BONE Page 11

  Damn his legs are long, I think as I watch the way his steps are powerful and graceful without any effort. I also really like watching the way his shoulders move with each step, and when he's not carrying a sack of mail over one shoulder like Santa delivering presents, I like the way his arms swing at his sides.

  Mmmm. He could deliver something to me, I think as I totally space out watching him. Which is how I miss the rock in the field and land on my face.

  Rogue

  I hear her go down behind me and know exactly what she just did so I'm not at all surprised to see her face down in the wet grass and mud when I turn around. I am surprised to see her tits plain as day through her now soaking wet t-shirt.

  Mel grew up in the lower 48. She thinks cuz she's been camping in a place without toilets that makes her a rough and tumble girl. Thinks she's ready for this place.

  She might do all right if she hung back in the city. She's not a total waste of tits and ass like a lot of the women I see come up here. Women looking for men, reading articles on how easy the pickins are gonna be for em. Thinkin' they're going to find themselves some burly mountain man type find happy ever after sitting by a fire all day.

  Most of those girls go right back home as soon as they can. They can't hack the dark or the cold or the light or the heat-- and nobody believes me when I try to tell em that it gets hot up here in the summer-- or the mosquitoes or the wildlife...or the men.

  This place ain't a couple weeks at summer camp, it's the real deal.

  My thoughts are all disjointed. Have been all day. Ever since I picked her up in Juneau. It's a long fucking time to have someone else in the Cub with me. I'm just not used to so much company, that's all it is. Been telling myself that all day.

  I'd be just as worried about anyone that I was tasked with dropping off in the middle of fucking nowhere.

  I try not to growl my frustration as I head back to pull her off the ground.

  "You OK?" I pat her down, checking for sticks or rocks or blood or whatever, making sure she didn't bust something when she went down. Not that the ground this time of year makes for a hard landing. There was still snow on the ground when I made the run last week. The air field is a swamp right now.

  She's soaked to the bone and her skin is cold from the ice water she just took a dunk in but I'm not stupid enough to believe that's the reason she's shivering as I run my hands over her.

  I am just about stupid enough to think I could warm her up though.

  "You got spare clothes in that bag, right?" I ask as I head toward the plane, making sure she follows me before I climb in the back and grab her duffle.

  Melissa pulls out a new t-shirt and a pair of clean jeans and then gives me a cold stare, "Are you going to turn around or what?" She demands as she wiggles her finger in a circular motion.

  I don't believe for a minute that she'd mind if I didn't.

  I almost say what I'm really thinking, then I think better of it, "OK, OK, I put my hands up in mock surrender and turn around. I'm standing on the step rail of the strut, waiting for her to hand back her bag so I can put it right where I need it in the back to keep the load balanced.

  While Mel changes on the ground behind me, I stare off through the windows of the Cub into the trees on the far side of the field.

  There really is a hotel here, it's about 12 miles from here in a town of about 200 people. The place gets a fair amount of tourist hunters and there's a real sweet B&B just up the road from the general store.

  It'd be a better place to spend the summer than that little hut they call a cabin up at Wolf Ridge.

  Mel's an oddity. I haven't quite fingered her yet... my train of thought derails as I catch movement through the window. No. Not through the window, in the window. I can see Melissa's reflection in the grimy Plexiglas and my last thought gets stuck on repeat as I watch her bend over and pull dry jeans up her thighs.

  Nope. Haven't quite fingered her-- yet. My cock doesn't want me to waste any time with fingering though. I sure as hell ain't gonna stop appreciating the view, so I have to reach down and adjust myself, making sure I give the fucker room to get get completely hard. Cause I know its gonna, I've been fighting all day to keep from scaring Melissa off with the bulge in my pants. Although, after watching the way her breathing hitched back there when I was reading over her shoulder, I'm not so sure she'd be scared.

  Mel's working dry jeans over her wet skin, tugging them up a set of thighs that are full and smooth. At one point she bends forward, her ass in my direction. She's wearing a thong, not one of the ones that are supposed to be sexy, but since when is a thong of any kind not sexy? I mean, there's a strip of silky hot pink fabric disappearing between her ass cheeks and then a flash of that same hot pink covering what I'm currently imagining as the prettiest little pussy I'm likely to get this close to before she straightens up and gets the jeans over her hips with a little jump.

  That jump sends her tits into motion and my cock gets harder. She's still got her bra on, something thin without any padding that's completely transparent from the water as she turns to grab the dry shirt.

  She's gotta know that if she doesn't take that bra off it's just gonna soak her clean shirt right through, right? Part of me hopes she doesn't think that through and she ends up with another wet t-shirt peep show.

  Part of me hopes she takes off the bra.

  The thing with Mel is that she's hot. Not the sort of girl that turns heads on the red carpet hot, real girl hot. Jeans and baseball cap hot. Real woman hot. The kinda of chick that doesn't have a fucking clue how hard she makes a guy.

  Right now I'm rock hard.

  Just like I was when I saw the kind of filth she was reading back at the last stop. The kind of filth that's got me imagining the way she'd look if I was talking to her like that while I pulled that hot pink little thong to the side and thrust my cock into her wet little slit.

