COWBOY ROMANCE: Justin (Western Contemporary Alpha Male Bride Romance) (The Steele Brothers Book 1)

by Amanda Boone

  He easily pushed her hand away as she tried to hand the bartender her own card. “I got it. It’s been nice talkin’ with ya.”

  “Are you sure? You really don’t have to do that. I had a lot of drinks.” Chelsea instantly regretted how immature she sounded. He probably had that many drinks every night, and here she was stumbling over her words, unable to handle her liquor. How embarrassing.

  “I want to. Plus, you’re the one without a job.” Ben began to laugh but straightened up when she gave him a playfully angry look. “Too soon?”

  “Way too soon.” Chelsea gathered her items and began heading to the door with Ben shortly behind her. Out on the sidewalk, Chelsea turned to face him with a coy smile. “This was really nice. Thank you for everything.”

  “Nah, thank you. It’s been really fun.” The tension between them was so thick that you could have cut it with a knife. “Here,” Ben said as he pulled out a pen and began writing on the back of a scrap receipt he had in his pocket. “Call me sometime. I’d be happy to show you around the city.”

  She could feel her heart beating harder than she thought was humanly possible in anticipation of this night ending. “Let me get you cab,” Ben said as he stepped up to the curb and hailed a yellow taxi. “I guess this is good night.” As the car pulled up beside them, they stood silently staring into each other’s eyes.

  Without thinking, Chelsea stepped forward and put her hands on either side of his face, pulling his lips hard against her own. Sparks went shooting through her, and she knew that this wasn’t a normal instant attraction. There was something else there, something more. “Good night,” she whispered as she pulled back from him.

  “Good night.” He wore a beautiful, bright white smile that almost convinced her not to go. She had never had an urge to go home with a man she’d just met until now, but she wasn’t that type of girl. She wouldn’t allow her clouded judgement to change who she was and what she stood for. As the cab pulled from the curb, she looked back to see him running his hands through his hair, so effortlessly handsome.

  Sitting on her couch sipping coffee, Chelsea replayed the night before in her head. She couldn’t believe the butterflies that fluttered through her stomach at just the thought of him. “Hey,” Taylor said as she walked into the room and plopped lazily beside her.

  “Good morning.”

  “What happened to you last night? You didn’t come in ’til really late…and I heard a lot of crashing noises.”

  Chelsea tried her hardest to stifle her laugh. “I might have tripped over the rug and knocked all the stuff off the coffee table.”

  Taylor dramatically rolled her eyes. “I should have guessed. So what kept you out? You’re never out late. I was starting to worry about you.”

  “Well…I met this guy…”

  “What?!” Taylor exclaimed, sitting up straighter and turning her whole body to face Chelsea. “Tell. Me. Everything.” Taylor was your stereotypical sorority girl: extremely excited for any type of juicy drama.

  “I spent the entire morning, and most of the afternoon, passing out resumes, but no one was interested. Every single place I went to either had a thousand resumes on file or weren’t hiring any time soon. By the time I got to—” Before Chelsea was able to finish her sentence, Taylor eagerly interrupted her.

  “Yeah, yeah. But what about the guy? Tell me about him!”

  “I’m getting to it,” Chelsea said and laughed. “By the time I got to the last place on my list, I was so upset that I needed a drink. So I found a bar and went in hoping to drink my problems away. This guy sat down next to me and, long story short, we had a great night.”

  “No! No long story short! Tell me everything. Was he hot? What did he look like?” Taylor said, bouncing up and down with excitement.

  “Oh, he was soooo cute!” Chelsea relished in her memories. “He had this adorable shaggy blond hair and the perfect amount of scruff. Oh! And he was a biker with a leather jacket and all.”

  “A biker? How dangerous!” she teased.

  “I know. That’s the problem.”

  “Problem? I see no problem with that.”

  “Well…” Chelsea didn’t know how to best put into words the internal conflict she had been battling all night. “We are so different that I don’t think anything could ever come from it. He’s got a rough past and…well…you know my past.”

