Romantics: Erotic Romance Stories From The Wittegen Press Giveaway Games

By Sophie Duncan and Natasha Duncan-Drake

From a police officer working undercover to a commadore on a back end of nowhere space station, these protagonists all have sexy times ahead, with a heavy side of romance in this volume of short stories and novelettes.
In July 2012, Wittegen Press gave away a short story, or story part every day to their readers. Each story was only available for one day, but now the 6 erotic romance stories from The Wittegen Press Giveaway Games have been gathered here into 1 volume.

Incubus Shadows by Sophie Duncan
In a post-apocalyptic world ravaged by The Sorcery Wars a scollarly young man finds more than he bargained for when he goes to work for the local Lord and his brother. (M/M/M)

Undercover by Sophie Duncan
When a police officer working undercover in a strip club has his cover blown, he is rescued by one of his colleagues and at last he can reveal his feelings for the young dancer. (M/M)

God of Love by Natasha Duncan-Drake
Dran has been waiting all his life to be claimed by his god and his dreams are about to come true. (M/M)

All That Glitters by Natasha Duncan-Drake
Simon is drunk and being mugged when he meets the mysterious Philip. Not really a best case scenario for starting a relationship, but Simon can't get Philip off his mind. (M/M)

Connections by Natasha Duncan-Drake
First contact with an new alien civilisation is a little more complicated than usual when sex comes into the equation. (F/M/M)

A Special Catch by Sophie Duncan
Being a 'roid hunter is not always a barrel of laughs, but Hayley gets by and then she finds one that's a lot more unusual than most rogues. (M/F)

These stories, plus all the other stories from the Wittegen Press Giveaway Games can be found in one volume:
- Myriad Imaginings: All The Stories From The Wittegen Press Giveaway Games

If you would prefer to select stories by genre, they are also available in five separate anthologies:
- Book of Darkness: Horror Stories From The Wittegen Press Giveaway Games
- Beyond Our Horizon: Science Fiction and Fantasy Stories From The Wittegen Press Giveaway Games
- Supernature: Paranormal Stories From The Wittegen Press Giveaway Games
- Romantics: Erotic Romance Stories From The Wittegen Press Giveaway Games
- Bright Young Things: Young Adult Stories From The Wittegen Press Giveaway Games

Also, if you are a particular fan of Natasha Duncan-Drake, or Sophie Duncan, their stories are also available in individual anthologies:
- Half of Everything: Stories by Natasha Duncan-Drake From The Wittegen Press Giveaway Games
- The Other Half of Everything: Stories by Sophie Duncan From The Wittegen Press Giveaway Games

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wittegen Press
• Release date: Jan 12, 2013
• ISBN: 9781908333469

Sophie Duncan

Half my time I am a project manager developing IT solutions. The other half, you'll find me scribbling away at many a story that just won't leave me alone. I've been writing since I was a wee thing, and publishing since I discovered the internet in 1994 or so.So what do I write? Contemporary and urban fantasy have mainly been my playground, but I have done some real world settings as well. I do like mystery and have been reading (and watching) Agatha Christie since I was a child. I've also been known to do a bit of poetry.Style: I have been told I do angst well, so if you want your heartstrings twanged, or your tummy to tie in knots until the end, then I'm your gal. I am, however, a happy ending junkie, although I do throw a hint of realism in there sometimes as well. I like a few twists and turns on the way in some of my plots, although I have written my share of PWPs as well. I have to admit a small obsession with eyes: I believe they are the seat of beauty in a person, so I play with them in creature fic and use them for expression in others - personal hang up, sorry. Also, I have never met a cliché I didn't like and I am a firm believer that cliché is fine if you do it right.Writing is a passion and there's nothing better than writing for an audience. Any writer who says they don't care about feedback must have had an ego amputation :) If you life my scribbles, I'd be very glad to hear from you.

Book preview

Romantics

Erotic Romance Stories from The Giveaway Games 2012

Sophie Duncan

&

Natasha Duncan-Drake

Romantics Copyright © 2012 by Sophie Duncan & Natasha Duncan-Drake. All Rights Reserved.

Smashwords Edition

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 reader. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favourite retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Cover designed by Natasha Duncan-Drake

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Sophie Duncan & Natasha Duncan-Drake

Visit our website at https://www.WittegenPress.com

First Edition: Jan 2013

This Edition: Sep 2019

Wittegen Eros – Imprint of Wittegen Press

ISBN-13 978-1-908333-46-9

During July of 2012 Wittegen Press gave away one short story, or story part per day, inspired by the spirit of sharing from the Olympics going on in London.

