Mariette And The Cowboy (Western Night Series 2)

by Rosie Harper

  Yet, when his reptilian, golden eyes met those of Charlotte, the intruder’s vocalizations incrementally grew tamer and tamer as he slowly started shifting back into human form.

  “Don’t,” Charlotte purred as she caressed his hard, scaly chest. “I want you to feel good. Let it go.”

  Visibly relieved, Cinder swiftly resumed and exceeded his previous pace, all while growing larger and larger, both in and out of Charlotte. Within a matter of seconds, the detective neared another climax, along with her draconic lover. When it finally came, the dragon lifted his long neck up into the air, exhaling a stream of blinding flame, almost high enough to touch the roof, as an immense pair of scaly wings extended from his upper back. This spectacle lasted for a good while, and when it was done, an exhausted and very human Cinder fell on top of his lover’s prone body, completely limp.

  Satisfied in every way, Charlotte wrapped her hands around the former dragon, engulfing his body with her own, not completely certain where one person ended and the other began, both blown away by a torrent of passionate heat.

  ***

  In higher spirits than she’s been for well over a year now, Charlotte clasped her bag shut, now fully clothed. Smiling, she snuck another peek toward the entrance, next to which an already made up Cinder waited, wearing a t-shirt and sweatpants that were way too big for him. Expectedly, he made them look good regardless.

  Cinder? I must get that moniker out of my head. The man had told her his name. It was Michael. Michael.

  “Ready, my sweet?” Michael asked, smiling radiantly.

  “You betcha, sugar!” the now former policewoman winked, shaking her hips provocatively as she made her way toward her man. Caressing his rock-hard body, she met his gaze with her own before they both exchanged a passionate kiss that left her lips hot and aching for more.

  “The rest will come later, my fire-breathing dragon,” she practically sung the words out while unlocking the door. “But we must leave here as soon as possible. That gunshot is bound to attract some of my former colleagues.” For a minute there she paused, thinking about how easy it came to her to label the people she laid her life on the line with as “former”. This lasted only for a moment, but was apparent enough for Michael to notice.

  “Having second thoughts, Charlotte?” he asked in a concerned manner. The former detective already grew to love the way he pronounced her name. I’m looking forward to hearing in many, many more times, she told herself silently.

  “Not really,” she answered, knowing full well that what she said was true. The stresses of shepherding a cesspool like the slums of New York was not something she would wish upon the worst of enemies. “Merely remembering my colleagues, is all. Would you… Would you please step out first? I’d like to take another look at this place before I lock it down for the last time.”

  Nodding and saying nothing at all, Michael did as he was asked. Taking a deep breath and taking it all in once more, Charlotte took a step backward, closed the door, and locked it down. It is done, she could hear her inner voice speak. Eager to start a new life with her dragon, Charlotte turned around, expecting a warm, hard body to hold, but finding only horror instead.

  Completing the never-ending array of shocks that this evening had for Charlotte was Daniel, standing right next to Michael, revolver out and practically touching the shape-shifter’s right eye.

  Words stuck in her throat, Charlotte tried to scream, but only air left her mouth. For a brief moment, she refused to acknowledge the scene taking part in front of her. Then, almost immediately afterward, it all made sense. The paranoid little robot had her bugged.

  She wanted to hit him. She wanted to grab hold of his stick figure of a body and slam it against the wall. Unless Michael also had himself a pair of impenetrable eyes though, the game was set. There was nothing she could do.

  Standing in front of her apartment door with the two most important men in her life, one about to end the other’s life after betraying her trust, seemed like an extended torture session. Michael merely remained in place, frozen in the same position for who knows how long. Charlotte was sweating, desperately scanning the area in an attempt to find something, anything she could use to turn the situation around. Expectedly, there was nothing. If there ever was, Daniel would have removed it long ago.

  Finally, after who knows how much time, the realization hit her: her partner had come alone. He did not read her dragon his rights. He did not shoot Michael in the head. There was something in there, something other than just the desire to capture or kill Cinder, and whatever it was, she had to try and play it.

  “That is one hell of a long time to hold someone at gunpoint, Dan,” she spoke, making her best attempt at a calm veneer. “If you wanted to shoot him, you could have done so a while ago. What’s your angle?”

  Not moving an inch, Daniel remained in place, trigger finger ready to squeeze within a moment’s notice. If he ever intended to respond to what his partner said, he didn’t make it apparent in any way.

  “I don’t think you even came here to shoot Michael, you know?” Charlotte was grasping at straws and she knew it. Still, there was no other option. “I think you merely came here to verify what you heard over that bug you installed in my apartment.”

  He blinked this time. I’m making progress.

  “Listen, Dan. I won’t lie about us being friends,” No one can ever be friends with that man. “But we’ve been partners for almost three years now. Could you find it in your heart to let us go? You will never see us again. That, I can promise.”

  “I have to kill him,” Daniel finally responded, though not in the way she hoped him to. “Otherwise, I will never see anyone else again.”

  He assumes that Michael will burn him to a crisp the moment he lowers his pistol, Charlotte articulated her thoughts. Looking at the shape-shifter’s expression of suppressed anger, she could only assume that her partner was right.

