COWBOY ROMANCE: Devon (Western Contemporary Alpha Male Bride Romance) (The Steele Brothers Book 2)

by Amanda Boone

  Anita yanked open the glass door and stepped over the threshold into the strikingly cold air that filled her favorite gym. After an infuriating walk home, all she could think about was the resolution. Every step she took was toward another self-argument. Every huff of breath only filled her with more frustration. And yet, if she managed to get her mind off of the Russia and Israel situation, equally annoying thoughts of Bruce rushed in to take its place. She had barely worked her way through a hastily prepared dinner of broccoli and chicken when she realized that if she was going to get any sleep that night, she needed to head to the gym and work some of that steam off.

  So there she was, heading right for her trainer only thirty minutes after she called in a session. He stood in the center of the mat, waiting for her, his toned body clad in black and his arms crossed in anticipation.

  A smile stretched across Anita’s face as she stepped onto the much softer surface of the mat and let her small backpack fall to the ground next to her.

  “I’m surprised you called,” he watched her unlace her shoes.

  “Yeah, let’s just get started,” she joined him on the center of the mat.

  “Tough day at work?” he asked with a raised brow.

  She nodded as she threw the first punch.

  He dogged it, and in the same motion, came in with a fist to her side.

  She grunted, doubling over.

  “Too eager,” he patted her on her back.

  She nodded, but shifted her feet ever so slightly to the right, grabbed his hand, twisted it backwards and heaved him over her shoulder. His back hit the mat with a thump. With a huff, he chuckled and said, “That’s exactly what I’m looking for.” He then jumped up, hitting his stance of defense.

  Anita mirrored his pose, keeping her eyes trained on him. For the first time in days, she wasn’t thinking about Russia or Israel, or freaking Bruce. She was thinking about getting her trainer on his back again. However, as she continued to fight him, throwing punch after punch, squeezing out of holds and dodging his hits, her movements became more and more sluggish. She found herself on her back more often than not, and eventually the fight became nothing but defensive. As she survived mainly on dodging punches, she unwittingly began to ignore whatever it was he was saying, failing over and over again. Her heart pounded against her chest, her pulse thumping noisily in her ears. Her lungs felt like over-inflated balloons pressing against her ribcage, yet threatening to burst all at once.

  She was failing.

  She was losing.

  And with that, her trainer flipped her over his shoulder. She yelped as she flew through the air, her stomach lurching with the surprise. Her back slammed against the mat, all of her bones ringing with the impact. She gasped for breath. “I think I’m done here.”

  The trainer wasn't one to complain about her cutting things short, so he let her walk out.

  Anita doubled over as soon as she had left the gym, her stomach still turning from that last fall. Her mouth flooded with saliva. She was almost certain her dinner was trying to fight its way out of her body, but after not so much as a burp, she gave up and kept walking.

  She had barely been moving for five minutes when she felt a vibration in her backpack. She swung it around to answer her phone. A smile played on the edges of her lips when she realized it was her best friend Jori who was calling. “Oh thank God. I think I’m about to explode.”

  “Uh yeah?” Jori replied in that overly excited voice of hers. “I’ve been stuck in press conferences all day. The Times picked up your convoy story and now the whole world wants answers.”

  Anita blinked twice. “Yeah, well think of how bad it would be if you actually had to be one of the people coming up with the answers.” Her voice sounded much more hostile than she had meant it to.

  There was a short pause on the other end of the line, before, “Yeah, well at least you’re not getting blamed for decisions you don’t even have a say in.”

  Anita glowered at this. “That happens to me every day.”

  “This is not a pissing contest, Rhodes. Everyone is dealing with shit right now.”

  Anita bit her lip. She was approaching another throng of protesters. Judging from the fact that the majority of them looked like they had just walked out of a crack house and were probably concealing all kinds of weapons, she figured they wouldn’t exactly appreciate her blown-out ponytail and Victoria’s Secret active wear, so she switched to the other side of the walkway and kept talking. “Okay, so why did you call me?” she raised her voice so that she could be heard over the throng of people.

  Jori sighed. “I was just wondering if you got an update on Bruce and his pet tiger.”

  Anita shook her head before adding a curt, “No.”

  “So what the hell? What is he even saying?”

  She ducked her head in frustration. “Nothing. He won’t even answer my questions!”

  “Hmm…” Jori murmured. “Then it’s probably not a pet tiger.”

  “What do you mean? That’s the only explanation,” Anita argued as she jabbed her key into the lock on her front door.

  “But it’s not the correct one. If it was, he would have just told you that.”

  “So if it wasn’t a tiger, what the hell was it?”

  “Honey, I don’t know.”

  Anita dropped her bag on the ground and climbed onto her couch, pressing the phone against her ear and hugging her knees with her free arm.

  “Okay, it’s obvious that you are extremely stressed, hun. Come out with me this weekend. You clearly need to get your head right.”

  “If by that, you mean that I need to have sex, then I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to pass.”

  Jori scoffed. “And what are you gonna be doing when you don’t go?” she asked. “Sitting around thinking about what Bruce is doing at the session?”

