A New Resolution: A Modern Match-Maker Romance

by Ryder, Rocklyn

  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 it 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.

  from A Perfect Gentleman

  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.

  At the time I thought it sounded crazy. Paying some crazy new age match maker to set you up. And this Raven chick doesn't deal with dating or hooking up, no way. She's serious. Her clients are looking for the real deal. If marriage isn't what you're looking for, you aren't looking to do business with Raven Swann.

  There's no keeping it secret. You can't play off how you met by making up some story. Raven deals in arranged marriages. After an extensive application process, her clients are essentially left out of the process while their closest friends and family get to interview the prospective matches.

  I'm on day three of the extensive application process.

  Fuck if I know what I'm doing. All these questions are stupid as fuck. Who cares what kind of toothpaste I use, or whether I prefer sleeping with my socks on? What does this shit have to do with finding the perfect woman for me?

  I lean back in my chair and let my eyes unfocus for a minute. I've been staring at the damn computer screen for the last two hours trying to finish this up.

  I can't believe I'm going through with this.

  I'm not going to spend another year alone though. I won't make it through another holiday season, watching my folks gush over grandkids that I haven't given them yet, listening to Grant talk about his vacation plans with his new family, watching the way Amelia looks at him like he hung the damn moon.

  I want that.

  I want what my brother has and I don't want to waste any more time trying to find it on my own.

  I close my eyes for a minute and think about what kind of woman Raven will find for me. What kind of woman my friends and family will find for me, actually.

  She's gonna have to be ready for kids, that's for sure. I want kids yesterday. I never thought of myself as daddy material but watching my buddies from college and the way they swell with pride when their kids do something for the first time, and the way little Taylor hangs on to Grant's neck when he holds her.

  Turns me to fucking mush. And I have to shrug it off and make some dumbass joke about my brother being pussy-whipped so no one sees how it tears my heart out I want it so bad.

  Of course, I'm not lookin' to trade sex for babies. Hell no. I need a woman who loves cock. Who loves my cock. And not just in missionary posit
ion with the lights off either. Fuck that. I want a woman who feels beautiful in front of me, I'll make sure my woman feels beautiful in front of me. I'll make sure she knows she's worshiped every day. But she's gotta enjoy sex. In every position and in every room of the house.

  That's the thought that has me forgetting about the application a little longer.

  I imagine a sexy woman with a curvy body, spread out on my bed in front of me. She'll be naked and looking at me with her eyes glazed over with lust as she touches herself, begging me to take her.

  Oh yeah. I don't care if she's a moaner or a screamer. I don't care if she's blonde or brunette or a redhead with all that pale skin and freckles.

  That's not the shit that matters to me.

  I just want someone to love, someone who loves me back. And loves having my hands on her, because I plan on putting them on her a lot.

  I pull myself out of my fantasies and go back to answering the questionnaire. The sooner I get through this, the sooner I get to meet my wife.

  * * *

  Get A Perfect Gentleman on Amazon

  About the Wild Romance novels:

  I love writing the arranged marriage stories! They're quick and dirty and oh so much fun, but what I REALLY like in a romance novel hero is a rough-around-the-edges, untamed sort of man that thinks he's too tough to fall in love...and then falls hard.

  The "Wild Romances" are stand alone novels that feature rugged men and independent women finding each other in the most unlikely of ways and places.

  I love that shit.

  So far the titles in this collection include:

  BUSH

  WOOD

  ROUGH

  BONE (excerpt included)

  A Sample of

  BONE: A Wild Romance

  full length, stand alone romance

  by Rocklyn Ryder

  from Bone: A Wild Romance

  Jordan

  When you've been camping out as long as I have, it's easy to wake up at the crack of dawn.

  Actually, more like about an hour before dawn. That's when the birds start singing. It's hard to sleep through.

  Until this trip, I hadn't really been camping for more than a weekend since I was 12 when Dad used to take me on long fishing trips over summer vacation. Of course, then I hit puberty and started having periods, and camping for a week at a time with my dad and no bathrooms? Yeah, that wasn't something I was interested in anymore.

  They sold their house a few years ago to do the full time RV thing, got themselves one of those big ass 5th wheel trailers. The damn thing's bigger than my apartment. Nicer too. I tell them it's not really camping just because they park it in the woods.

  As I reflect on things, I pull on my hoodie and crawl out of the tent. It's freakin' cold out here at 5 in the morning. Colder than I expected it to be. Last week I was about as close to Canada as I could get without my passport and it wasn't this damn cold.

  Of course, I'm not surprised that this place isn't open yet. I've probably got at least another hour, maybe 3, before whoever runs the place unlocks the door standing between me and a fresh pot of coffee.

  That's too long to wait, so I pull my little backpacker stove and fuel canister out of my bag and look for a place away from the gas pumps to start boiling some water.

  As the sky begins its transition from nearly pitch black and still full of stars to a lighter blue and then on fire with gold and pink over the hills east of here, I get a chance to take in my surroundings in clearer detail.

  It's still hella cold, I've got my hood cinched tight over my head, my riding gloves on and my hands wrapped around my mug full of boiling hot-but-rapidly-cooling black coffee like my life depended on it as I start roaming what I'm pretty sure is the perimeter of the property.

