by Noah Layton
‘Honestly? Laziness and complacency. Taking on four guys also ran more of a risk for them.’
‘It does not run a risk for us?’
‘Of course it does, but you have one thing on your side that they didn’t; your speed. You’re way quicker and more accurate than any of them, as well as most of the guys that we’re dealing with. I can’t believe you never wanted to put your skills to use like this before.’
‘I don’t know, I just never thought about it as a career option. It’s dangerous. I’ve heard more than a few stories about counter-bounties being put on the heads of bounty hunters by the gangs.’
‘That’s why it’s important to protect your identity,’ I said. ‘And never ever, tell anybody what you do for a livi-… Oh, shit…’
Through the crowd up ahead I saw him; Bartram was walking straight towards me. His scrawny figure, bloodshot eyes and arrogant, arm-swinging swagger were unmistakable.
‘What is it?’
‘We need to hide.’
‘You know that guy?’
‘Know him, yeah. Part of my old guild? Also yes.’
My mind turned into a paradoxical whirlpool. Half of me wanted to hide, to lay low, to keep myself hidden from sight.
The other half wanted to drop everything I was holding, pull out my dagger, drag Bartram by his hair through the mud and cut his throat, leaving him to bleed out like a stuck pig.
As every millisecond past the rage within me was getting the best of me, but deep down I knew that this wasn’t the way forward. It was murder, and I would end up being the one with the bounty on my head.
I was still plotting my revenge. I couldn’t let it all fall apart like this.
‘We can’t be seen,’ I said, glancing around and moving to pull up my hood. There were no alleyways nearby to duck into.
‘Then let’s make sure everybody sees us,’ Cassandra chimed, pulling me to the side of a nearby tavern. Our satchels dropped from our hands, and before I could even ask her what she was doing, the foxgirl ran one hand up my side and the other to the back of my neck, pulling my lips to hers.
For all the attitude and ass-kicking that Cassandra had demonstrated so far, the touch of her lips to mine was unbelievably soft. I couldn’t help but kiss her in return, running my hands up her hips and up to the small of her back, one hand feeling the gentle curve of her body and the other sliding into her soft auburn hair.
And just like that I found myself lost to the moment, kissing her like we had known each other for years.
Cassandra pulled away from me and nuzzled into my chest romantically, then turned her head to the side and glanced over her shoulder.
‘Is he gone?’
I shook my head out of the trance of her touch and scanned the street. Bartram swaggered along to the right of my field of vision, heading up the way that we had just come before turning a corner and moving into the night.
‘Yeah, he’s gone,’ I managed, dragging my metaphorical ass out of the stupor of the kiss.
‘Cool,’ Cassandra replied, pulling away from me like nothing had happened and lifting up her satchel. ‘Come on, Drake, I don’t want to spend any more time lugging these damned heads around than I have to.’
‘Right,’ I said firmly, clearing my throat and heaving up my bag.
Drake Masterson, garish rogue and bounty hunter who had shared his bed with more than a few women over the years – and now my head was spinning from a surprise kiss from this stranger.
She was stunning, true, but she was having more of an effect on me than I would have liked to admit.
I shook my head of the feeling and took a deep breath to clear my head.
Don’t mix work and pleasure. Stay behind your sword.
I joined Cassandra and we made our way through the streets to the bounty office where I had first collected the wanted poster.
The night watchman was on guard, a middle-aged man dozing with his feet up on the desk, a bottle of rum nudged against his toes – and a loaded crossbow pointed straight at the door, resting on the countertop.
We approached the desk and I knocked a corner leg with the tip of my boot. The night watchman shuddered awake and immediately laid a hand on his crossbow, his feet swinging to the left and knocking the bottle of rum to the ground where it smashed.
‘Motherfucker…’ He muttered, wincing up at me and sitting up, hand still on the crossbow. ‘What, what is it?’
‘Here to collect,’ I said.
‘Who’ve you got there?’ He asked, nodding to the bags.
