Sold To The Dragon Princes: The Novel

by Daniella Wright

  “Are you having fun?” Isaac asked.

  Tessa could not hide the smile.

  “See, you are made to do this. Couldn’t you just imagine life being just like this? It’s a nonstop rush every time. Living life on the edge is so much better, don’t you agree?” Isaac said.

  Tessa could not stop smiling.

  Could she see herself living like this?

  Hell yea, she could.

  Chapter 6

  “How did your husband die?” Isaac asked. The question was a bit out of the blue and caught Tessa a little off guard.

  The two of them were lounging by the fire after eating another great meal of beans (Tessa was getting so sick of beans) and they had actually been enjoying the silence for a bit, just letting the food settle. Tessa was still thinking about what they had just done, even though it had been a good four hours since the robbery. The fact that they had gotten away with it was imprinted in her mind, along with the adrenaline.

  “What?” Tessa asked. Her brain was trying to change gears.

  “Your husband—you mentioned he died in a freak accident. How did it happen?”

  Tessa paused a moment. “He was thrown off a horse and hit his head.”

  “It’s very tragic to lose someone, especially someone who is the love of your life,” Isaac said.

  “Who did you lose?” Tessa asked.

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “I’m pretty good at reading people too,” Tessa said.

  "I was in love with a woman named Virginia when I was young. Her family was fairly prominent and they always disapproved of me. They knew of my reputation as a drifter and my distaste for authority and love of action. I hadn't even started robbing establishments yet. At that time it was mostly petty stuff and gambling. I did lots of gambling, but the thing with gambling is that sometimes you lose money. With robbery, you are guaranteed to get the money."

  “So, what happened?”

  We were getting close to running away together and just getting married. We wanted to start fresh. But she chickened out and sided with her family. She turned her back on me at the last minute and basically told me to get lost.”

  “Wow, that’s pretty terrible. I don’t know how you could do that to someone you are supposed to love.”

  “Yea, I know. I thought she would choose me over her old man, but it just didn’t happen.”

  Tessa brushed her finger along his cheek softly. He looked at her, those sparkling eyes probing inside of her own gaze. It was mesmerizing to look at eyes so angelic.

  “So, what’s the plan? Do you think you can just roll town to town robbing banks and saloons forever? You are eventually going to get caught and probably hanged, if you don’t get gunned down during the act,” Tessa said.

  Isaac shrugged. “Whatever happens will happen. I can’t worry about that. This is the life I’ve chosen. I just have to live the best life I can until then.”

  Tessa felt a sense of sadness in her heart right then. She couldn’t stand the thought of this man hanging at the end of a rope or being gunned down in the streets by some lynch mob.

  Isaac massaged the back of her neck and then moved her face close to his. He kissed her sweetly just then as she felt herself kissing him back. Every kiss with him was sweeter than the one before. She had never craved someone's kiss before, but with Isaac, it was like an alcoholic craving, just one more drink and it never ended.

  He pulled her body closer to him and before she knew what was happening he was reaching up under her skirt and removing her underpants. Soon she was open and exposed, her wetness already mingling with the cool, night air.

  Isaac unzipped his pants and pulled out his hard member. Tessa could not resist. She reached out and grabbed it, her hand barely fitting around the shaft. It responded to her touch growing even bigger and harder. She began to stroke him up and down enjoying his every moan and gasp of breath.

  Tessa could not take it anymore. She stood up, pulling her skirt out of the way and lowered herself onto him. He groaned loudly, his face a grimace of painful satisfaction as he grabbed her hips and began to lift her up and down on top of him.

  She closed her eyes and enjoyed the ride of passion.

  Chapter 7

  “You’re free to go anytime,” Isaac said.

  “What?” Tessa asked. She was a bit confused, but she had only been awake about five minutes.

  “I just want you to know that you are free to do what you want. I know you are feeling conflicted about what path you want to go down,” Isaac said.

  Tessa thought a moment. How did this man know her so well?

  “After last night… you want me to leave?” Tessa asked. Was she understanding him correctly?

  “No, I don’t want you to leave. I think you are an amazing woman. I would be sad to see you go, but I don’t want you to feel like a prisoner anymore. I actually have a proposition for you, if you’ll accept it.”

  “What proposition?” Tessa asked automatically feeling relieved.

  “Live this life with me for a few more days. If after that you decide to leave then I will accept that and wish you a happy life and I will advise you to turn me in. I know you can do this at any time if you wish. I’m hoping that you won’t but that is out of my hands. If you decide to stay after that then nothing would make me happier and I know we can have an exciting life together full of fun and dreams.”

  “Ok. I’ll give it a few more days,” Tessa said.

  Isaac smiled. “Great, now get dressed. We got something fun to do.”

  An hour later the two were sitting in a salon in Wakefield. They walked in and ordered a couple of drinks. The bartender eyed Tessa a little bit, most likely because it was odd to see a woman ordering a whiskey early in the morning, but he said nothing.

  The place was pretty quiet that early in the morning. Mostly just regulars and men trying to nurse off a hangover by staying drunk. And of course, there were a few of the working girls from upstairs coming down for a quick breakfast and a few drinks.

