His Heart's Desire: Never Too Late, #1

By Roxanne Rogerson

Michael's heart attack is a wake-up call. He retires from a stressful job as a police detective, opens his own private investigations firm and works hard to get his body back in shape. But the near-death experience has awakened an acknowledgement of what he has perhaps always known. New erotic urges and desires have unsettled him. A widower with a disastrous second marriage behind him, he craves a loving relationship with a woman willing to allow him to be the dominant partner in the bedroom. But he doesn't want a slave—where's the fun in that?

Jessie has written a bestselling romance novel about a Dom and his Sub, though the entire story is based on research and not personal experience. She claims to have chosen the subject for marketing reasons but secretly harbors deep concerns about her interest in the lifestyle. She suspects she might be submissive, but the likelihood of falling victim to a cruel dominant male terrifies her.
When her agent suggests first-hand research might result in an even more successful second book, reluctant participation in a scene at the Scallywags Fetish Club brings her into contact with Michael, a neophyte striving to come to terms with new kinky cravings.

Together, they begin to explore the possibilities of a relationship. Love and trust blossom. However, Michael's investigation into the illegal activities of a high-profile local lawyer result in Jessie's abduction. Her kidnapper turns out to be a Dom who enjoys inflicting pain. If he succeeds in rescuing her, Michael fears Jessie may never enjoy the erotic delights of submission again.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Roxanne Rogerson
• Release date: Feb 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215425480

Book preview

HIS HEART’S DESIRE

ROXANNE ROGERSON

His Heart’s Desire

Never Too Late Book 1

By Roxanne Rogerson

Copyright© Roxanne Rogerson 2022

His Heart’s Desire

Never Too Late Book 1

Copyright © Roxanne Rogerson 2022

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the author.

All fictional characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author and all incidents are pure invention.

This book is dedicated to Boomers everywhere—go for it!

My heart went boom, when I crossed that room and I held her hand in mine.

~Paul McCartney

Cover Art by Wicked Smart Designs

CONTENTS

What Readers Are Saying

Is It Too Late?

New Desires

To You, My Dear

The Trouble With Social Workers

Moths To The Flame

Killer Chihuahuas

Not A Dog Lover

I Could Live Here

Scooping Poop

The Flight Home

Too Much

Not My Finest Performance

Abuse

Bestseller

Scallywags

Afterglow

Tasmanian Devil

Getting To Know You

Don't Be Sorry

Let's Get Wet

Small Steps

Choking Up

Deeply Buried Desires

Deja Vu

Follie

J Is For

Trust Issues

We'll Learn Together

The Choker

Butterfly

Shopping

Master

Bound

Plucky Old Biddy

Rescue

Aftermath

Scallywags Revisited

Joyful Madness

Epilogue

About the Author

WHAT READERS ARE SAYING

I don't normally read BDSM romance novels and was a little uncertain if I would like this story, although I have read other books by this author under another pen name and know I enjoy her style of writing. The story was a wonderful surprise. I loved it! The characters are what really make this tale. Both Michael and Jessie are totally believable and likable people. With a fast-paced plot, hot love scenes, danger and suspense and some laugh out loud moments, this story has everything. I really enjoyed this and will look out for more by this author.

Helen Scott Taylor, author of Oceans Between Us

Whoa! what a ride Roxanne will take you on. If you like romantic suspense, humor and some rather steamy romantic scenes then you will absolutely love this story by Roxanne Rogerson. Lois Lavrisa, multi-published author.

This was a great book. The H and h were mature and each had their insecurities. It had the right amount of hot romance and suspense to keep me up all night reading. Will be looking for more books by this author. Linda Farmer, Amazon Reviewer

I liked this book a lot. They were very mature characters and the story was well developed. Hope to see more from this author. JayB, Amazon Reviewer

I loved that the Dom in this book was older and new to a DS life. Michael was sweet and hot and sensitive in his handling of Jessie's introduction to the type of relationship he was looking for. I loved it and would be interested in other contemporary stories by this author. Happy Reader Cindy, Amazon Reviewer

IS IT TOO LATE?

"Y ou’re obsessed with sex!"