  “So what?! Opposites attract, you know?” Taylor exclaimed. Chelsea still wasn’t so convinced. Even if everything did work out for them, what would her parents think of him? Could her parents ever be accepting of someone with such a rough past? Although she was worried what her parents would think, there was also a part of her that was tired of planning her life around what they expected of her. “All that really matters is if you like him. Do you like him?”

  “He was so great, Taylor,” Chelsea said, relishing in the thought. “After a couple shots of tequila—”

  “Whoa! He got you to drink tequila? Do you know how long I’ve been trying to get you to do that?”

  “Well, turn into a gorgeous man and I’ll consider doing things you want,” Chelsea mocked her. “Anyway, we sat and talked for hours. I feel like I’ve known him for all of my life. There is just something so comforting and familiar about him. Plus, he gave me his number after he kissed me good night.”

  “Eeeeekkkk,” Taylor squealed with excitement. “Have you called him?! Please tell me you’ve called!”

  “It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours.” Chelsea laughed as she batted the air between them.

  “So what! Call him!”

  “Taylor, stop it.” She waved the thought away.

  “If you guys had a connection, then he’s thinking about you right now too. Call him!”

  Chelsea hesitated for a moment, thinking it over. “You think so? Won’t he think it’s too soon?”

  “No! Life is too short to worry about playing games. If you like him, call him.” Taylor emphasized each word as she said them.

  “Okay, okay!” she said in surrender. “I’ll text him.” She could feel a knot in her stomach just thinking about it. All of her life Chelsea had had a horrible fear of rejection, and she still couldn’t shake it. What if she scared him off? What if he wasn’t actually interested in her? It made her sick just thinking about it. She looked up to see Taylor watching her closely with excitement in her eyes. Taking a deep breath, she began to type out the message on her phone, and after backspacing everything several times, she finally settled on something simple.

  Chelsea: Hey! This is Chelsea.

  Chelsea set her phone down on the table and tried her hardest to act as if it weren’t eating her alive to not check it every five seconds. Not even a minute had passed before her phone let out a loud beep. She nearly jumped off the couch trying to get to it as fast as possible.

  Ben: Chelsea who?

  She could have cried she was so embarrassed. Taylor scooted in closer to her to read over her shoulder. She inhaled a sharp breath and gave Chelsea a look of pity. Within seconds her phone beeped again.

  Ben: I’m totally kidding. Sorry. That probably wasn’t funny. What’s up?

  Taylor let out a laugh. “Funny and cute! That’s the whole package.”

  “Not funny. He made me feel like a complete idiot.” Chelsea pretended as hard as she could to be mad, but she was so overwhelmingly relieved that she knew it wasn’t very convincing.

  Chelsea: Not too much. What about you?

  Ben: Nothing. I had a great time with you last night. I was actually just thinking about you.

  Taylor squealed so loudly that Chelsea had to cover her ears. “Can you relax?”

  “He said he was thinking about you! How are you relaxed?”

  Chelsea: I had fun too. Thanks for everything.

  Taylor smacked her arm and gave her an exasperated look. “Ask him out, you goof!”

  “What? No. If he wants to go out he’ll ask me. That’s how it works.”

  “In the fif
ties! Don’t play any games. Just ask him out if you want to go out.” Chelsea sat in silence and thought over the possible outcomes of the situation. On one hand, if she waited to ask him, he may lose interest and think that she didn’t want to go out again. But on the other hand, he could think she was desperate and pathetic if she asked now.

  Ben: Do you have plans tonight?

  Her heart skipped a beat. He wanted to go out with her again! She couldn’t believe that someone like him would be interested in someone like her. Chelsea began to type that she and Taylor had plans when she got slapped in the arm. “Don’t you dare turn him down! We can drink wine and sit around gossiping any night.” Biting her lip, Chelsea erased what she had previously written and tried again.

  Chelsea: Not yet.

  Ben: I thought I might show you around the city. Would you be up for it?

  Chelsea: That sounds like fun.

  Ben: Great. I’ll pick you up at 7.

  *

  “Taylor!” Chelsea yelled from the bathroom in exasperation.