‘The Jones Bandits.’
‘That so? Okey-dokey, let me just take a look.’
The watchman took the bags off us and heaved them over to a worn and battered work table by the cells, as casually as if he had done it a hundred times before – which he probably had.
‘He seems rather disinterested for a man handling severed heads,’ Cassandra whispered to me.
‘This is an everyday occurrence for the watchmen,’ I whispered back. ‘It’s their job. If anything he’s probably just pissed off that we woke him up.’
‘I am,’ the watchman replied. ‘Mainly I’m pissed off about smashing my bottle of rum. All right…’ He took a long pause, glancing between the heads and the blood-smeared poster in his hand. ‘You’re good to go. What a bunch of ugly bastards…’
The watchman limped over to the desk and unlocked a drawer, retrieving a ledger.
‘Names?’
‘Obadiah Moss and…’ I looked Cassandra up and down quickly while she raised an eyebrow in confusion. ‘Luna Redwood.’
‘Lovely.’ The watchman scrawled the names in the book and tipped it shut. ‘You want it split?’
‘Please.’
He nodded absently and descended to a lower drawer, where he fumbled about for a few moments before sitting back up and planting two large, heaving sacks on the table before us.
‘1000 gold pieces, evenly split,’ he said casually, then planted his feet up on the desk and pulled his hat down over his eyes. ‘Come again.’
Cassandra and I both took up our sacks of gold and left the building.
‘Obadiah Moss and Luna Redwood?’ She repeated. ‘What does that even mean?’
‘They’re pseudonyms. Every bounty office requires a name be entered as the claimant for the bounty. Never use your real name, though. I don’t trust a single soul in the business, never mind outside of it. It gets out and you become a target.’
‘Right…’ Cassandra nodded, passing off the thought and switching her attention to the sack of gold. She heaved it up in her hands and attempted to shake it. ‘I can hardly even…’ She strained. ‘Lift this thing. Holy shit…’
‘What?’
‘We’re rich!’ She exclaimed happily, grinning uncontrollably. ‘I mean, this is more money than I used to make in a month back at my old job working for the High Council! All for killing some guys and turning their heads in?’
‘And putting our lives at risk,’ I laughed. ‘You’ve got to weigh the good and the bad.’
‘True, but just living in this city every day you put your life at risk. Might as well make some money while you’re at it.’
‘I couldn’t agree with you more.’
It was around midnight by the time we arrived back at the Queen’s Steed. The place was scattered with drinkers – not as many as a weekend but still bustling with life – as we made our way through the bar and nodded over to Mavis.
We headed up to our quarters and stopped outside of our rooms next to each other.
‘You feel like grabbing a drink?’ Cassandra asked, attempting to shake her bag of hold again. ‘I’m buying.’
‘Not tonight,’ I said. ‘I’m exhausted. I think I’m going to lie on a bed of gold and get some sleep.’
‘Okay…’ She shrugged. ‘I’m going to head down anyway. Want me to bring you one up when I come to bed?’
‘Sure, if I’m still awake.’
‘I’ll knock,’ she winked
, unlocking her door and heading inside. ‘Goodnight.’
‘Night.’
I went inside my quarters and closed the door behind me quickly, dropped the sack of gold onto my bed and slammed my head against the door.
‘No, no, no,’ I said to myself, rolling my forehead against it and closing my eyes. ‘You are not attracted to this woman. Repeat after me, Drake; you are not attracted to this stunningly beautiful, overwhelmingly sexy woman. No-no-no. NO.’
Like I said, a career of kicking ass, taking names and drinking in taverns had landed me in more than a few women’s beds, and more than a few married ones at that; the situation with the busty farmer’s wife who had saved my life wasn’t exactly a foreign experience to me.
But Cassandra was something else. Feisty, beautiful, confident… And she had been staying in the room next to mine this whole time.
