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

by Amanda Boone

  “We’re done. I quit.” Out she went, slamming the door behind her.

  Chapter Five

  Kate sat in her favorite outdoor café in Paris watching the tourists try to cross the Champs-Élysées without becoming roadkill. Her suitcases lay on the bed in her little studio apartment two blocks away. She still had to pack them. She hadn’t yet booked her flight back to the States. She hadn’t even called her parents to tell them she was giving up her vagabond ex-pat foolishness for good.

  This time she actually had a damn good reason to go back home and be an American again.

  Mom and Dad would be thrilled, of course. They still hoped she’d come home, marry a nice guy, and produce a bunch of grandkids for them to spoil. The one time she’d convinced them to come to France, they spent most of the visit complaining about the coffee.

  “It’s like tar,” her father had said. “I can feel it sticking to my throat when I swallow.”

  Kate loved French coffee. She loved France. She loved Thierry Belanger, the bastard, and he’d ruined it all for her. But without him the rest of her life yawned in front of her like a big, empty tunnel with no light whatsoever at the end.

  At least for now.

  Kate knew the tunnel wasn’t completely empty, and the light was there, too. It was just too small to see for the moment.

  “Hi, there.” A slim person who could have been a pretty boy or a handsome girl sat down in the chair across from her. “Mind if I join you, Kate?”

  She lifted her Wayfarers to squint at the elfin face, which looked a bit more feminine when she smiled back. The girl, if she was female, had a mid-western American accent, the body of a preteen, and the eyes of a world-weary wanderer.

  “I’m a girl. Wren Calhoun.” She offered a small hand, which Kate ignored. “Wow. You really are pissed.”

  “You’re a genius, too.” Kate sat back in her chair. “Get lost.”

  Wren removed an envelope from her denim jacket and slid it across the table. “A little something from my boss, who must remain nameless. A gesture of his thanks for helping Belanger with the op. The big French guy’s really miserable over the whole forced-to-have-sex thing, you know.”

  Kate tossed some Euros on the table as she stood, shouldered her purse and walked away. Wren Calhoun caught up a block later and paced her.

  “What don’t you understand?” Kate asked without looking at her. “The get, or the lost?”

  “Oh, I got that part. My big questions mark,” Wren said, “is why you blame Thierry. I mean, he had to sign like ten thousand non-disclosure statements after we recruited him. You know, the kind where you get thrown in federal prison for spilling the beans to anyone, even the woman you love? Or whatever the DGSE equivalent of that is.”

  Kate stopped and turned toward her. For a terrible moment she thought she might lose her temper and let her have it, all of it, right in her little elfin spy face. But none of this was Wren Calhoun’s doing, and she didn’t want her running back to Thierry. “What do you want from me, kid?”

  “I’m older than you, Kathryn,” Wren said, and stuffed the envelope in Kate’s purse. “Go see him. Please. Thierry hasn’t slept or ate since he got back. You won’t regret it.” A long black car pulled up to the curb, and Wren went to it and climbed inside, waving at her through the window before it sped off.

  Kate trudged back to her apartment, more miserable now that she knew Thierry was definitely back in Paris. As she dragged herself up the narrow staircase to her floor, she pulled the envelope Wren had given her out of her bag and opened it.

  Inside wasn’t cash or a check, but two train tickets to Provence, and a battered old key tagged with a hand-written address. There was also a note, written in the same hand, thanking her. It was signed with simply a large S.

  Kate took out her own keys to unlock her apartment door. Before she could, the old hinges creaked and it swung in. The smell of coffee and fresh bread made her decide against screaming for her landlady.

  Inside Thierry Belanger took up most of the room in her tiny kitchen. He stood at the counter, where he placed bright red radishes atop slices of buttered bread. He barely glanced at her as she came in.

  “I made you coffee for once.” He handed her a steaming cup.

  She took a sip and leaned against the counter, eating him up with her eyes. He looked thinner and tired, as if everything Wren had told her was true. She blinked until the tears stop threatening, and then asked, “You broke into my apartment to make me lunch?”