  “What?” she yelled back.

  “Help me pick which earrings look best!” Within seconds Taylor came bouncing through the doorway, excited to be included. Chelsea held an earring up to each ear as Taylor looked them over thoroughly, taking her job very seriously.

  “The ones on the left,” she finally replied.

  “Are you sure? They’re not too flashy?”

  “Chelsea, it’s a first date. Flashy is what you want. Speaking of flashy, let me grab something.” As Taylor scurried off to her room, Chelsea hung the beautiful teardrop diamond earrings from her ears. After an entire day of scouring her closet, she had finally settled on a pair of jeans and a simple chiffon blouse that hung loosely from her. “Here!” Taylor exclaimed as she shoved a lipstick tube at Chelsea.

  “This is really dark,” Chelsea protested, looking at the color.

  “Come on. It’ll look great on you. Plus, you need to spice up your boring outfit.”

  “Hey now!” Chelsea laughed in fake offense. “I was trying to go more casual.”

  “I’m just kidding. You look great.” A loud knock came from the front door, causing Chelsea’s stomach to drop. “I’ll get the door. Hurry! Put that on.” Taylor rushed off to open the door while Chelsea quickly applied the lipstick. Taylor was right, it did look really good on her. She could hear her dad in the back of her mind reminding her that only women of the night wore lipstick like that. Chelsea quickly pushed the thought from her head. She would not allow his opinions to make her feel less about herself. “Just one minute!” she heard Taylor yell.

  Taylor came quickly back into the bathroom and dramatically mouthed, “Oh my god.”

  “Right? Isn’t he cute?”

  “Sexy is more like it! Hurry up. You don’t want to keep him waiting,” Taylor whispered. Looking herself over one more time in mirror, Chelsea made her way into the front room to see Ben sitting on her couch. He was even cuter than she had remembered.

  Quickly standing when she walked in the room, he said, “Wow. You look great.”

  “Thank you. You do too.”

  “You kids have fun now. Don’t keep her out too late!” Taylor said as they walked out the door of their apartment. “I have an app that tracks her phone! Keep that in mind!” she yelled down the hall behind them.

  Chelsea let out a bashful laugh. “She’s kidding, by the way…. Not about the app—we really do have that—but about her implying you were going to kill me and ditch my dead body…” The words fell from her mouth like vomit despite how hard she tried to hold them back. She silently cursed herself for being so awkward.

  “You’re cute when you’re nervous.” Ben laughed. “She would be right to imply it though…” He gave her a devilish grin. “Only kidding. I promise not to murder you…or at least not to ditch your body somewhere…”

  His light sense of humor made her relax and feel more at ease. She knew he was being sincere when he told her that he thought her nervousness was cute, but she still felt stupid. It was one thing she was always extremely self-conscious about: word vomiting when she got anxious.

  Once they got out onto the street, Ben walked straight to a motorcycle parked by the curb and handed her one of the helmets off the back of it. “Wait. We’re riding this?”

  “Yeah. It’s a lot easier to store a bike in the city than a car.” He could see the nervous look in Chelsea’s eyes as she looked over the machine in front of her. “Wait. You’ve never ridden one ’fore?” She shook her head no, looking ashamed. “It’s not as scary as it seems. Promise.”

  She still hadn’t moved from the sidewalk as she weighed it over in her mind. “You trust me?” Ben asked her. Without needing to think, she nodded yes. “Give me your hand.” Chelsea obliged by putting her hand in his and allowing him to pull her closer to the motorcycle. “Just swing your leg over the edge here.” It warmed her heart to see how gently he was guiding her through learning something new. “Ya got it! Now just put your arms around my waist. You can squeeze me as tight as you need to. You ready?”

  Hesitantly, Chelsea nodded, and when she realized he couldn’t see her behind him, she said, “I think so!”

  “All right then. Hold on.” With that they were off and whipping through traffic. She clung tightly to him and tucked her face into his shoulder to avoid the cold wind. They only drove for a few minutes before they pulled into an alley and he cut the engine. “We’re here.”