  I watch her reflection in the windows and my breath catches when I see her fold her arms backwards and unhook her bra. Disappointment slams through me when she slips the new shirt over her head without me getting a peek at her naked tits but I do like the sight of them as she hands me back the duffle bag. Free under the dry shirt, her nipples poking through the fabric like a couple of hard pebbles.

  About as hard as my fucking cock.

  I grab the bag and put it back in its spot behind the passenger seat, making sure I get a real good look at those perfect tits again before climbing back into the cockpit.

  She doesn't have a clue how fucking gorgeous she is.

  I wait for her to get buckled back in and we take off for Wolf Ridge. Where I'm supposed to leave her for the summer.

  Maybe I can convince her to let me stay the night, I think, just one night. It's gonna get awful lonely up there by herself, I'll give her some good memories to keep her company.

  Now Available:

  BUSH: A Wild Romance

  by Rocklyn Ryder

  Modern Arranged Marriage Romances

  Have you read A Perfect Gentleman yet?

  The books in the Arranged Marriage series are complete stories that can be read in any order. Each book features a different couple finding their happily ever after with the help of modern day marriage broker, Raven Swann.

  Get hooked on book 1 on Amazon.

  Here’s a little snippet:

  Brooke

  "I'm serious!"

  I know I'm being dramatic but fuck it. I deserve to be over the top at a time like this.

  I fling myself back on the bed and throw my arm over my head. The tears threatening at the corners of my eyes are real. I'm over acting so I can keep my sense of humor but the truth of the matter is-- everything sucks and I really am going to start crying any minute.

  "Brooke," Paige isn't buying it for a minute, "there's nothing wrong with you. Or your picker."

  Paige might be my bestie, but she's so not helping right now.

  "My picker is broken, how else can you explain how I manage to
keep ending up with assholes like Damian?"

  Paige laughs, "Well first of all, you could stop falling for guys with names like Damian! I mean really, how did that not tip you off right off the bat?"

  I throw my arm over my face and groan.

  "Seriously, Brookie, if you want to meet a good guy you're going to have to change your patterns."

  "I don't even know what that means," I moan into the crook of my elbow.

  "It means stop picking up guys based on their tattoos. Stop shopping in bars where all the guys are wearing leather jackets and ride motorcycles. Try a book club or maybe volunteer somewhere, that's how I met Jace."

  Her voice gets all lilty and high pitched when she says his name. It makes her sound like she's 15 again. I've been listening to her "I'm in love and this is The One" voice for ten years. I've only heard it about a hundred times, I'm really good at recognizing it by now.

  And really, "Jace," how can she even try to tell me that Damian's name should have given him away? But there's no point pointing that out to her, she and Jace just made it past their second anniversary. Their second month, that is, but that's half way to happily ever after for Paige so there's no way she's going to hear anything I have to say about the newest love of her life.

  "I'm going to sign up to be a mail order bride."

  When I say it I'm joking but Paige doesn't laugh at me right away and the few seconds of silence let me marinate in my words.

  "You are not." Paige's voice lacks the conviction that I'm used to.

  I expected her to immediately scold me for giving up on finding love the old-fashioned way. I expected her to tell me to stop talking crazy and launch into a list of ways to find a great guy.

  She tells me no, but she doesn't sound like she means it. I pull my arm off my eyes and look at her.

  She's got her phone in her hand and she's looking at the screen with an intense interest. She's Googling something.

  "On second thought..."

  Oh shit! She's looking up mail order bride sites?

  I sit up and give her my best deer-in-the-headlights look, "You are not looking that shit up!"

  I can't believe she's taking me seriously.

  Her face scrunches up. I watch her thumb work its way across the screen, clicking on links and then going scrolling through the sites she's opened. Her face scrunches, she frowns, then her eyebrows shoot up, she smiles, she frowns again.

  "What?!" The suspense is killing me.

  OK. It's not like I'm really serious about becoming a mail order bride. I mean, I didn't even think it was a real thing, but Paige looks like she's having no trouble finding sites.

  "Well," she starts off hesitantly while she's still browsing, "the good news is you can totally be a mail order bride if you're serious?" She looks up me with a curious look on her face.

  "What's the bad news?" I have to admit, this is getting my mind off Damian. I almost even crack a smile.

  Paige looks back down at the site she has open and shakes her head like she can't believe what she's reading, "The bad news is that you can totally be a mail order bride if you're serious."

  "That bad?" I finally laugh.

  "Depends on your idea of bad," she grins, "Apparently mountain men needs brides, as do truck drivers, fisherman, and prison inmates."

  "No lighthouse keepers?" I tease, but seriously, mountain men? I crane my neck to see what site she's on.

  "I don't see anything for lighthouse keepers, but if you're willing to relocate to Bolivia, this guy's only missing a few teeth," she holds her phone for me to see a picture of smiling man that appears to be 300 years old with only 2 visible teeth. Only two teeth are visible because that's all he has. The empty spaces along his gumline are obvious.

  I shiver.

  So much for mail order matrimony.