  The store is a 2 story building with wood siding that's rough from weather. There's a coat of paint on the lower section where the little store is that looks like it used to be blue and white, but mostly it's just faded and peeling now.

  The store itself has big windows set on either side of the door. A variety of neon signs hang unlit inside, one of them the "open" sign that I'm most interested in.

  I walk up the steps to the boardwalk style porch that runs along the front of the store. The architecture reminds me of a saloon in an old western-- with a porch over the lower story that serves as a balcony for the upper one.

  Not that there's any sign of life upstairs.

  Standing in front of the windows, I can see the store is small. There's a sofa and a big screen TV set up in the far corner-- like a makeshift living room.

  Makes sense. If you have to hang out all day minding a store that probably goes for hours without anyone coming through the door, you don't want to be stuck in a folding chair behind the counter the whole time but it's probably not a good idea to wander too far off either.

  Everything inside is dark. I stare longingly at the commercial coffee maker sitting on a counter next to a fountain soda machine and grip my hands tighter around my mug. My own coffee has cooled down considerably and I'm almost as desperate for the coffee pot in the store to be full as I am for my gas tank to be.

  There's hardly any traffic on the road running in front of the store. Every so often a semi rumbles past or a pick up truck, but no one even looks twice at the closed store, the freezing woman standing in front of it, or the tent set up by the gas pump.

  Probably par for the course, I think as I watch them roll past.

  Somehow, exploring behind the store feels like I'm invading the owner's privacy.

  I do it anyway.

  Making my way to the back of the building, I find a big Ford truck parked next to a wooden staircase that leads to a door on the upper floor.

  Looking up at the second story landing I mostly just see a solid wooden door that has a very locked feel to it. There are a few windows upstairs on this side of the building, but none downstairs. The upstairs windows share the "no one's home" feel that the door does.

  At least the truck is here, I think as I make a circle around it. Hopefully that means someone's actually here and the store will open soon.

  The truck is one of those heavy duty types, with 4 full size doors, 4 wheel drive, and a long bed. It's not one of those jacked-up bro-dozers that I see back home, it's got a very serious look to it. Not a toy for a 23 year old guy who doesn't have a mortgage and a family to spend his money on, but a serious work truck.

  The bed is scratched up, some dried mud caked in the corners. It looks like it gets used to haul more than inner tubes to float the local river in the summer time.

  The tires are sporting some serious-looking tread, all terrains. Something with tooth for making easy work of whatever winter in this part of the world throws in the way.

  Pretty standard vehicle for this part of the country. I've seen a lot of pick ups on this trip but then, I've also seen a lot of America's back roads on this trip.

  That just reminds me I have to get home.

  I carry my empty coffee mug back to where I left my camp stove set up out front and check the time. 6:34. The sun is over the hills now and it's finally starting to warm up.

  Another cup-- or 7-- of coffee stills sounds amazing, but at least I don't need it to keep my hands from turning to ice anymore.

  I gather up my stove and things and head back to my tent to start packing up camp and get everything tied back down on the bike.

  At least it's warm enough I can shed the hoodie now.

  No sooner do I have the sweatshirt peeled off and am starting to pack it away with my sleeping bag than I feel something bounce off my knees. Looking down, I find what I can only assume is a real-life Tasmanian devil spinning in excited circles a few feet in front of me and then throwing itself against my legs again.

  If it wasn't making high pitched barking noises, I'm not sure how long it would have taken me to recognize it as a dog.

  "Hey pup," I hold out my hand to the hyper little thing as I squat down so I'm at its leve
l, "what's your name?"

  The thing is solid black fur, not very big, full of energy, and not at all shy. It doesn't bother sniffing my hand, it just throws itself into my arms and, since I'm down on its level, starts licking my face. I go over backwards and land on my ass while my new best friend does its best to make up for the showers I've had to skip for the last 2 days.

  "Ninja!"

  Ever hear a voice and immediately feel like you should recognize it?

  That's how I feel when I hear it. The little dog and I both freeze in place and tilt our heads in unison to listen for it again.

  "Ninj!" This time the voice is more emphatic, more impatient and less searching.

  The black puffball in my arms twists its head to look back at me curiously, as if waiting for me to cover for it, "Sorry, bud," I say, "I'm not your alibi."

  "Dammit, dog, where the fuck did you--"

  The voice is all male. Gruff with the impatience of a man who's trying to hide concern under anger...and failing.

  I see him coming toward us from behind the building, his brow furrowed in worry until he spies me sitting on the cold concrete with his dog between my outstretched legs. Then his jaw settles into a hard line and a scowl darkens his face.

  The hard expression does nothing to make him less attractive.

  No. "Attractive" is not the right word for this guy. Holy fucking shit white-hot is more along the lines of what I'm thinking as he stalks toward me and the little black demon that's still in my lap, wagging its tail so furiously I have to turn my head to avoid getting hit in the face.

  The man stares at me, I stare at him, the dog wags its tail and barks at its owner without budging from my lap like a little kid bringing home a lost puppy asking if he can keep it. Except in this case, it's the puppy asking if it can keep the person it found.