Curled up comfortably in the green microfiber recliner in her living room, Jessie Halliwell stared at the hastily scrawled words on the first page of her new leather-bound journal. The book’s innocence was gone, stolen by a few strokes of the pen.

Half her brain registered that her handwriting had deteriorated; the other half was shocked by the naked honesty of what she’d written.

According to the author of a book on journaling she’d picked up from Russell’s bookstore, having a chat with yourself on paper was therapeutic.

But what had possessed her to write such a confession, without any hesitation, on the very first line? Maybe writing in pencil was a better idea, but finding a pencil was probably a lost cause. There were one or two moving boxes still to be unpacked, but it was unlikely they contained pencils. KITCHEN was scrawled on all sides in permanent black marker.

She’d spent the day emptying box after box, deciding where to put things in her new one-bedroom apartment. It seemed cramped after the spacious three-bedroom bungalow she’d lived in for years.

Before the unexpected success of her very first published novel, she’d had to face reality. The house had to go if she was to survive, and she was relieved it had sold quickly in a depressed market. The Taiwanese buyers had been only too happy to include most of her furniture. No room for it here. It had taken the movers only half a day to carry in the remaining stuff, one advantage of being on the ground floor.

Camden Manor was a classy apartment building in Rockland, an old, upscale neighborhood in Victoria, British Columbia’s capital. It was only streets away from the Lieutenant Governor’s mansion and the impressive Craigdarroch Castle, once home to 19th century coal baron, Robert Dunsmuir.

Maybe someday she’d be able to move up to one of the four exclusive penthouse suites atop her building. They must have a fabulous view and came with secure indoor parking, unlike this dark, poky place on the ground floor at the back. There was at least a faint hope of that now she had a new source of unexpected income from her writing.

Bone tired, she’d slumped into the recliner intending to write in her new journal before she dropped from exhaustion. Today was a new beginning. It should be recorded.

But the idea of using the journal as a diary of events seemed to have gone awry. Turning her attention back to the book, she added two more exclamation marks to the surprising sentence she’d written. The strident symbols were strangely satisfying. She enlarged the first one to make them match, twirled her pen to enlarge the periods, and then underlined the words.

There.

If journaling was meant to be a dialogue, what to write in response? That was easy. You’ve tormented yourself too often with this scolding. Give it a rest.

Not good enough. But I’m too old to be preoccupied with endless thoughts of steamy intercourse.

A flush of heat crept from her face to her breasts. She made a mental note to always stash the journal where no one would ever find it. Not that anyone else was likely to be around. She’d have to make a provision in her will that all journals be destroyed unread.

She was getting ahead of herself. No one would take the time to read them after she was gone. Still—time to get back on track. Neither of my husbands made the earth move.

She pushed the lever to raise the foot rest and settled back, staring at the ceiling.

Orgasms? Yes, she’d experienced them. Her clit could respond as well as any to stimulation (at one time anyway). But earth-shattering, mind-boggling rapture—these weren’t descriptions she could apply to her orgasms. Pleasant was more like it.

Deciding there and then never to record anything about orgasms, she bent her knees to rest the journal on her thighs. I’ve become a voracious reader of romance novels, the more erotic the better. Thanks to my Kindle addiction I trawl the mighty Amazon for the book cover with the most muscled hunk. Maybe it’s early onset Alzheimer’s.

Jessie chuckled at that. "Perhaps. Not only do I spend too much time reading love stories, I’ve written one, and His Willing Slave has sold in the thousands.

What would my parents think?

She slammed the journal shut. Damn it! That question had come too quickly. It was true she’d waited until both her parents were dead to write smut—make that erotic romance.

It was a paradox. The thought of embarking on a new sexual relationship filled her with dread. How to explain the physical realities of a close to fifty-year old female body, especially the inability to climax unless a million things were just so, and Mercury and Venus were in alignment? Was that cellulite rearing its ugly head at the top of her thighs?

Oh God! None of those thoughts were going into the journal either. The whole idea was a waste of time.

She closed her eyes and pursed her lips. The journaling expert had warned it might not be easy.

Opening her eyes, she discovered the pen had fallen to the carpet. She bent over to retrieve it, feeling like a beached whale when her core muscles refused to cooperate.

For God’s sake, I’m so out of shape.