  “Where is here? Where you’re going to leave my body?” she asked jokingly as she looked up and down the dark, abandoned alley.

  “I have a surprise for ya. You’ll live through it, don’t worry.” He helped her off the bike and opened the back door to a building that lined the alley with a key he pulled from his pocket.

  “What is this place?” she asked as he hit the light switch and things slowly became visible. It was a small, dark space with pub tables shoved against the walls.

  “It used to be an old bar.”

  “Why do you have a key to it?” she asked quizzically.

  Ben looked around the room and smiled. “Because I own it.”

  Chelsea looked at him with confusion. “What?”

  “It went into foreclosure a few months ago, and I bought it. Just closed on it a week ago. You’re the first person I’ve brought here actually.”

  “Wow.” A large smile covered Chelsea’s face. “That’s so great. What are you going to do with it?”

  He looked so proud of himself that it made her heart melt. Maybe he wasn’t as wild as she had thought; buying a business was a hugely responsible thing. Here he was sharing a huge part of himself with her, opening up. “I’m going to turn it into a biker bar. Nothing fancy, just beer and pub foods. But it’ll be mine, ya know?”

  “That’s awesome. What about wine?” she teased.

  “I think I could keep a bottle or two behind the bar for you.” Taking a few steps toward her, he put his hands on her waist and pulled her against him. “Want to see the best part?”

  “Well of course.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her through the small kitchen to a staircase in the back.

  “This will all be storage up here. Maybe eventually I’ll turn it into an apartment, but just storage for now,” he explained as they walked through a large empty room and up another staircase. “But this…this is the best part. You ready?” She nodded happily.

  When he swung the door to the roof open, her breath escaped her. He had hung strings of lights all over. In the middle of all of it was a little pub table set for two with a picnic basket beside it. “Wow,” she said quietly as she took it all in.

  “Look at the view,” he said with excitement. Walking over to the rooftop ledge together, they took in a wonderful view of the skyline that seemed to go on for miles.

  “It’s so beautiful.”

  “A beautiful night with a beautiful woman.” Ben turned to her, smiling, and leaned down to ever so gently plant a kiss on her lips. As he pulled
back, he left her wanting for more.

  “This is all so great. Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me yet.” He laughed. “You haven’t seen the piss-poor excuse I brought for dinner.” They enjoyed different types of cheese and wine while overlooking a once-in-a-lifetime view. Hours went by while they told stories and learned more and more about each other. They learned about each other’s pasts and their goals for the future. It was as if they had known each other their entire lives.

  Just like all good things, the night had to come to an end. Walking Chelsea to her door, Ben said, “I have something to confess.” Great. He’s married or something. I knew it was too good to be true.

  “What is it?”

  “I actually know an editor at Trend.”

  “Trend, as in the magazine?” she asked in disbelief. Trend was the largest fashion magazine in the US, one that she had been an avid reader of since she was in junior high.

  “Yeah. I didn’t want to tell you earlier because I didn’t want you to think I was trying to like bribe you or something.” He looked her in the eyes with a charming smile. “But I did get an appointment for you to meet with her tomorrow morning. Only if you want to.”

  “If I want to? Of course I want to!” she exclaimed. She jumped off the ground, wrapping her legs around him, and kissed him forcefully. “Thank you so much! You have no idea how much this means to me!”

  Ben let out a laugh. “Glad you want to go. I didn’t want it to be weird or anything.”

  “No, not at all. Thank you so much, Ben! And thank you for everything tonight too.”

  Smiling from ear to ear, Ben planted another kiss on her lips and said, “Not a problem. I’ll drop by tomorrow afternoon to see how it went.” Chelsea watched him disappear down the hall before finally going inside. She leaned against the door as it shut behind her and slid down to the ground. It had all been like a dream come true.

  Sitting in the large modern lobby, Chelsea could not have been more nervous. The receptionist across the room cleared her throat, and when Chelsea looked up at her, she was staring at her shaking foot, which was tapping on the ground. “Sorry,” Chelsea said uncomfortably.