Contents

A Special Catch

Connections

Incubus Shadows

God of Love

Undercover

All That Glitters

About the Authors

A Special Catch

Sophie Duncan

AUTHOR'S NOTE: When it comes to writing erotica, I'm normally a M/M gal. However, just sometimes I'm inspired towards M/F. Having said that, when I first conceived this story, it was M/M, but as I got to thinking more about the main character, my Roid Wrangler, I began to realise that it would work better with a strong female lead rather than my default male protagonist. Having a strong woman and a man in a weaker position to her mixed up the dynamics and I enjoyed playing with that.

The epilogue I gave Sasha at the end was off the cuff. I knew I wanted round the story up, but when I finally settled on Sasha's point of view, it all slotted into place really quickly. The ending is ever so slightly sappy, but, hey, I was feeling sappy at the time.

SOMETIMES TRAWLING THE STREETS OF DAGAR for missing and rogue roids could be a bitch and today looked like it was going to be one of those days. Hayley had thought she was in luck when her scanner had picked up the tracer signal of a rogue that was on the system for having wandered out of its fruit-picking field.

It happened all the time, the cheaper roids malfunctioned and just walked off. It kept her salvage operation in business, and it was usually easy to pick the dumb machines up. Yet, now the bloody thing had blipped off her tracker. She pulled her truck over, knowing that if its tracer was flakey, she was going to have to find it on foot.

Keep me informed if it pops back up, Sasha, she spoke to the dash as she climbed out of the vehicle.

Of course, Sasha responded, the slightest hint of disdain in her voice.

Just monitor the area, Hayley snarked back, in no mood for her AI to have a snit-fit.

She had no idea what her dad had done to Sasha, he'd always been tinkering, but the computer that ran her entire business could be a bit of a diva. Still, Sasha was the best AI in the salvage industry; Hayley'd had many a wrangler offer her a pretty penny for the system. Sasha was not for sale.

Walking off while slipping her comm's bud into her ear and turning on her handheld scanner, Hayley knew Sasha would do her job, even if it meant they had a discussion about workplace respect later.

Just got a blip two hundred yards ahead of you, Sasha informed her through the earbud as her own scanner flashed up just for a moment.

Great! Hayley huffed as she looked over the heads of all the tourists milling around and realised she was about to enter the Mulo District.

You want to call this one off? I can put out a find alert on the system, you'd get ten percent, Sasha checked.

No, Hayley barked back, shocking a couple of tourists in front of her. She calmed and continued, No, thanks, Sasha, I can handle it.

That wasn't strictly true: the last time she'd been in the Mulo part of the city, one glance at a juju seller had torn her to pieces for three days, but that had been four years ago. Steadying herself, Hayley headed past the large, silver archway that marked out the exotic district.

If you looked hard enough, you could find anything you wanted in Mulo, legal and illegal, since the Mules had a flexible attitude to both planetary and interplanetary law. When she'd been younger, going after the big wrangles with her dad, this place with its long, winding back alleys and rich mix of inhabitants had been exciting, fun, but now it had too many ghosts.

Next alley on your left, Sasha told her and Hayley could hear the disquiet in her AI's sound.

Got it, Hayley replied and tried to keep her voice steady.

Hayley's heart hammered in her chest as she came to the dingy corridor that stretched up five storeys, but was only wide enough on the way in for a pedestrian. She ignored the flash in her mind's eye of her dad waving her back as he walked into a very similar alley, took a deep breath and headed into the grey world.

I'm getting an intermittent reading: it seems to have stopped, Sasha kept talking, which was a boon to Hayley. Power pack must be damaged.

Like all the alleys in Mulo, this one didn't run straight. It began to curve round to the right. Hayley put her hand on her blaster just in case there was more than a broken roid down the end of the alley. She was right to be nervous, because, as she rounded the bend, Hayley spotted two figures in the gloom at the end. She raised her gun and squinted to make them out.

The roid, blank-eyed like all the worker units, was slumped at the base of a wall, head flicking compulsively to one side. It gave Hayley the creeps, they all did now, but rounding the bloody things up when they went awol was her job. However, she was more interested in a young man, who was kneeling in front of the roid and reaching out to the tight little movements like some kind of demented healer. She'd seen all sorts in her time: nutters who wanted to save roids' souls; eccentrics who wanted to free them from their torment; psychopaths who wanted to reprogram roids as weapons. Steadying her gun, Hayley ordered, Wrangler. Step away from the android.

Immediately, the man, who didn't look all that much like the loonies she normally dealt with in a tight pair of jeans and a nicely fitting black t-shirt, stood up and held his arms up. He looked startled and his brown eyes zeroed in on her gun, which made Hayley feel a whole lot safer.