  “This is for me, not you.” He carried the plate out to her little front room and sat down gingerly on her rickety second-hand sofa. “As soon as I smelled that lavender you keep in your clothes, my appetite came back. You can have a piece if you’re hungry.”

  If she was hungry. Kate considered slapping him again, but instead perched on the rocking chair across from him. “You can give this back to S, whoever he is. I don’t want it.” She tossed the envelope with the train tickets and key beside his plate. “Then you can go back to your mansion across town. The one where you have an entire army of servants to wait on you, make you radish and butter sandwiches, and cater to your ass.”

  He shrugged. “I like it here. My ass does not need to be catered.” He ate another slice as he examined the contents of the envelope. “Ah, this is the key to Simon’s vacation chateau in Provence. Nice. He has an army of servants, too, but he never goes there. He prefers the islands. I think he is insane.”

  “So are you,” she pointed out.

  “My insanity is less temporary than Simon’s. I think it may be permanent.” He dragged his too-long black hair back from his furrowed brow. “I’m in love with you, Kate.”

  She closed her burning eyes. “Not, you’re not. You’re just obsessed with me now. Next week it’ll be something else. Rucked crepe skirts, or burnout velvet hats, or walking models with their eyebrows erased.”

  “Never. I hate that eyebrow erasing trend. It makes them look bald.” Thierry picked her up out of the chair and carried her back into her tiny bedroom. “Don’t I pay you better than this?”

  “Yes. No. I quit, remember?” She felt her throat tighten. “Don’t do this to me, Monsieur. Please. I’ve had enough, I really have.”

  “Me, too.” Thierry began to undress. “I can’t eat, I can’t sleep – Wren told you, yes? Big mouth for such a little girl. You know she pretends to be a boy sometimes? We should get her to do our next androgynous show.” Once he was naked he stretched out beside her. “So: I am moving in with you, into this postage stamp of an apartment with no servants and very little hot water. We will drink coffee and eat radish-buttered bread and fight and make love until you feel better about me. Which I hope will be very soon.”

  Kate turned away so he wouldn’t see her bottom lip trembling. “I’m going back to the states.” Where she would be safe, if not happy.

  “No, you’re not.” He snuggled up behind her. “You’re staying in Paris. Or Provence, if you want to see Simon’s chateau for a week or two. Please, Kate. Please don’t go. I hate America, and I would have to chase after you and drink their terrible coffee and be miserable.”

  With a sob she turned to him. Thierry soothed her with soft, sweet pecks and then deeper, hungrier kisses, until she was tearing at her own clothes with him. He couldn’t wait to get her naked, and simply tore everything preventing him from sinking into her before he slowly slid inside her tight, wet pussy.

  “Ah.” He didn’t move as he stared down at her, his eyes narrowed and his expression fierce. “Forget eating. I want to live on this.”

  Kate gripped his shoulders as he pressed in and glided out of her, drawing his head down to her puckered nipples to feel his tongue soothing them. “Thierry.”

  “Look at me, Katie. I belong to you now.” Slowly he began thrusting into her, his shaft so hard it felt like iron. “You own me. Command me. Tell me what you would have of me, and it is yours.”

  She rolled him onto his back, straddling him an
d impaling herself on his rampant, glistening cock. “You never lie to me again, Monsieur. Ever. I don’t care if you go to jail for it.”

  “If I do you can visit,” he assured her, cupping her buttocks and lifting and lowering her.

  “I want my old job back, too.” Kate arched her back, clenching on his shaft as she worked herself on him. “With that raise I earned. You remember. The gigantic one.”

  “Done.” He reached up to caress her breasts. “Bring these down here to me. I need them. They have missed me, too.”

  Kate lowered herself on him, rubbing one mound against his mouth and then hissing in a breath as he suckled. “I want sex. A lot of sex. Maybe every morning, noon, and night sex. Without the audience, the handcuffs or the death threats.”

  Thierry muttered something that sounded like an enthusiastic affirmative.

  “You tell the DGSE and the Brits and the U.S. and whoever else makes you spy for them that you’re done. Finished,” she added when he took his mouth away to protest. “I’m not letting the father of my children get himself killed. Or party with perverts. And I’m never doing that again, either, Thierry. Do you understand me?”