‘No, of course you’re attracted to her,’ I continued, ranting at myself, ‘but that’s where the line gets drawn. You’re working together, that’s it. Or, more precisely, you worked together. Past tense. Who knows if you’ll even go hunting again? Keep it professional.’
I shook my head out and crossed the room to run my daily bath, pulled off my clothes and checked my wound.
It had almost completely healed now. I could go without the bandages and actually have a proper bath instead of awkwardly washing myself down.
Trashing the bandages, I moved over to the bed and wrenched open the sack. In the light of the fireplace I could just about see the glimmer of gold within.
But this was my first kill away from my old guild, my first reward, proof that I could go it alone.
I lifted the bag and tipped the contents onto my mattress. Hundreds of gold pieces scattered across it into a clumsy pile.
I tipped every last coin out until it was all there. The fruits of my labour.
I laughed as I picked it up, letting the pieces fall through my fingers like some megalomaniac villain. This was just the beginning.
Once my bath had finished running I climbed in and lowered myself into the steaming water. I indulged in the sensation of it washing away the day’s work, my legs propped against the end as my scarred muscular body was washed clean.
I can just rest my eyes for a minute…
A minute was a tall order, though. Only thirty seconds later, after slipping beneath the surface and washing my hair, did I hear a knock at the door.
Surely that can’t be Cassandra. She’s downstairs drinking. Unless…
Bartram. He had found me. He must have seen us during our return to the bounty office.
Shit.
I climbed quietly out of the bath and walked my dripping figure back into the bedroom. My dagger was lying by my pillow. Promptly I took it up and unsheathed it, setting the holster aside and moving silently to the door.
Another knock, louder this time.
I pressed my ear to the door. Silence… Then-
‘Drake? You didn’t fall asleep already, did you?’
I breathed a sigh of relief, lowering my dagger at the sound of Cassandra’s voice.
‘Hey, no, I’m still awake.’
‘Can I come in?’
‘I’m, uhh… Kind of naked right now.’
A pause.
‘So…?’
‘So… It’s generally customary to wear clothes when talking to somebody you’ve just met.’
‘I’ve seen it all before. Come on, your beer’s getting warm.’
Is she serious?
I set my dagger down on my bedside table, unlocked the door and pulled it open.
‘Hey,’ I started, peering around the door with just my head. ‘What’s up?’
‘Beer,’ Cassandra said simply, handing it to me. She had dressed down to the same outfit that she had been wearing when I had first met her, including that ridiculous knotted blouse that exposed her large cleavage.
‘Thanks,’ I replied, taking it and doing my best to keep my eyes firmly on her face. ‘So… Have a good night downstairs.’
‘You sure you don’t want to come with? It’s still very busy, and bound to be a good night.’
‘Really,’ I smiled. ‘I’m good.’
The keeping my eyes on her face thing wasn’t working so well. I was painfully aware of the fact that I was naked, and even more aware that there was only a door blocking me from her.
And the brief sight of her exposed cleavage teasingly tugging against the knot in her blouse had already started to make me hard.
‘Well, how about I just come in and have a drink with you?’
Before I could even turn Cassandra down she moved to step into the room.
I had no chance of stopping her; one hand holding the doorknob, the other wrapped around the beer she had passed me.
To avoid spilling it I had to take it with both hands, and as a result I stepped away from the door.
Fuck. Who is this chick?
Cassandra closed the door behind her as she took a few steps into the room. She took a quick look around before spinning to look at me.
What did she see? My naked self covering my increasingly hard dick with the only thing I had on hand; the mug of beer.
Fortunately it was just big enough to cover my throbbing size, but the cold sensation of it against my shaft was somehow doing nothing to soften me up.
‘Wow, you weren’t kidding about being naked,’ Cassandra said casually. Her eyes darted up and down my body sharply before she turned her attention over to the bed. ‘So, how does this work? You tip the gold out and roll around in it?’
‘It helps to see that amount of coin put into perspective.’
‘Oh. Because that’s exactly what I did.’ She took a drink from her beer and looked around awkwardly.