  They’d only been sitting there nursing their drinks for about three minutes when Isaac quickly pulled out his gun.

  “NOBODY MOVE! This is a robbery!” Isaac yelled. He waved the gun at the patrons and then pointed it at the bartender. “Empty the cash drawer.”

  The bartender nodded and quickly filled up a sack with cash. Tessa was watching the patrons to make sure no one did anything funny. She could not believe that she was doing this. She was helping Isaac commit robbery. She was as bad as him. She was a criminal for sure. There might have been no turning back from this if she wanted to.

  After the bartender emptied the cash drawer Isaac had Tessa go around to all of the customers in the bar and grab their cash too, while he kept the gun on the bartender. He ordered the bartender to come out from behind the bar with his hands up and stand in the corner with a group of patrons.

  "No one moves from this spot for at least ten minutes. If I find out you did I will come back here and kill you all in your sleep," Isaac said.

  And just like that they were out the door and riding away from town on Isaac’s horse.

  Later that night as they sat around the fire counting the money and drinking the whiskey that Isaac had stolen from the bar, Tessa realized something. She realized that she loved this life. She didn’t see how she could ever go back.

  Isaac was a man so full of excitement and contradictions. He was bad, but he had such a good heart. How could a man rob a saloon, and then ten miles outside of town stop and give every dime of the loot to a poor farmer’s widow with three kids who were in danger of losing everything?

  Tessa could not believe her eyes when she watched that act of generosity taking place. Just thinking about it hours afterwards was enough to make her tear up.

  She loved this life and she loved this man.

  Chapter 8

  This was it. The big score.

  Isaac had heard that there was a big train coming into Big Bend. It was supp
osed to be loaded with gold. Every so often the banks requested some physical money to back up the deposits and withdrawals for their customers. Usually this was a top secret type of thing, but Isaac had heard from one of his pals passing through the town of Littleton about a week earlier. The guy always had the scoop somehow. He was never wrong. For a small price he would tell you where the best scores were.

  The past few weeks had been amazing. Tessa could not help reminiscing in her mind as they watched for the train to pull into the station. Isaac and her had spent every day in bed until noon at various hotels passing through towns, robbing every other town after they were done, and sometimes they would sleep outside in the prairie under the stars. It was a fun life and Tessa was loving every single second of it. They would usually make love when they awoke, then a hearty breakfast, and then hit the new target, and then they were off until they found their next resting stop. And usually they would fall asleep in each other’s arms after some hot love.

  It was like they were living in a fairy tale.

  And she didn’t ever want it to end.

  “The train should be along any minute,” Isaac said. “Now everybody got their assignments?”

  The team nodded.

  Isaac had gathered the team from some guys he’d known and done a few jobs with a couple of years back. For this particular job to be super successful he and Tessa were going to need more people. Tessa didn’t really like the idea of bringing in more because it made her nervous. It was just more people who knew about her and Isaac. But then again, they were doing the same thing they were. What did they have to talk about?

  About five minutes later they saw the train pulling into the station. Now it was a cargo train, so it was stopped at an unloading platform which was about a mile down the tracks from the commercial station where passenger trains picked up and dropped off fares. So they didn’t have to worry about being seen by anyone. Tessa counted that among her blessings that morning.

  The whole job should not take that long, with a whole gang of people swiping the loot. That was what Isaac had been counting on, but it still made Tessa nervous.

  Isaac gave the signal and the gang rode up on their horses with guns out. Isaac and Tessa were on engineer duty, so they headed to the conductor’s cab and kicked the door in. The engineers leapt back with their hands in the air. Tessa hated to see the fear in their eyes, but she remembered that the fear was a good thing because it meant they would behave and not get hurt.

  “Come out with your hands up!”

  The voice came from outside. Tessa’s head jerked to see what was going on? Was one of the guys making a stupid joke? It had to be… it had to be…

  But it was no joke.

  Outside was a cavalry of government agents. Some were on horseback and some were on foot. The men on foot were already in firing military positions. If any of them moved a muscle they were not told to then they would be pumped full of holes. What had she done? She knew it would come to this. Now she would be thrown in jail, unless she convinced them that she was about to spring a trap on them. Isaac had taken her hostage and he and his gang forced her to go along. She was a prisoner.

  Those thoughts ran through her mind as Tessa tried to decide if she wanted to turn Isaac over to the cops.

  Or if she wanted to stand and fight through this with him.

  Chapter 9

  Tessa made a split decision. She knew what she had to do. She had to follow what was in her heart whether she thought it was logically right or not. There was no way to deny how she felt.

  Tessa and Isaac slowly stepped out of the engineer’s car and down the platform. Tessa hoped that Isaac would respond quickly enough when she made her move. There was a brigade of at least ten men with guns all pointed at them, ready for them to make a mistake.

  Tessa took a deep breath.

  The second her foot touched the ground she flipped over to her side whipping her guns from behind her and opened fire on the brigade, aiming for the front men in attack position first. She hit a few as she continued to roll on the ground firing the entire way.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Isaac doing the same thing and the rest of the gang open fire on the brigade.