  "Hmm," Paige has switched to a different site, she sounds intrigued. Always dangerous, but still, I'm curious.

  "What?"

  "Arranged marriage," she reads.

  "Arranged?" I mimic her curious tone.

  Fiddler on the Roof comes to mind. As does Bobby Jenkins. That's probably what I'd end up with if I let my dad pick a husband for me. There's a reason I wouldn't let Dad pick for me.

  I'm ready to pull the whole "forget I said anything" routine but Paige is downright into this site now. She jumps up and fires up the lap top on my desk.

  Oh shit. She's serious if she needs to see the site on a real computer!

  "Arranged," she's explaining to me, "it's a modern day matchmaking service that focuses on marriage as the end game."

  She's scrolling through the full site now, concentrating on the fine print.

  "So it's not cheap," she muses, "but this Raven chick claims to have a 98% percent success rate with her matches."

  "Raven chick?"

  "Yeah, her name's Raven Swann. Looks way more normal than her name suggests though."

  Paige holds up my lap top so I can see Raven's photo on the site. Ms. Swann doesn't look anything like the goth/hippy/new age/witch that I expected. She's a pretty woman in her mid-30s with long straight hair and soft brown skin. She's not even wearing too much eyeliner. And she's way younger than I would have expected a matchmaker to be.

  "Says she been matching couples for 20 years, and that she's a third generation matchmaker."

  Paige sounds impressed. She continues reading for a while and then turns to me with a dangerous grin, "How serious are you?"

  Turns out, I'm pretty fucking serious.

  I'm 26 years old for crying out loud. I've been through a handful of failed relationships, 2 of which I actually thought were going to turn into forever.

  The problem is, I like em rough around the edges. I see a little ink peeking out from under the sleeve of a leather jacket and my panties fall right off. Add a motorcycle and a filthy mouth and I'm gone.

  I like boys that drink too much, swear too much, and win bar fights.

  Turns out, I also like boys who can't keep a job because they keep throwing punches at their boss, who get thrown out of their apartments because they sleep with their roommate's girlfriends, guys who can't keep it in their pants. Which would be fine if they took it out to slip it into me-- not their roommate's girlfriend.

  I thought Damian was different. Because he promised me he was different. I should have known better.

  I really do want that happily ever after. I want a family of my own. A husband that can keep a job and his temper. A man that doesn't flip out if my period is two days late.

  Wouldn't it be nice to be with someone who wants to have babies?

  I mean, yeah sure, I get it. I know Dame and I weren't ready. He'd been unemployed for six months already and no prospects in sight. We were living on my salary alone, which is decent and all but not really enough to support a household.

  We weren't married-- I mean, we'd talked about it and all. He always said he was "open to the idea," "down the line," "when I'm back on my feet."

  Stupid me, I thought that meant he wanted to marry me. What it really meant was more like, "please don't kick me out and stop paying my bills."

  When I had my little scare, it all became clear. It's one thing that neither of us were ready for a baby but the way he flipped out? Obviously it was more than "not ready now," it was pretty clear the idea of being shackled to me for the rest of his life was more than he could handle.

  Thank God I started my damn period! And kicked that asshole to the curb. And went on a 6 week mope fest where I ate nothing but chocolate ice cream drowned in peppermint schnapps.

  I mean really. This guy was with me for over a year, living with me-- off of me-- for 8 months, he talked like I was it for him, like we were going somewhere as a couple, like we had a future. And even if it would have been crappy timing and all, it would have been nice if he was just a little bit secretly excited about starting a family, you know?

  What I really learned from Damian is that I want a man who really loves me and who's really in i
t for the long haul, the big picture, the whole nine yards.

  I'm looking for a future with someone who wants the same things I do and isn't a total loser.

  And I obviously can't be trusted to pick that someone out on my own.

  Aiden

  I can't believe I'm filling this out. There's gotta be 3,000 questions on this thing.

  I click "next" at the bottom of the page. Make that 4,000.

  If Grant hadn't spoken so highly of Raven's services I'd have called this off when she said "background check."

  Grant's so damn happy with Amelia. They're two years in and just announced their second baby's on the way. I'm sure I'll be getting another fucking Christmas card with them dressed in matching outfits in front of the damn tree any day now.

  They even dress the damn dog up.

  It's so cute it makes me want to puke.

  That's what I tell my brother. I roll my eyes and make retching noises and tease the bastard that I have to ask Amelia if he can have his fucking balls back long enough to go hunting with me, but the truth of the matter is that it kills me because I'm so damn jealous.

  I wasn't one of the people that Raven interviewed when Grant used her services to find Amelia. That was the year I was out of the country. Out of touch really. Off the grid, only checking in via email now and then to let everyone know I'd made it across another South American border without getting killed or arrested.

  So I missed out on all the fun when our sister and parents were interviewing candidates and deciding who my baby brother was going to marry.

  I still remember reading Mom's email when I finally found a hotel with wifi after being stuck for 14 hours at the Honduras border. Worst border crossing of the whole trip.

  Grant was getting hitched, to some girl he'd never even met! He'd found Raven's agency through some buddy of his and he was gung ho on finding himself a wife and starting a family.