that he had urges.
“How are the both of you?” she asked sitting down across the table from them.
“We're very good, mam,” Jerry said with a polite nod. “You said yesterday that you might be needing us to be available to move from here with you to the bank, is that correct?”
“Yes, of course,” Bell said. “But for now I think I need a drink and some time to rest my weary feet. I'm glad that both of you are still sober enough to talk straight. The last people the bank tried to line up for me were drunkards and racists, so it didn't work out very well.”
“I can imagine,” Dillard said in a deadpan voice.
“What my partner means is,” Jerry said, then faltered for words. “Well, you just might have to get used to Dillard's dry wit. He truly is a man of few words.”
“Well it's good you're here then speak for both of you,” she said. “Because I would like to discuss the finer particulars of what will be going on. I know you are both very well versed in the art of killing people, as I see from your days of cow handing and also what followed up until now. In fact just yesterday I was checking the paper, and you know what? There you both were on the inside cover with warrants up, big numbers, right underneath your pictures.”
“That's why we done killed them,” Dillard said.
Jerry nodded and smiled politely.
“Dillard again tells the truth, mam,” Jerry said. “Those people did meet grisly demises at our hands. But let's not talk about it. It kind of makes me queasy thinking about it.”
“Oh?” Bell said with a cocked eyebrow.
“I mean,” Jerry said, then his voice trailed off. “It's not important. Anyway. You were going to discuss plans and I'm very eager to hear what we will be up to.”
“Well,” Bell said. “We need to head on down to Denver through the night because I have to be at the new bank there for the formal get together and ribbon cutting ceremony.”
“Why in the hell did you take a train to Boulder to meet us, then?” Dillard said.
“Dillard,” Jerry said, a slight edge in his voice.
Jerry turned his head slowly to glare at Dillard, then turned back to speak with Bell.
“Why of course. You see, we have a stagecoach ready and you can ride in the back. It's very comfortable back there. And you have my word you'll be safe enough on the way down there.”
“Safe enough?” Bell asked.
“Well I reckon that the reason that you didn't take the train into Denver where we could have met you without the trek up here to Boulder is that if your name was on some kind of log or passenger manifesto that ended up in the wrong hands you would meet some kind of end that you would rather avoid, ultimately. Am I correct?”
“Yes,” Bell said.
“That's good. Otherwise I'd be wondering why in the hell you didn't just meet us in God damn Denver. But not to worry I understand completely. Now what I meant by safe enough is that since we had no idea what in the hell we would be up against, we figured if you needed anymore than the two of us you would have rounded that king of man power up. But I think that keeps biting you folks in the ass so you don't want anything to do with a large group of armed men. With more men come their mouths and no one knows who is going to get too drunk at the bar and start blabbing things that get people killed.”
Bell shifted uncomfortably in her chair.
“So you've got the two of us,” Jerry said. “The two most hated cowboys in these here parts. The Sheriffs don't like us because we do their jobs for them. The bandits don't like us because we smoke them, then snuff them, out. So hopefully whoever is after you isn't in either of those two categories, or we might really be fucked.”
Bell blanched at his language, but quickly brought her face back to a stern neutral look.
“Neither of those groups is involved. The problem is that the people who are involved haven't really revealed themselves,” she said.
“So what you mean to say is that you really don't have any idea who in God's name is after you at given moment, and you figured the best thing to do upon arriving in the front range would be to hire two of the local gunslingers to help make sure that you stay alive.”
“That's right,” Bell said quietly.
“Well the good news is that's fine by us. The bad news is that we can't really make any guarantee about your safety beyond 'safe enough' simply because we don't have the faintest idea who we're dealing with right now. It could be the Mexican Army for all we know.”
Bell shook her head slowly.
“It isn't anything like that. Don't think bigger, think smaller and meaner. Like assassins and stuff like that. There is a lot of double crossing going on right now so I figured the best thing to do would be to hire two people that I know aren't involved and go from there.”
“Well,” Jerry said. “Let's head to the stagecoach and get out of here.”
“I'm not so sure about all of this,” Dillard said as the two of them sat on the front of the stagecoach, guiding the horses down the road at a slow trot.
They'd be to Denver long before morning, which meant that they'd be checking into a hotel just on the outskirts of town, then they'd head in at daybreak.
“I understand your reservations completely,” Jerry said. “But what can a man do when he takes a job? We took this job, and for a good amount of money paid up front. And I don't know about you, but I don't have much of that money left. So if we were to say, I don't know, decide to go back on our word that might just well mark us lousy out east, and then they won't ever want to work with us again. But if everything goes smoothly who knows how much repeat business we can get out of this.”
“Those are good points,” Dillard said. “I guess I'm just talking out loud, but I sure wish we knew what the fuck was going on. I mean, I get that boss lady can't exactly just prattle off every little secret in the world to us, but at the same time, you'd think she'd be a little more helpful in preparing us for what could happen.”
Jerry nodded. He agreed. And sitting by Dillard in the dark while they trundled down the rocky road that it would be easy to get a really bad attitude about everything that was going on. And Jerry didn't want to do that. So far nothing bad had happened and there was pretty much no reason to think that anything bad would happen. Bell had met them in Boulder and that had been the right call. Even though Boulder was only fifty miles away from Denver it wasn't like the people in Denver would be watching every town around them. And if they were then they wouldn't have allowed Bell to leave Boulder because it would have simply been too big of a risk, that is if the goal of the unknown parties set against them was to keep Bell from reaching the opening of the new bank. But maybe he'd figured it all wrong the whole time, or maybe Bell wasn't telling them the pieces of information that would really help them tie the loose ends together.
As the stagecoach bumped and rattled down the road Jerry looked up at the beautiful summer night sky. The stars above him blazed so brightly it seemed as if he shot at them maybe he'd put it out. Up ahead the city of Denver glowed slightly in the dark from the light of street lamps. The night was still, aside from the occasional whirr of bats overhead as they headed back to their caves to sleep. That meant dawn was coming on quicker than Jerry had anticipated. It could also mean that there were bandits out in the desert keeping coals burning to stay warm, and the slight smoke was driving away the insects and making hunting for the bats near impossible.
“Sure are a lot of bats headed home early,” Dillard said.
Dillard usually picked up on these things just as quick as Jerry, so Jerry wasn't surprised that his partner was thinking the same thing.
“I don't reckon the sun to be coming up for some hours,” Jerry said. “So it might stand to reason that we should take the bats early return as a kind of warning.”