  He smiled slowly. “Very well. How many times am I getting you pregnant?”

  Now came the real moment of truth. Kate drew his hand up to her belly. “After this one? Two. Maybe three.” As his jaw dropped and then closed again she nodded.

  “I don’t believe it.” He splayed his hand over her navel. “We’re having a baby.”

  “This is what happens when you have unprotected sex with a woman who isn’t on any birth control,” Kate told him. “I was in the right moment in my cycle, and you, apparently, are fertile as hell. In about thirty weeks, we’re going to be parents. P.S., we are never telling this child how she or he was conceived, understand?”

  “Good. I want a little girl,” he told her firmly. “With your hair, please. What else? Marriage?”

  “I don’t care. I want you to love me.” Slowly she straightened, and brushed her hands along his lean cheeks. “The way I love you. Nothing held back. All the way. Forever. You’ll probably have to work at that.”

  He smiled up at her. “Not anymore, Katie. Not ever again.”

  THE END

  The Hitman’s Hunger

  Bound to the Alpha Billionaire

  Book 6

  (Can be read as a standalone book)

  By: Lucy Wynand

  The Hitman’s Hunger

  Chapter One

  “Do you have plans tonight, Mr. Riley?” the flight attendant asked after she intercepted him outside customs.

  T.J. regarded her with his skeptical, mismatched eyes. As petite and blonde as he was big and dark, she had been eyeing him since they left Paris. His Southie accent and leather coat always made him stand out from the Manhattan suits in first class. Since sex with him made rollercoasters look tame, however, he had rules: no nice girls, no fashionistas, and absolutely no one he might accidentally break.

  “Yeah, I do.” He wondered if he should tattoo his chest with one of those measurement signs that read: “You must be this tall to take this ride.” Might make his life simpler. “Sorry, babe.”

  She tucked a business card in his shirt pocket. “My number, in case you change your mind.” She sauntered off with as much sass as her pencil skirt would allow.

  T.J. spotted Arthur Lecourt waiting outside the international arrivals gate. Although he wore a chauffeur’s uniform, the small, wiry man didn’t hold a name sign. Nor did he allow T.J. to elude him.

  “Please, Mr. Terence,” Lecourt said as he appeared beside him and tried to keep up with his long strides. “He only wishes a word.” When T.J. didn’t reply he added, “I am authorized to use force if necessary.”

  “That’d be entertaining.” He glanced at the older man and saw strain lines bracketing his thin lips. “Your hip giving you grief again, Arthur?” he asked, slowing his pace.

  “The arthritis. They want to replace it.” He watched T.J. pick up his duffle from the luggage carousel. “He gave me the Taser, Mr. Terence.”

  Because he liked the old thug, T.J. followed him out to the limo parked illegally at the curb. The back window lowered and another voice from the south of Boston said, “Get in.”

  “No.” The only way to deal with his father was in words of one syllable. “What?”

  “Get in, Junior, and I’ll tell you,” the elder Terence Jamison Riley said. “Or don’t, and Arthur will Taser you, throw you in here, and I’ll be late for my three o’clock class.”

  T.J. got in the limo and sat across from his father. “Class?”

  “Yoga.” As elegant in Armani as a reformed mob boss could be, Terence popped a piece of nicotine gum in his mouth. “Your mother thinks it’ll help with my anger management issues. I don’t mind so much. The girls are pretty, and hooboy, so flexible.” Terence gave him the once-over. “Why you over here? Work?”

  The old man looked tired, so T.J. took pity on him. “What do you want, Pop?”

  Terence shrugged. “Same old. Give up this spy shit, come home and work for me. I’m legit now, remember?”

  T.J. rolled his hand.

  His old man sighed. “Your mother wants grandbabies. We’re not getting any younger, you know. Your sister Margaret’s doing that test tube thing, but it ain’t working out. Her and Jack are talking about adopting.”

  T.J. rolled his hand again.

  His father rubbed his eyes. “Look. You come home, marry a nice Irish Catholic girl, and knock her up. It’ll make your mother happy. She’s happy, I’m happy. I’m generous when I’m happy, Junior.”