Panting, she clutched the ballpoint and leaned back in the recliner. A journal is supposed to be a place to confide innermost feelings. Here goes, then.

"I long for an erotic, passionate relationship with an attractive, fit and virile male. Hah! How many of those in my age bracket? The men I know are paunchy, bald(ing), have bad breath, or are married. There are men I like, get along with and respect—but physical attraction? Nope!

After my divorce, I decided I needed a passionate lover.

In hindsight, that was a depressing thought.

I believed I’d found one in my second husband, but could I have picked a man more focussed on his own penis? Well endowed?—oh baby! Tall, definitely dark and (at one time) handsome. But arrogant and lazy—things I didn’t notice (or chose to ignore) until he’d spent his way through most of my money. Barely enough left to pay for the divorce.

She paused, wondering idly what (or who) her second husband was doing now. Had he gone back to Eastern Europe? She’d been doodling at the side of the page, her eyes fluttering closed as exhaustion took hold. She yawned, irritated when she realized she’d drawn a huge penis in the margin, fully erect.

Aargh! Focus!

She stared at the ceiling again, mesmerized by the white overhead fan twirling silently. Life was ebbing away with every turn, one day blurring into the next.

"If I was honest with myself, I’d admit why I wrote an erotic romance about Dominants and Submissives, when I know nothing of the lifestyle except what I’ve read.

Because those are the books I enjoy. Okay, they turn me on.

She tapped her pursed lips with the pen, then wrote: "I want a gentle, caring man who’ll dominate me sexually, a man like James, the hero of my book. That’s why I created him. He’s a Dom in the bedroom, but Susan is his equal in everything else they do. She gives him power over her. They complement each other.

"Any chance of finding him at the Club?

Not likely. I went to Scallywags, a fetish club in Vancouver a couple of times to do research for my first book. They’re a great bunch of people, surprisingly, and interviewing them helped a lot with the details of the characters, but—

Jessie put the pen down. Maybe another, more in-depth research trip to Scallywags would be a good idea for the second book—a hands on experience.

A shiver stole up her spine. Seeing a woman fastened to a St. Andrew’s Cross at the club had nauseated her. Bondage wasn’t an appealing idea. Neither was being flogged, though the woman in the scene she’d watched seemed to be enjoying it thoroughly.

It was a lost cause. She wanted a Dom who wasn’t into bondage and pain. No such animal existed except in her imagination. In fact, the whole idea of being Submissive to a Dominant was crazy. Much too scary.

If, by some miracle, she did enter into a new relationship, odds were she’d pick the wrong person, again. And choosing the wrong Dom—eek!

"I should be over the moon with the success of my writing career. Too bad it didn’t come before I had to sell the house. Thanks to Amazon, I’ve been able to publish my book independently and have it for sale on their sites worldwide. Instead of years of rejection letters, I’ve let readers decide whether they like my work or not. And they do!

The book’s sales caught the attention of a New York publisher. They’ve already sent out proof copies of the print version and now they’re offering a whopping advance for a second novel.

She drew a smiley face.

Her overnight success had been the talk of the publishing world, thanks largely to her new agent, Gary Atherton. She should be happy, and she was, but she was also lonely.

I guess I’ll slip gracefully into old age, content with my sex toy and make-believe relationships with the heroes of my books.

Another thought occurred. It’s not really a sex toy, just—

She obliterated the last partial sentence with several vigorous strokes of the pen, almost tearing a hole in the paper.

Underneath she wrote, "After my first marriage ended, my mother gave me a medallion engraved with the reassurance, Every Ending Is a New Beginning."

She glanced around the darkening room, swallowing the lump in her throat before writing, Is it too late for another new beginning?

NEW DESIRES

S he might as well be naked, Michael Atherton’s boss exclaimed, poking him in the ribs with his elbow. "I know it’s unseasonably warm, and Victoria is the only subtropical city in Canada, but still."

Michael had been staring out the third floor window of Jim Strand’s office in the government building on Blanshard Street. Late afternoon congestion had pedestrians weaving in and out of gridlock at the busy downtown intersection below but, in his mind’s eye, Michael saw only the tormented face of the woman with MS he’d helped rescue earlier that day.