  Anita glowered out of her window into the dark night as she considered her offer. Then, with her final answer in mind, she stood up and made her way to her bathroom, sighing dramatically.

  “Ugh, whatever. Fine.”

  Chapter Three

  “I know it sounds crazy.” Anita tried to sound cautious, yet calming. She stood her ground in front of President Holland even though the face he made suggested her had just eaten a rancid hamster.

  “You’re right about that. It’s absolutely mad!” he barely let her finish. “Harrington.” He turned his attention to Bruce.

  Anita knew she had lost the floor for the rest of this conversation, and that if she wanted it back, she was going to have to fight for it.

  “Did you even read this nonsense?” he jabbed his pointer finger into the stack of papers that made up the proposed resolution.

  Bruce gave him a curt nod, but otherwise, no other sign of distress. “Yes. I assisted in writing it.”

  The president released a deep, heavy breath and stood up. As he rounded the table, he faced Bruce. “So, this is what you want? This is what you’re willing to stand in front of 112 nations and present? Are you kidding me?”

  Anita had to focus almost all of her energy on trying not to roll her eyes. She didn’t appreciate the fact that Holland acted more often than not like a father instead of a president. “With all due respect, Mr. President, did you even read the resolution?”

  Holland glowered at him. “What kind of question is that? It is because I read it that I am disputing it.”

  “The resolution is foolproof.” Bruce’s assertive voice filled the room.

  Anita couldn’t help but be impressed by it.

  “Really? Giving Israel weapons is foolproof?”

  “We cannot put troops on their soil. They will see that, not only as aggressively disrespectful, but also as the first phase of some sort of second Middle Eastern bloc,” Bruce argued.

  “But the UN will never agree to donating weapons.” Holland practically hissed this.

  “We are not donating anything!” Anita yelled.

  It was as the two men turned to look
at her that she realized she had made a mistake. She sounded almost shrill. After clearing her throat, she added, “It is an investment into our future. If the UN puts troops on Israel’s soil, they will see this as us disrespecting their sovereignty, but if we simply give them resources, they will feel more like an ally, and we will not have to worry about them seeking help from anyone else to drive us out.”

  “And what if they use these weapons against us?” Holland asked.

  Bruce smirked. The expression was so inappropriate, given the context, that Anita and Holland both turned to stare at him. “You see the conversation we’re having right now?” he asked.

  Anita reveled at his confidence. It profoundly bothered her that he could be so sure of himself when he had been on the job for less than two weeks and was already drafting controversial literature. Where did he get off thinking that he could talk to the president like that? Her president, the one who she had stayed up late with in campaigning offices trying to win him the House; the one she had had jovial beers with after hours; the one whose wife she used to get her nails done with; the one who not only promised her job, but reassured her of her capacity to do it. Where did he get off literally falling from the heavens and thinking that he could then control her president? She didn’t care that they were on the same side. She wanted her goddamn spot back. “Is this funny to you?”

  Bruce raised an eyebrow at her, as if surprised that she was turning on him like this. “No, but it is ironic.”

  Holland shifted his feet, cocking his head at him, his facial features twisted into a confused expression. “Please, enlighten me.” His voice was soaked in sarcasm.

  “If we sent troops to the Middle East, from all countries, the Israelis would be having the same conversation we are. They would be questioning our motives and worried about the future. And based on how many times they have been screwed over in the past, I can tell you that they would not make favorable decisions.” Bruce answered.

  The two of them stared at Holland, their eyes examining his every movement, from the shifting of his gaze to the purse of his lips. That vein on the side of his forehead was engorged, as if his heart was working overtime to get enough blood to his brain so that he could make this potentially history-altering decision. He stared down at his $4000 shoes, his fists curled so tightly together that his knuckles had turned white.

  Anita could see that he was deathly afraid of what he was about to do, but nevertheless, he looked up to the both of them and said, “Fine, Rhodes and Harrington. But if you don’t sell this at the summit, I’ll have your heads.”

  Chapter Four

  It was as Anita was packing up her briefcase for the end of the day that she snapped. As she danced around her office, discarding unimportant notes from the resolution, her heart still pounding in her chest from that heated conversation, her head still pounding from that headache that had lodged itself in the back of her mind along with all of her worries for the future, that she decided she wasn’t going to let this go. As she stood with her bare feet on the fluffy Persian rug in the center off her office, she couldn’t think of anything but the sight of that tiger in Bruce’s backyard, those eyes that glared at her with surprise, but, more importantly, with recognition. Those were the same eyes that stared down the president in one of his most vulnerable moments, the eyes that questioned his judgment like they were old friends and not in the beginnings of a high stakes working relationship.

  Anita furrowed her brow as she remembered how Holland had shifted his gaze to Bruce more often than not; how he looked for his approval every time she opened her mouth, as if her judgment wasn’t enough, as if she didn’t graduate from Northwestern University at the tender age of 19 and then go on to gain a law degree from Yale; as if her father didn’t have a seat on the Supreme Court; as if he hadn’t hand-picked her himself to be his Secretary of Defense only two years ago. So what changed?

  Bruce. That’s what.