  “How do you know that what you’ve heard was real,” she asked, and immediately regretted doing so.

  “Because it has to be, Giddens,” Daniel responded, his voice now giving off a distinct sense of irritation. “Nothing less could have resulted in what we have here.”

  He knows me too well for me to try to bluff. Closing her eyes and taking a moment to calm herself down, Charlotte knew that she had only one more option. She had to rely on the good and trustworthy nature of the man she just met.

  “Michael,” she spoke to her dragon, but he was too busy staring death-threats into the eyes of her partner. “Michael, look at me right now!”

  Slowly, the man she used to call Cinder moved his eyes and nothing else toward her general location. It appeared that this was the first time he ever found himself in a truly life-threatening situation, and almost refused to believe it, standing in place and waiting for it to pass.

  “Listen, I know all you can think about right now is killing Dan here, but just compose yourself and think about it for a minute, all right?” From the way his expression did not change, she could conclude that what she said did not have that much of an effect, so she decided to keep going. “My dragon, my lover… Please believe me, the only reason that my partner has his gun in front of your face is because he’s scared of you. Scared that you’ll lash out at him as soon as he relents. But you won’t, right?”

  Still silent, Michael kept staring into her eyes as intensely as he could from his angle. This doesn’t seem to be working.

  “Try to calm down, okay? Try to look at it this way: at the moment he lowers his pistol, he will no longer be a threat to you. You lose nothing by exercising restraint this time. I know Dan. He won’t rat you out after he leaves if you don’t give him a reason.”

  Still nothing. Oh, come on, Michael, don’t be a big dumb lizard! There was no way around it. She had to go all in.

  “Michael, if you do kill Dan after he decides to spare your life, I won’t leave town with you. Not only that, but you will have proven that you’re nothing more th
an what we thought you were: a psycho with a thing for large fires. I couldn’t feel any affection or loyalty toward someone like that. Understand?”

  Still angry, but visibly shaken by what Charlotte just told him, Michael’s gaze slowly floated back toward Daniel. For an indeterminate amount of time, the two men stared each other down, seemingly with no end in sight. The former policewoman almost thought that her speech had been counterproductive. Then, out of the blue, Daniel, the man who never botched a case, lowered his pistol, turned around and started walking away.

  Michael merely stood in place, both of his fists clenched so hard they were shaking.

  Thanks, Dan. I owe you big time. At first, Charlotte considered running up to her partner and hugging him one last time, but she quickly remembered that it would probably be the last thing he wanted, right now or ever.

  Besides, she thought, turning her stare toward the man whose life she just saved, the man I’d rather hold right now is standing right here. Grabbing Michael as hard as she could, the former policewoman expected to get grabbed in return. Instead, all she got was some slow breathing and a blank expression. He was in shock.

  Not saying a word, Charlotte embraced her lover. At first, he didn’t react, but after an indeterminate amount of time, the man slowly lifted his arms before wrapping them around her soft frame.

  The dragon was human after all.

  ***

  On a remote tropical beach, somewhere far, far away, Charlotte lied in the sun, enjoying the chance to display her generous curves. Next to her lay her husband, a shining example of everything she liked in a man. And he was all hers.

  Life was good. Michael had used some of his money to acquire a nearby hotel, taking care of all their living and financial needs for the foreseeable future. The slayers didn’t appear yet. Hopefully they never will.

  Content, Charlotte took another sip of her chocolate flavored milkshake. Left and right, people played ball, swam, or merely laid out in the open, enjoying the day. This life was completely different from the one she used to lead as what she now jokingly referred to as a “waste remover”. God, I got used to this quickly, didn’t I?

  The pressures of policing the slums of New York City behind her, the former detective relished this chance to finally let herself go. With no need to run around, chase anyone, or skip the occasional meal, Charlotte has become larger than ever, all to the pleasure of a very supportive Michael.

  “I think you might have gotten a little bit bigger, honey,” he commented, unable to avert his eyes from her voluptuous bosom. “Just look at those babies,” he continued, slapping one them with the palm of his hot hand, producing a juicy thud.

  Charlotte loved the way her man displayed his affections. She loved what he was. Most importantly, she loved him for who he was, unconditionally and without reserve, and he responded in kind.

  “Want us to put them to use again? Along with a few of the other parts you like?” she purred, pouting her lips just the way liked them. “Somewhere private, I mean.”

  Smiling, and with fire in his eyes, Michael leapt to his feet, extending one hand to help his lover rise. “Charlotte, my dear,” he spoke, right at the moment she was upright “There is no part of you that I don’t like.”

  Always such a romantic, the former detective thought, wrapping another hand around her shape-shifting lover as she engulfed his hard, burning frame with her curvy, soft one. In throes of passion, she stuck her tongue down his throat as they shared a kiss that was hot enough to melt the poles.

  “Come here, you,” she finally spoke after their mouth separated, pulling his hand and taking the first step toward the hotel. “We don’t want you to get full before the main course, right?”

