ROMANCE: CLEAN ROMANCE: Summer Splash! (Sweet Inspirational Contemporary Romance) (New Adult Clean Fantasy Short Stories)

by Michelle Woodward

  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.

  “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

  The Duke’s Possession

  “Oh Margaret, how can I marry him?” Ania asked. “I’d just die!”

  The duchess-to-to be sat with her slender hands in her lap and wrung them together in worry. A fine crinkle of lines marred her otherwise porcelain forehead and her voice had raised several pitches. Her honey-haired sister sat beside her on the brocade loveseat in the sitting room, rubbing a hand along her back, an honest, if pitiful attempt at soothing.

  “Maybe Nicholas is not as bad as you think he is,” Margaret said, concern creasing her voice.

  Nicholas Connols was in fact, at that very moment, parting a delectable blonde’s nether regions expertly with his tongue. The girl squealed beneath his practiced ministrations and bucked her lovely young hips up to the sky, urging him to lap faster. As he felt her legs close around his head and the softness parting at the touch of his mouth, he made a mental note to leave the madam an extra-large tip for the girl; she truly was a find in this particular house, which had long been one of Nicholas’s favorites. Usually, he took two or three girls at once, since it had become a more frequent occurrence that he found himself a trifle bored with the ladies offered, but this particular little dish was promised to be particularly responsive, and she had lived up to the hype and had surpassed it. As he drank in the gasps from her mouth and she shuddered into his, he felt that unpleasant old restlessness creep deep into his bones. The girl sat up, a wave of golden hair curling down her back and wrapped herself in the bed sheet, looking over her shoulder in a practiced maneuver. He leaned over and kissed her bare shoulder, not because he was particularly enjoying the simpering little look she was giving him, but rather because he valued her time and her skills in the bedroom. Her eyes widened with surprise as she accepted the kiss, and for a moment, Nicholas thought he felt a moment of tenderness, which was quickly replaced as the girl’s skilled hands began to inch up his thigh, showing her to be every inch the p
rofessional she was. He sighed deeply in his throat and succumbed listlessly to her ministrations, diving under the cover with the blonde even as he dove headfirst into a familiar old boredom.

  “They say that he visits the Gelded Pigeon at least three times a week and has several regulars there,” Ania grouched, biting her lip. “Oh, why couldn’t he have been the one who was denounced, rather than Brent?”

  “Because Lady Connols’ dalliance happened before Brent’s birthday and not Nicholas’s,” answered Margaret, rather impishly, Ania thought. She was referring to Ania’s old betrothed, of course, Brent Connols, who had recently been denounced as Duke Connols, heir to the Connols fortune. It had turned out, rather sordidly, that Lord Connols’ wife had engaged in some rather indiscreet relations with a visiting member of the Foreign Service and that Brent Connols was not the legitimate heir of his supposed father’s estate. A fact that had only recently come out to his bride-to-be, Ania Cromwell.

  Ania shook her head wonderingly. “Who would have though Lady Connols to be the type to be carried away by passion? I rather thought that was the stuff of serials and books!” she cried. She had thought, at first, when her aunt came to visit and delivered the news, that it was just idle gossip and did not want to hear about it. Brent Connols, after all, had been so kind to her during her coming-out-ball that she had thought a union of at least friendship would have been possible between them. But as her aunt had salaciously implied, the legal proceedings had, indeed, proved that Brent Connols was not the legitimate son and inheritor of the Connols dukedom and fortune and with that piece of news, Ania’s parents had called off the engagement.

  The worst bit of news, perhaps, had come earlier that morning, when Lord and Lady Cromwell had marched themselves into the very sitting room where Ania and Margaret sat now, interrupted the embroidery that was keeping Ania’s hands—and temporarily, her mind—busy, and delivered the latest news. Everyone knew, of course, of Lord Connol’s elder son, Nicholas, borne of his union with his wife before the scandal had rocked the ton, and who had, in light of the recent revelations, been named the new inheritor of the dukedom and estate.