Lone Wolf Justice, page 1
Lone Wolf Justice
Cynthia Sax
All rights reserved.
Copyright ©2011 Cynthia Sax
ISBN: 978-1-60521-632-4
Formats Available:
HTML, Adobe PDF, EPub
MobiPocket, Microsoft Reader
Publisher:
Changeling Press LLC
PO Box 1046
Martinsburg, WV 25402-1046
www.ChangelingPress.com
Editor: Maryam Salim
Cover Artist: Zuri
Adult Sexual Content
This e-book file contains sexually explicit scenes and adult language which some may find offensive and which is not appropriate for a young audience. Changeling Press E-Books are for sale to adults only, as defined by the laws of the country in which you made your purchase. Please store your files wisely, where they cannot be accessed by under-aged readers.
Legal File Usage -- Your Rights
Payment of the download fee for this book grants the purchaser the right to download and read this file, and to maintain private backup copies of the file for the purchaser’s personal use ONLY.
The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this or any copyrighted work is illegal. Authors are paid on a per-purchase basis. Any use of this file beyond the rights stated above constitutes theft of the author’s earnings. File sharing is an international crime, prosecuted by the United States Department of Justice and the United States Border Patrol, Division of Cyber Crimes, in partnership with Interpol. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is punishable by seizure of computers, up to five years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000 per reported instance.
Lone Wolf Justice
Cynthia Sax
There’s a new sheriff in town, and he’s shooting silver bullets.
Diana left her family, friends, and everything else she knew behind her to travel west, fulfilling her destiny as a mail order bride. When she arrives in Big Rock, she discovers the wolf shifter of her dreams isn’t the man she is to marry.
With one look at the curvy blonde in the ridiculous pink bonnet, Justice is smitten. She insists he’s the man of her dreams, but how can that be? He’s a no-account, half-breed lawman, neither wolf nor human, and she’s been contracted to another.
Chapter One
Diana’s eyelids grew heavy as she stared out the stagecoach window at the seemingly never-ending expanse of sun-baked brush. Every rotation of the wooden wheels brought her closer to her future and to a bridegroom she’d never met, but after days of continuous travel, her excitement had given way to exhaustion, and she slipped into the vision that had brought her across the country, far from her friends, family, and everything she had ever known.
* * *
Diana shook water out of the clean white linens, then took a clothespin from her homemade apron and clipped the wet cotton to the line. The night breeze rippled the cloth, spraying droplets on her hot, naked body, but she didn’t pause to enjoy the decadent sensation. She had a full basket of clothes to hang before her husband came home. When he saw the moonlight reflecting off the brightly colored fabric, he would know she was a good wife, and he would boast to other men about her usefulness. She would be more than simply a pretty face.
A growl rolled through the silence, and Diana turned, the man’s shirt she held slapping against her thigh. Facing her was a large brown wolf. His haunches were rounded, and his teeth were bared in a display of primitive possession. Her nipples tightened, and her pussy moistened, as the wolf was wild and fierce and hers.
He ran by her, his soft fur brushing against her legs, and she chased him, laughing, as he darted between the blowing bed sheets, snapping at the cloth, as playful as a pup. He was fast, a creature of the night, and Diana soon lost sight of him.
“Where are you?” she called as she searched, frantic to find him and experience the passion he brought her.
Strong, human hands caught her, and she tumbled into him, landing on a broad, heaving chest covered with brown hair. Her palms pressed against a tight, defined stomach, his hard cock nestled between her thighs. They rolled on the dew-covered grass, their limbs entwining, until she stared up at him, his rugged face silhouetted against a blanket of twinkling stars, his dark eyes gleaming.
“I caught ya,” he declared, his deep voice softened by a rumbling drawl. He pinned her to the ground with his hips, grinding her ass into the grass. “You’re mine, Di.” He always called her Di. He was the only one who did.