  Something about the way he could so easily manipulate Holland with his words. He seemed to always take the right risks at the right time. But, her concerns extended beyond that. His influence was almost insidious, and he was impossibly mysterious. His every word felt like it was meant to hide a hundred others.

  So what the hell was he hiding?

  With that thought, Anita got off of her rug, slipped her heels back on, grabbed her suitcase, and charged down the hallway to his office. She was beyond fed up with all of this, so when she finally got to the door they had only just marked with his name, she stormed right in. “What the fuck are you hiding?” she demanded.

  Bruce, who was sitting behind his desk, staring intently at his laptop looked up at her with eyes wide with surprise. “I can’t say I know what you’re talking about,” he replied in an infuriatingly calm voice.

  Anita slammed the door behind her and pressed farther into his office. “Don’t give me that, Harrington. You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

  Bruce scoffed, gently closing his laptop and standing up to face her. “If this has anything to do with your little drunken visit to my house, then I have already told you, I have nothing to say.”

  Anita winced. “How did you know I was drunk?”

  Bruce flinched, looking away from her and down at his shoes. She got the distinct feeling that he didn’t even know how he knew that she was drunk. “Because I remember,” he told her in an unsure voice.

  Anita’s briefcase slid from her fingers, slamming onto the ground. Her mind was falling into the obvious, yet impossible answer far too fast. “But you weren’t there,”

  He glowered at her. “I was.”

  Anita knew he said that only because he had to. “Where? The lights in front of your house were off.” She remembered that moment as if it had only just passed. She could practically taste the alcohol in her mouth, could feel the cold November night breeze.

  Bruce stepped around his desk. Anita could see that he had begun to relax a little, for his jacket hung on the seat in front of his desk, his tie had been loosened, and the first three buttons of his shirt were undone. Anita tried not to get sidetracked about the fact that she could see his chest hairs through his shirt, and it was more than a little bit alluring. “I’m not going to have this conversation with you.”

  Anita huffed out a breath, then stepped up towards him, completely imposing on his personal space. She got a whiff of his woodsy, yet somewhat refined scent, and then tried to stop herself from going into a frenzy because of it. “You know you are infuriatingly cryptic.”

  “You’re ridiculously nosy.”

  Anita winced again. It was the one thing she was afraid of him saying. “You’re an asshole for no reason!”

  Bruce let out a dark chuckle, shaking his head in amusement. “You’re just mad the president listened to me and not you.”

  Anita glowered at him. “It’s our resolution. He listened to us.”

  Bruce scoffed. “Oh please. You lost your cool. You screamed at him like a little girl.” He was looking down at her with his nose upturned, as if she was some sort of pariah.

  Everything about this moment, from Bruce’s impossibly alluring scent, to the way that he seemed to dismiss all of her questions and shift the conversation to exactly what was upsetting to her in the first place, made her boil with frustration. “You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to judge me like you know me.”

  “Well you don’t get to inquire into my life like some obsessed private investigator.”

  “I am not obsessed.” But her voice shook as she said it.

  “Please. You couldn’t resist me if your life depended on it,” Bruce stared right at her lips.

  Anita was finding it increasingly difficult to remain angry, to keep herself on the offense. She could almost feel the heat radiating from his body. “Does it?” she muttered.

  Before she could even take another breath, he grabbed her face in both of his hands and pressed his lips against hers. She almost immediately melted into this kiss. Her
whole body trembled in satisfaction at the taste of his lips on hers. But something was tugging at the back of her mind. She didn’t feel like herself in his arms. She felt controlled and manipulated. It was only then that she realized he was just trying to get her mind off of what she was looking for in the first place.

  And that made her angry.

  She shoved him off of her, the infatuation in her veins quickly morphing into hot frustration. “Who the hell do you think you are?” The hurt from the last time they had done this still hung fresh in her mind.

  “Well, clearly I’m your new obsession.”

  The nerve…

  Before she could even think about it, Anita threw a punch right into his face. Her knuckles smashed against his cheek bone, the sound of it cutting through the tense are in his office.

  He staggered back a couple of steps, holding his cheek. “What the fuck!”

  “You will respect me,”

  But all of her confidence drained from her when he looked up at her and his face looked completely untouched. Her stomach lurched with fear. Who… what was he?

  She decided she wasn’t ready to find out.

  Chapter Five

  “What an asshole!” Jori yelled a little too loudly. The bartender, who had been vigorously shaking a drink, stopped, turning to shoot both Anita and Jori a judgmental glance.

  Anita pursed her lips, and she took the last swig of her third drink, then turned to face Jori. “You don’t think I said that myself?”

  “Yeah, well, apparently it didn’t do you any good because he just kissed you again.”

  Anita motioned at the bartender for another drink before she turned to look back at Jori. “Yeah. I mean, do you think I’m crazy?” she asked.

  Jori let out one humorless chuckle. “Honey, I was there.”

  Anita nodded, watching as the bartender refilled her vodka cranberry. “That’s what I fucking thought,” Her words slurred. Her fingers stung as she reached for her glass. “And the weird thing is that he didn’t even look like anything had touched him,” she said, remembering the way he looked back at her, with a face that looked completely untouched.