He followed the line of Jim’s nod, wondering what had caught the interest of his normally conservative colleague. His eyes settled on a girl with spiky orange hair. She had her almost bare back to them, waiting for the green light. The frayed edges of skimpy white shorts riding up her bum formed a half moon over her exposed butt cheeks. She was talking animatedly with a grubby youth holding the short leash of a lean pit-bull.

When the light changed to green, she turned around and hurried to cross, perky breasts bobbing up and down, threatening to spill out of the barely-there triangles of a bikini top. Red combat boots completed the outfit. Seemingly oblivious to the annoyance of other pedestrians battered by the oversized Old Navy shopping bag she gripped in one hand, she continued her conversation with the young man.

Michael shrugged. Does nothing for me, I’m sorry to say. But I love the boots.

In reality, he wasn’t sorry. He might hazard a guess at what was going through Jim’s mind as he gaped, but the young girl’s tits did little for him. He was a man with a lifetime of sexual experience, some mediocre, some good, some great, though it had been a while since the latter. He didn’t need little girls. What he did need, he wasn’t sure.

Jim chuckled as he moved away from the window to slouch in the ergonomic chair behind his desk. He motioned Michael to the seat facing him. Can’t blame a chap for looking, though, eh?

Guess not, Michael replied, wondering what Jim’s wife would think of her husband’s remark. Maureen was such a sweet, timid person.

Jim leaned back in his chair. You seem down, old friend. Divorce not agreeing with you?

Michael rested his ankle atop his knee, plucking at non-existent lint on his gray wool slacks. It was true he’d been restless since his divorce. Before that, even. But living apart from Linda was easier than living with her.

Much as he respected Jim as an old friend and the man to whom he reported, he didn’t want to get into a discussion about his love life. He shook his head. No, I’m just thinking about today’s case, he said, his usually deep voice sounding raspy even to himself. When I was a police officer, I saw some terrible things, but never anything like today’s events.

Jim, head of the Seniors’ Directorate of the British Columbia Ministry of Health, retrieved a laptop from the drawer of his desk. This just takes a minute to boot up. I’ll make brief notes from your report.

Michael scratched his scalp, his mind wandering into meaningless thoughts of how fortunate he was to still have a full head of hair, unlike Jim. He should stop worrying about the gray. The buzz was that many women found silver attractive.

Jim’s tie—sporting faint traces of whatever he’d had for lunch—slipped to one side as he leaned forward to type in his password. One shirt button had escaped its buttonhole; the rest held on like shipwreck survivors clinging to a raft.

Michael was tempted to remind his friend he needed to watch his weight.

Jim straightened his tie to cover the gaping shirt as if sensing Michael’s censure. I know, I know, I’m getting fat.

Jim had guessed his thoughts. Believe me, a heart attack is a wake-up call. If you want to age well, you should eat right and exercise regularly. He thumped his rock hard abs. It’s paid off for me—along with the meds.

Was it the stress of the job, grief over his first wife’s death, an unhealthy diet, or too many beers with the boys that had led to a heart attack shortly before his fiftieth birthday? Probably a combination. But he’d heeded the warning of his near death experience and changed his lifestyle radically. Now, he was fit and healthy. His cardiologist reckoned he had the heart of a thirty year old.

What would Doc say if I told him my cock thinks I’m thirty too?

Jim smiled patiently, twirling a pen between his fingers. You sound like my wife. We can’t all look like Arnold.

Michael winced at that, but wouldn’t apologize for his lean, well-muscled body. He’d never been fitter. My cardiologist tells me I have the heart of a thirty-year-old.

He had to stop saying that. People were getting tired of hearing it.

Jim’s phone rang. He rolled his eyes. I asked Sylvia to hold my calls. Must be important.

Michael nodded, content to wait.

He glanced back at the window. He’d resorted to the Internet to explore urges and desires that had surfaced after his heart attack. His research confirmed what he had secretly suspected for years. He’d long craved an erotic relationship with a woman willing to be his slave in bed, a woman who would allow him to dominate her sexually. It made sense that the term for a male with such sexual proclivities—another word he’d learned—was Dominant, often shortened to Dom.

But a desire to introduce into their love life what his second wife referred to as disgusting erotic shit, led to divorce—that and a million