  “Honey,” her dragon answered, “You know that there’s no way for me to get too much of this,” walking next to her, he ended his sentence by firmly grabbing her right ass cheek, sending ripples of pleasantly jiggling flesh over her body.

  Feeling that electric sensation of arousal spread up and down her spine, Charlotte bit her lip while picking up the pace. When some things are concerned, patience is definitely not a virtue, she concluded, traversing the sand with a speed few would expect from a woman of her size.

  It might be warm out here on the beach… But our office is about to get infinitely hotter.

  THE END

  BONUS BOOK 5

  Mythical Lust

  Shifter Romance

  By: Jodie Springer

  Mythical Lust

  On a sunny beach, close to the great city of Knossos, an introspective figure stared off into the horizon above the Aegean Sea.

  It’s all the same, she thought, as she did every other day, before turning around to take another look at the area around her. People of all ages and backgrounds frolicked around the coast, relishing their time in the sun as if it was a gift from the gods themselves.

  Perhaps it is, Adrasteia mused for a short moment. As if by command, her thoughts instantly refocused themselves toward what inevitably came next. If the gods granted us the day, then who gave us the night? For a while she stood like that, considering the implications of what would inevitably come next.

  And why, she finally found the courage to ask herself, do we avoid it like the plague?

  Indeed, Knossos was the jewel of the civilized world. Every man, woman and child knew that there was no better place to live or spend the day. After sunset, however, the city-state and its surroundings would inevitably turn into the most silent place in the world, as everyone hastily retreated into the safety of their own home or the closest inn.

  The nights weren’t safe, the people of Knossos knew. It was an established fact as much as it was known that the Boatman demanded payment to row you into the Underworld. Something like that was to be expected of course, knowing that brigands, slavers, and various other unsavory characters roamed around great cities in the dark.

  The island of Crete, however, had practically no crime to speak of. Those with the gall to stalk the night in search of victims would quickly disappear, never to be seen again. It had been like that for decades. “Go outside when it’s dark and you’re as good as dead,” the elderly would say.

  “For that’s when the Minotaur roams,” Adrasteia finished the sentence aloud, being noticed by absolutely no one.

  The bull man, the woman spoke again, this time only in her thoughts. The eater of men.The terror of Crete. She turned toward the sea again, letting her gaze fall downward in order to take a look at her own reflection. A beautiful, raven haired woman, dressed in a white linen dress, stared back at her.

  Conjuring the image of a much younger girl that stood in that same place ages ago, the woman merely remained like that for a while, before finally speaking again. “Savior of Adrasteia,” she said, adding a new title to the already impressive list that the Minotaur already possessed.

  It happened so long ago, she remembered, but it remains so vivid it might as well have taken place yesterday. She remembered everything, especially the way she was as a young girl: energetic, passionate, and full or resentment toward rules and authority.

  Not much has changed in that regard, she thought, chuckling for a second. But then, the rest of the memories came pouring in, wiping anything that resembled a smile off her face almost immediately.

  She remembered having ignored her family’s orders to remain at home after sunset. Barely ten at the time, Adrasteia sneaked out on her own, intent on spending the night at her favorite location: the beach. Crete was not as crime free at the time, though, and the little girl was quickly found by a band of particularly ruthless slavers.

  Unkempt, full of scars, and reeking of bad hygiene, the men would have been terrifying even if they were not armed to the teeth. Cackling as he spat the words out, their leader, a freakishly large man of darker skin, beckoned the girl to come quietly, lest they have to scar her face and thus diminish the profits they were about to reap from the sale.

  To this day, the men’s faces
remain seared in Adrasteia’s memory. She could recall every mark, every little hair. Every disgusting hole where a tooth was supposed to be. What happened soon after, though, thought, overshadowed her recollection of them by far.

  The man on the far right was the first to go, something having hit him in the torso with a force that no human being was capable of. The others were still in the process of turning around when his body was lifted off the ground, limbs rocking erratically and blood spraying everywhere. Whatever it was that still held the corpse up wasted no time, immediately hitting the next slaver right between the eyes, causing the man’s head to burst open like a smashed watermelon.

  Finally, someone managed to turn a torch toward the attacker’s general direction, revealing a sight no one should ever witness: near an almost headless body that sprayed brain matter onto the beach, stood a massive, eight foot tall figure, hairy and bulging with muscle, the other man impaled on top of the large pair of horns that adorned its head.

  As if provoked by the light, the creature darted forward, showing no sign of being slowed down by its gruesome new head ornament. Reacting fast, the leader of the slavers leapt right in front of the thing, attempting to intercept its oversized fist with the brunt of his shield – and regretting it immediately. A gruesome sound of bone snapping followed, overpowering even the panicked screams of the remaining men.

  Tossing the leader to the side like an empty water skin, the creature immediately turned toward its remaining prey. Now pale and sweating from shock, the slavers attempted to form a coherent fighting formation, but the beast’s next maneuver broke their morale completely, as well as adding insult to injury.

  With a quick motion, the monster tilted its head forward, causing the carcass impaled on its head to fly toward the men. By the time they’ve regained their footing, the unfortunates found themselves up close with the creature’s monstrous visage: That of a monstrous, rabid bull.