You know you need a licence to deal with androids? Hayley pressed her position of power home, closing in and making sure her target didn't move.

I meant no harm, he is injured, came the typical reply of one of the do-gooders who thought roids should be people too.

It's just a machine, Sir, Hayley corrected, trying to sound as professional as possible.

A flicker of something crossed the young man's chiselled features then and he looked away. Hayley lowered her weapon slowly as it appeared she was going to meet with no resistance. Yet, it was when the deluded Samaritan went to lower his arms that Hayley spotted the barcode on his wrist. Hastily, she raised the weapon again and her target took a step back, raising his hands.

Identify, she ordered and she actually thought she saw fear in her target's eyes. No response. You're a type six, aren't you? Hayley pressed.

Unit 6578392CC3, the sophisticated roid replied, holding out its wrist.

Hayley held her scanner over the barcode which marked the place where the ID chip was inserted and information flashed up on the little screen. She quickly checked it, the picture ID matched and its owner's address was local.

What are you doing here? she asked warily.

I am on my way to work, the roid replied flatly, the fake life in its eyes far too realistic for Hayley's taste: she liked her machines to remain machines.

And you just happened to stop and want to help, she challenged, waving her scanner at the broken roid.

My owner, Mr Hiscox, requires me to assist when I am able, the roid replied and if she hadn't already known it was just a lump of expensive engineering, Hayley would have thought she heard nerves.

She stared at the roid, all well-sculpted six foot of it, not quite believing what she was hearing. Anyone rich enough to buy a type six did not normally worry about helping their fellow man.

May I go? it asked and when she didn't reply, added, I will be late.

Where do you work?

Daylight Dance, the roid replied. I am a barman.

Hayley had heard of it, it was a fake-flesh club where tourists went to watch pretty roids strip. That would have explained the expensive body job if the roid had been one of the strippers, but for a barman, the work was way over the top. However, Hayley had a fruit picker to get back to its farmer, so, eventually, she nodded and the roid quickly walked off. She watched it until it was out of her sight and only then did she turn to the broken roid.

Sasha, send me down a floatdeck, this thing is not walking anywhere, she requested.

∞∞∞

An hour later, back at her shop, Hayley was examining the roid lying face down on her work bench. Sometimes she performed repairs before returning a broken roid, since it got her a bonus, but, looking at the dent in this one's lower cortex at the base of the moulded neck, it looked like there was far too much damage to make it worth her while. It did explain why the thing had wandered off, though.

Okay, Sasha, pack and inform the owner we're returning a pile of junk to him, Hayley sighed and leant back against her tool trolley as Sasha turned on the floatdeck and it drifted over to where she kept the storage boxes.

However, as she watched the roid being locked into a secure transport carton, thoughts that had been nagging at Hayley's mind since she had dismissed the type six came back to haunt her.

Sash, why would a type six be working for a living? Hayley voiced the first anomaly that came to mind.

I was considering the same point, the AI replied. Surely Mr Hiscox does not require an income.

Check out Mr Hiscox, please, Sash, see if for some reason he's fallen on hard times and has decided not to sell his type six for sentimental reasons, Hayley requested. And double check that identity registration while you're at it.

A second later, Sasha reported, Ah ha! Mr Hiscox has an apartment at 135 Gerian Heights, a modest dwelling he has owned for the last sixty years. He worked as a mechanic before he retired, but the oddest this is that Mr Hiscox was on low income support until two years ago, when he died.

Hayley stood up straight and grinned to herself. Looks like they had an expensive rogue on their hands.

And the reg, she checked.

Very clever, might have fooled a lot of AI's, Sasha crowed, but it's fake. Azure, the company listed as the manufacturer, didn't make type sixes five years ago, which is when the droid was registered.

Cool, let's go round up our wayward pile of circuits, Hayley clapped and headed for the truck. We'll work out who owes us the finder's fee later.

∞∞∞

Hayley walked into Daylight Dance and grimaced as the heavy bass shook her body. For a place with daylight in the title, there was surprisingly little of it inside the smoky club, but Hayley could see enough to find the bar. However, there was no sign of her pretty little money pot. Ignoring the three glitzy, permanently pouting roids gyrating on stage, Hayley headed over to the mainly empty bar, leant on it and flashed her wrangler licence at the nearest barman. The roid nodded to her and she asked, Manager?

It pointed down to the other end of the bar where a slender young woman in a very smart suit was watching the show. Hayley made her way down to the manageress and waved her wallet again.

I can assure you, all my licences and registrations are up to date, the blond bombshell quickly informed her: it was the usual thing when a wrangler came calling.

I'm only looking for one roid, Ma'am, Hayley replied. Six foot, brown hair, type six.

You mean Jay, the manageress