“I’ve always been yours.” That was the truth. A part of her soul had been linked to his for as long as she remembered. “Come.” She wrapped her legs around his trim waist, rubbing her pussy juices onto his skin, wantonly pleasuring herself with his body. “And claim me.” She was his for the taking.
“Mine,” he growled, reminding her of the beast-man he was, and then kissed her, probing the seam of her lips with his tongue and the entrance of her pussy with his hard cock. She opened her mouth, allowing his exploration, and grasped onto his shoulders, needing the reassurance of his solid strength, as he pushed, easing his cock into her, stretching her. He was large, and she whimpered, tilting her hips upward to fully take him, feeling everything, the slide of skin against skin, the raised veins on his shaft, the tickling hairs around his base.
“Mine.” He met her gaze, a connection humming between them. It was more than physical. It was the bonding of two lost souls, a merger of paths both present and future. Diana touched his beloved face, feeling the moisture of silently shed tears.
He kissed her palm and began to move, pumping into her with gentle, lazy strokes. She pushed up, meeting him halfway.
“Di, Di, Di.” Her lover called her name as he thrust his cock into her pussy again and again, her ass smacking against the grass-covered ground, the dew seeping between her ass cheeks, dripping down her spine.
Diana clutched her cowboy’s bulging biceps, pressing her lips to his collarbone, sucking skin, tasting the salt of his exertion. With each thrust, his chest hair rubbed against her sensitive nipples, teasing her into a frenzy of feeling.
His muscles hardened under her fingertips, and he grunted with desire, spiraling her already fever-pitched passion. She was close to coming, and when she did, he would too. He’d spill his seed inside her womb, and they would be one. All she needed was --
* * *
“Ma’am. Ma’am?”
Diana opened her eyes, dazed and confused, need rocking through her body. The bearded face of one of her fellow passengers filled her field of vision. “If you’re needing Big Rock, ma’am, you best get.”
She had arrived. “Thank you, sir.” Diana clasped her traveling bag, wished the stagecoach occupants a pleasant journey, and stepped down from the vehicle.
“Golly!” a little boy exclaimed, his eyes big in his dirt-covered face.
“Good morning.” She smiled at him, moving farther away from the restless horses. The big beasts scared her, but she refused to show that fear, not wishing to embarrass her husband-to-be, wherever he might be. She was in the Wild West, and cowpokes, as she heard the men referred to, loved their horses. “What is your name?” she asked the boy.
The child merely blinked, his mouth hanging open, displaying the remnants of what looked to be his breakfast.
Diana adjusted her best bonnet, ensuring that it wasn’t askew. She tucked her unruly curls behind her ears and smoothed down her pink traveling suit. Although she was satisfied she looked presentable, the boy continued to stare and Diana shrugged, dismissing his attentions as a child’s inquisitive nature. She’d read that, in some small towns, strangers were a novelty.
Brimming with curiosity, she glanced around her at her new home. The streets were red dirt and lined with wide, wooden boardwalks. Horses were saddled, their reins attached to the hitching posts stationed in front of every whitewashed building. Men stood, leaning against anything they could lean against, their hats worn low, cheroots in hand, watching her. She didn’t see Marvin Burton, her prospective bridegroom, the man of her dreams, and none of the other men greeted her with anything other than shock and suspicion.
The sun beat down on her shoulders, causing a trickle of perspiration to run down her spine. She swallowed, her throat dry but her smile unwavering. Marvin must be running late. His advertisement had mentioned needing a helpmate. As the town didn’t look very large, she would show him how helpful she could be, and meet him at his residence.
“Excuse me,” she addressed the boy, bending over to look him in the eyes. “Do you know where I might find Mr. Marvin Burton?”
The child made a yipping sound and ran off, a dust cloud kicking up from his bare feet. Diana watched with a mixture of amusement and frustration. She’d scared him speechless.
“Does anyone know where I might find Mr. Marvin Burton?” She raised her voice. It wasn’t ladylike, and her dear momma would be appalled, but Diana knew of no other way to gather the information she sought.