  T.J. looked over the seat. “Arthur, drop me at long-term parking, will you?”

  “Do this, and I’ll write you back in the will. I’m worth ten billion now, boy, and – you’re bleeding?” Terence jerked aside the collar of T.J.’s shirt to glare at his bandage and then him. “You got shot? And you didn’t say anything?”

  “Pop? I got shot.” As Arthur pulled over T.J. grabbed his duffle.

  “Love to Ma.” When the car stopped he climbed out and didn’t look back.

  T.J. walked to a black SUV with a license plate that read HOT4U2. He input the security code on the door panel keypad and threw his duffle in the back. Once inside he took keys, a wallet, a cash bundle and a smart phone from the glove box. As soon as he touched the phone it lit up and buzzed.

  “Yeah?” he answered it as he started the SUV’s engine.

  “Central is bloody pissed with you, Terry,” a friendly British female voice said. “Consider yourself severely reprimanded for that cock-up in Paris. Why are you in America?”

  “I’m taking some personal time, Ash.” T.J. reached under the seat for the untraceable handgun tucked there. He popped the fully-loaded clip to check the rounds. “Thanks for the nine.”

  “Can’t have you scampering about unarmed, love. There’s extra ammo in the boot.” Ashley’s tone turned crisp. “We have a vastly unpleasant situation brewing in Berlin. It will likely go critical by Monday. That’s all the time we can spare you.”

  “Understood. Appreciate it, doll.” T.J. ended that call and dialed the number to his old boxing gym. When a gravelly voice answered, he said, “Where we at, Mike?”

  “They stashed her in a brownstone in Roxbury,” his former trainer said. “Some whorehouse for pervs run by a Spanish woman. She’s got some Eurotrash managing the whole business. But Terry, you need to turn on News Chat AM. Turn it on right now.”

  T.J. switched on the twenty-four hour news radio station, and listened as publishing mogul Brian O’Hara finished giving his statement to reporters.

  “We would do anything to save this brilliant, brave young woman’s life,” O’Hara said sadly. “But we have seven children. If we pay this ransom, then they will instantly become targets. We can’t allow that, so we will pray for her. It is our hope that God, not money, brings her home again.”

  “Cheap prick.” T.J. shut off the radio and p
ut the phone to his ear again. “How long we got before they kill her?”

  #

  Bound and gagged, the hostage could do nothing but watch as the madam shut off the radio and paced around the room. The busty brunette muttered under her breath in Spanish as a slender European man named Benton watched.

  “Consuela, darling, calm yourself,” Benton said. “All is not lost.”

  “Isn’t it? Your father is a stingy bastard, Sarah O’Hara,” the madam raged as she dragged Sarah up from the floor. “And you, you are worthless to me now.” She pulled a dagger from her robe.

  “Kill her, and you really do have nothing.” A slender man who had shown surprising strength when he’d snatched Sarah, Benton seemed bored with the universe. He lit a thin brown cigar and examined the glowing tip as he exhaled smoke. “We’ll simply have to get creative.”

  The madam turned on him. “You heard that tight-ass. He won’t pay a penny for her. I’d have to drug her to make her into a whore, and then she’ll probably kill herself like half of them do. So how do you make something out of this, Benton?”

  “We find someone who will pay for her.” Benton came over and inspected Sarah. “She’s pretty enough. She might even still be a novice. Surely there are gentlemen in Boston who would be delighted to enjoy such a young, tasty morsel. We send out invitations to the right clientele and sell her to the highest bidder.”

  “And what happens if she escapes? She goes straight to the police. Then we are all going to jail.” Consuela made an impatient sound. “Don’t be an idiot.”

  “Oh, I didn’t mean sell her as a slave, darling,” Benton replied. “We allow the winner to use her here, in our little dungeon. We can even film it. Torture and rape porn is quite profitable, you know.”

  Behind her gag, Sarah swallowed hard. She’d expected to be killed right away. Now that she was facing a fate that might be worse than death; she needed to think about ways she might kill herself.