  The brigade was taken by surprise as several of their front men fell to the ground wounded and some possibly dying. Tessa hated to kill anyone, but if it was her or them then it was gonna be them.

  But they couldn’t stand there and fight forever. To do so when outmanned and outgunned was lunacy. The other guys that Isaac had hired did not seem to understand this as they stood their ground firing as fast as they could.

  Tessa flipped her body again as she continued to roll. Her body bounced hard against the tracks and up under the train. The pain was intense as the hard tracks beat her elbows, her back, and her knees. But she knew that she had to keep going.

  Within seconds she was on the other side and rolling down the embankment on the other side of the tracks. Isaac was right behind her. They were out of the gunfire.

  “We have to go!” Tessa said as she leapt to her feet, ignoring the pain rolling through her body and began running through the tall grass.

  “We have to wait for the others!” Isaac said.

  “They are goners! You know that!”

  Isaac let out a roar of discomfort and continued to follow Tessa out of the high grass and into the low grass where they really turned on the speed. Both of them were in great shape and they were able to cover a few miles in twenty minutes. By the time the brigade made it out of the tall grass they had vanished. They had no way of knowing which way Tessa and Isaac had gone.

  They’d made it. For now.

  Chapter 10

  “I love you,” Isaac said. He held Tessa’s hands in his and he kissed them just then. The two of them were snuggled up in the blanket beside the fire where they’d set up camp. Both were dead tired. They must have run easily five miles nonstop, until they came upon that ranch and stole a horse. That had really given them a boost.

  The cavalry was nowhere to be found. It might still be hunting for them, but it was doubtful with night falling.

  Tessa was still high off the adrenaline of the fight. She had never been in a life or death gunfight like that. The ones she had been in were usually with one person and over within seconds. This had been a full on army against a small group. And they had made it.

  “I’m sorry about your friends,” Tessa said stroking Isaac’s chest gingerly, her head lying on his shoulder. They had just had perhaps the most intense sex ever. It seemed that the adrenaline from the robberies carried over to the sex in unimaginable ways. It was perfect.

  “Thanks, but I didn’t really know most of them that well. They were good guys, but they knew that there was a risk going in. But I still do wish we could have done something.”

  “Me too. But at that time it is everybody for themselves, and us for each other.”

  Isaac tilted her head upwards and kissed her on the lips, his mouth covering hers with his warmth.

  “Are you sure this is what you want? It is never an easy life, but it does have its rewards.”

  Tessa giggled. “Yes. I’ve never wanted anything more. I love you, Isaac. You are what I was waiting for. I know that now, and I didn’t know I was waiting for anything.”

  “That’s the way life is sometimes. You never know what is coming and you never know how much better it can sometimes make your life that you thought was already pretty sweet. You have definitely made every part of my life complete, “Isaac said.

  Tessa kissed him again. Then she climbed up on top of him, straddling his hardness, slipping down over him. She moaned softly as the slightly cool breeze blew in from her right, billowing her hair as she rode Isaac to another magical release.

  Afterwards, they fell asleep in each other's arms ready for the next adventure.

  Life was good.

  THE END

  Bratty Boy

  ~Bonus Story~

  A Western Hist
orical Romance

  “Ah, but my lady. What would you do if a certain gentleman conducted himself that way with you?” he offers on a purr. “Let me be your fancy gentleman, Miss Elizabeth. Allow me to seduce you.”

  With these words he steps away from me, moving the full length of his firm muscled body in a sleek sensual gyration as he crooks a sexy finger straight in my direction.

  “I have a room upstairs, Cowgirl,” he growls. “If you care to spend some time with me, I swear I’ll make it worth your while.”

  Taking his hand in mine, I walk as if in a dream up the length of a brass handled staircase at the corner of the bar.

  Now don’t go callin’ me a Southern belle. For although I Elizabeth Collins can wear a fine muslin gown along with the best of them, I am no delicate Texas maiden. Far from it, I’m one of the most successful horse dealers across the Lone Star State; and I am not about to let a silly little thing like love break my stride—or, for that matter, the trot of my prized mounts. Yet when I make the acquaintance of a handsome drink of water named Duke Wyatt, well, he inspires me to reconsider the meaning of the word “stud….”

  I Duke Wyatt am the top horse dealer in the entire state of Texas. And I can’t believe that one of my toughest competitors is a spirited—and very beautiful—filly that goes by the name of Elizabeth Collins. How can I convince this enchanting miss that we can indeed make magical ‘pardners’—both in our chosen trade and in life?

  * * *

  Chapter one

  For just a moment I--Elizabeth Collins--stand as one with the Texas sun.

  Standing in the midst of a gold-hued field kissed with the lustrous vision of my beloved yellow roses, I cast my head back and bask in the rays of this illustrious beacon. I admire the way that the rays of the sun highlight the silken lengths of my waist length curly chestnut hair, and lend a radiant cast of ruby to the lovely red roses that shine forth from the calico fabric of my foot length day dress; an effort of ivory rose print boasting a regal V-shaped bodice and flowing tri-paneled skirts.