No one answered her.
* * *
“Sheriff, Sheriff.” Billy -- Hoss’s youngest boy -- skidded to a stop. He was all in a pucker about something, breathing heavily like one of those smoke-belching steam engines. “The queen’s here, and she’s asking for a Marvin Burton.” Billy’s little face screwed up. “There’s plenty of Burtons but ain’t no Marvin.”
There was or had been a Marvin. Billy knew him as Barrel Burton -- a brute infamous in Big Rock for carousing, killing, and drinking rotgut by the barrel. It w
Justice had no hankering to tend to womenfolk problems, but -- he cast his snoring deputy a sore look -- there was no one else, and he was the law. “Best be seeing what she wants.” Whoever she was. He kicked his deputy’s boots as he passed, causing the man to snort. There was no way royalty had done come to Big Rock.
Scowling, Justice wandered down Main Street, called that ’cause it was the only street they had. No one offered him a good morning, and that suited him just fine. He pulled his Stetson lower over his eyes. No yapping allowed him to focus on the job of keeping unappreciative residents safe.
The newcomer had a different view of yapping. Justice heard the mystery woman before he saw her. She appeared to be running the conversation by herself, talking about mail order brides and small town friendliness, her voice chirping excitedly like a horny bird’s.
He turned the corner, and his jaw dropped. Every bachelor in town was gathered around a concoction in delicate pink, and for good reason. She was plush and round in all the areas a woman should be plush and round, her breasts more than a handful, her waist with enough padding to please the choosiest man, and her hips designed for loving. Justice’s body hardened, his heart thumping with awareness, as he leisurely perused the beauty, the huge flower and bow apparatus on her noggin shading blonde curls, flushed cheeks, and a moving rosebud mouth.
He was wrong. Royalty had done come to Big Rock.
The pink bonnet turned his way, tilting up, and cornflower blue eyes lit with recognition, which was impossible ’cause Justice would have recalled meeting a looker like her.
“Mr. Burton, you remembered my arrival.” She held out a dainty, gloved hand.
Justice didn’t know what to do with it, so he held her hand as carefully as he could, keenly aware of the silver burns on his callused fingers. “Ma’am, I ain’t Burton.”
“You aren’t?” Long golden lashes fluttered like a fly beating against a screen door. “Are you his twin brother?”
The men around them guffawed, and Justice’s face heated. “No, Ma’am. Folks call me Justice ’cause I’m the law.” Sheriffing was a job needing doing, and wasn’t no one else wanting it.
Her gaze flicked to the tin star pinned on his chest. “That’s your name?”
“It’s as good a name as any.” His real name was Percy, but it would be a cold day in hell afore he’d admit to that.
“I see.” The silence stretched longer than a prairie sky, and Justice supposed he should fill it up with words, but before he could corral an intelligent thought, what with her smelling like wild roses and all, she continued. “Don’t fret, Mr. Justice. I may be betrothed to Mr. Marvin Burton at this moment, but I am certain providence will see us wed. You mustn’t give up hope.” She squeezed his hand.
Justice couldn’t make heads or tails of what that purty mouth was saying. “Your Mr. Burton’s dead, Ma’am. Smashed his skull to bits.” That he did know.
“Oh.” Her face was wiped clean of all expression. “I didn’t wish that for Mr. Burton, believe me, but providence can be cruel, can’t it?”
It couldn’t be no crueler than her Mr. Burton. The thought of that brute marrying her made Justice’s innards twist.
“Let’s have a moment of reflection.” She bowed her head, her ridiculous bonnet shielding her eyes. “Now then.” She smiled up at him, her shining face like the sun peeking out from behind the clouds, and his entire body ached something painful. “There is nothing to prevent us from being wed.”
Wed? Him and her? “Ma’am --”
“Miss Diana Chatsworth.” She stroked his rough skin with her silk-covered index finger. It occurred to him that he should release her hand, but she wasn’t complaining, and those gloves were the softest thing he’d ever touched so he held on. “You call me Di.”