‘Is there something up?’ I said, deciding to run with it and taking and rearranging my grasp so one hand covered my dick and the other raised my mug to my mouth.
‘What do you mean?’ She asked, the large furred ears perched atop her head twitching as she glanced down to the hand between my waist so fast that she probably didn’t think I had seen her.
She wasn’t just sharp with her reactions.
‘You probably won’t meet many people as relaxed as me to be naked in the presence of somebody I just met and still be okay with it,’ I said. ‘But still, I’m naked.’
‘I just…’ Cassandra started, setting down her beer. ‘I… Really wanted to come and see you. When I kissed you earlier it wasn’t just to stop us from being seen by that old guild member of yours… I… Really just wanted to kiss you, actually.’ She shrugged shamelessly. ‘I hope you didn’t mind…’
‘I didn’t mind at all,’ I admitted. ‘I enjoyed it. You’re pretty damn good at it.’
‘Really? I have only been with a few men in my life. What can I say? I find myself… Drawn to you.’
‘… You do?’
‘Mmhmm…’ Cassandra nodded, sauntering over to me gracefully. ‘For the record I don’t usually go running into men’s bedrooms. But… When you said you weren’t wearing anything I guess I just… Couldn’t resist.’
She was a paradoxical mix of restraint and painful, desiring want, as if she was denying her own passionate needs.
That restraint could only last for so long, though.
She stopped before me, running one hand over the almost healed wound on my stomach.
‘It looks like you have been through a lot in your life so far.’
‘I guess you could say that.’
‘Was it worth it?’
‘It is when moments like this come around every so often.’
Cassandra smiled and bit her lip. She wrapped her fingers around the cold glass in my hand, brushing her fingers over mine. She took it from me and set it down to the side.
She returned to me, but not before taking a look at the sight of my throbbing length that was now unguarded by anything.
‘Oh my…’ She sighed deeply. ‘You’re even bigger than I thought you would
be…’
Cassandra placed her hands on my chiselled chest and brought her lips to mine in the quiet seclusion of the firelit bedroom. I kissed her passionately, caressing my hands over her tight, firm body and running my hands down to her curvaceous behind.
We fumbled over to the bed, unable to keep our hands from each other for long enough before I collapsed onto the edge with her atop me. She straddled me as we traced our hands across each other’s bodies.
‘Seems a little unfair that I’m completely naked and you’re not,’ I said in between kisses at her neck.
‘Well, why don’t you do something about it?’ She panted bringing her lips up to my ear. ‘Bounty hunter.’
I traced my hands up to the knot of her blouse, that one little thing that had been teasing the back of my mind for days. My fingertips found the edges of the ties and tugged them apart.
Cassandra’s blouse released so much tension it was as if it had breathed a sigh of relief. I took both sides of the shirt in my hands, pulling them away from her as she shrugged out of it shamelessly and let it fall to the floor.
Her large round breasts stood perkily before me, her perfect nipples hard with excitement despite how warm it was in the bedroom.
Not for a second longer could I resist having her. I kissed at her chest, burying myself in her breasts as she ran a hand into the back of my hair and threw her head back.
She practically manoeuvred me over to one of her large mounds, and I was all the more happy to satisfy her as I tongued her nipple lightly, releasing a whimper of pleasure from her.
I wrapped my lips around her and began to tongue her wildly. Cassandra threw her head back again and panted deeply, her hand still buried in my hair as she straddled me. She began to grind her hips against my throbbing cock as I ran my hands down her slender back to her round, firm behind.
I caressed and pleasured her until she pulled away from me, gracefully standing from the bed. I moved to sit up but she pushed me back down onto the mattress amongst the scattered gold coins.
She wanted to be in control, and I was happy to let her be.
I watched as she turned away from me, sliding her fingers into the waist of her ripped, tiny shorts. She pulled them down over her round ass, taking her underwear with them and exposing her perfect body completely, her ass presented before me.