“I do?” This conversation made his talks with Two Tails, the town mystic, seem downright logical.
“You do.” She nodded, the fabric flowers on her bonnet rustling. “Will the preacher, as I believe you call him, be available now? I prefer to be married right away. I’ve already run through a couple of bridegrooms, you understand.”
If she was referring to Burton as being one, she needn’t fret. The same grisly end wouldn’t happen to Justice, as he wasn’t piss-ass drunk and riding the wrong horse. “We ain’t getting hitched, Ma’am, Miss Di,” Justice clarified, wondering what had done happened to the other bridegroom.
“I’ll marry you, Ma’am,” Hoss, Billy’s dad, piped up. There was a chorus of “I will’s” from the women-starved men, irking Justice to no end.
“Ummm…” Miss Di bit her bottom lip like she was considering accepting their offers.
That wasn’t happening. “No,” Justice growled, the wolf in him clawing to the surface. Heads turned in his direction, including the one covered in pink. They expected him to say something, but he had nothing to add. She ain’t marrying any of them, end of the tale.
“Why not?” Miss Di, his Miss Di, gave him a cheeky smile. She had dimples, and Justice knew right then and there he was a goner, as no man worth nothing could resist dimples. “I came here to be wed. That’s why I agreed to be a mail order bride, and having never met poor Mr. Burton, I suppose one bridegroom is as good as another.” She surveyed her choices. The men stood a little straighter, sucking in their innards, their hats in their hands. “They all seem so nice. I could --”
Justice had plumb done heard enough. “You ain’t marrying no one but me.” The words were out of his mouth before he could stop them, and he gritted his teeth, knowing that someone would now point out how Miss Di could do better than a no-account half-breed like him. That was why he didn’t yammer on much. When he did, he said some dang fool things.
“Then let’s find the preacher, shall we?” Miss Di tugged her hand away, and he reluctantly released her. She took his arm, her breasts brushing against him, that ample chest having no stuffing in it. It was all firm flesh.
“You don’t want him, Ma’am,” a man hollered as they walked toward the church. “Wolf,” “half-breed,” and “no-account” were flung their way.
“I’m what they say I am, Miss Di,” Justice felt honor-bound to confess. “I’m half human and half --” He couldn’t say it. He couldn’t stand to see the horror on her purty face.
“I know.” Miss Di patted his arm, her smile not dimming one bit.
She couldn’t know what else he was. She came from out East, that was clear from her fancy clothes and her uppity way of talking, and there weren’t no beings like his departed pa out east, not that he was knowing of.
Although he ruminated a reply, Justice said nothing more. He’d done enough talking for one day, plus his newly acquired wife-to-be was chirping happily about baking biscuits and hanging shirts and helping him with his lawmaking, whatever she believed that was, and he didn’t have the innards to interrupt her flow of words.
Chapter Two
Diana ladled the hearty beef stew into the tin container, humming a happy tune, pleased with how the first meal she’d ever prepared had turned out. It wasn’t perfect -- there had been a slight misunderstanding on how much a pinch of salt was -- but her new husband would appreciate her efforts, and he’d know she was more than a pretty face. She placed the freshly baked biscuits in the basket also. Although they were flatter and heavier than she remembered other people’s biscuits being, they were as round, and the same golden brown.
The adorable little house with the fully stocked larder had surprised Diana, as she’d been expecting the rented room she’d read many bachelor men resided in. When he’d opened the door, Justice had mumbled something about it coming with the badge. He’d then left her there to familiarize herself with their new home, since he had to return to his job, keeping the citizens of Big Rock safe.
Diana didn’t laze around, like she desperately wanted to. Determined to make a good impression on her husband, she cleaned the already clean house, ironed his shirts, which was a bit tricky, as she’d at first misjudged the temperature of the iron, and made him dinner.
