COWBOY ROMANCE: Justin (Western Contemporary Alpha Male Bride Romance) (The Steele Brothers Book 1) (143 page)

“Go watch TV, mom,” she said automatically. Dutifully, her mother did so. Raine laboriously climbed the stairs to her room, laid on her bed and wept until sleep claimed her.

Every waking moment for the next few weeks saw Raine operating on a kind of automatic pilot. She looked after her mother and the house, even tended the garden a little but didn’t really notice any of the things she did. Her mind was wholly focused on her loss and the pain it caused. The abyss, which had opened in her chest, could have been used for landfill and never brimmed over.

A bottomless shit-pit. Just try and fill me with junk, waste, or garbage. It’s what I deserve for losing the best thing I ever had. I always was a big pointless waste of air, and this proves it. I’m worthless.

Raine howled. A huge despairing cry, screaming her pain and loss to the uncaring world.

I only really knew him for a couple of days, but it feels like we loved a lifetime’s worth.

Raine woke to complete blackness a month after seeing Antony for the last time. Something had roused her from her sleep, and she listened for what it might have been. Despite her depressed state, she dragged herself from her bed and flicked the hallway light on, squinting against the glare. Her mother lay at the bottom of the stairs, one arm folded at an impossible angle.

“Your mother has suffered a stroke due to the pressure from the tumor in her brain,” The polite Nigerian doctor explained. “She broke her arm in two places when she fell down the stairs, and three of her ribs are punctured.”

“Is she going to be okay?” Raine asked in a little voice.

“It does not look good for her,” He said in the same calm voice he used before. “I would be very surprised if she regains consciousness.” He shook her hand and offered his condolences before taking her to her mother’s bedside.

Three hours later Raine’s mother stopped breathing.

Somehow Raine managed to get home. Walking into the empty house was almost calming. This had been her mother’s space for so long, her mark was indelibly printed in a thousand different ways, and it felt comfortable to Raine. She sat in her mother’s old spot on the sofa and sighed.

She can’t suffer any more. No more pain for mom. Just me.

Raine had no idea how long she had been there or how long the hammering sound had been coming from the front door, but she eventually roused herself from whatever waking coma she had been in and shuffled towards it. She didn’t even consider who it might be, just opened the door as her mind told her to, years of human conditioning taking over.

She didn’t recognize the man standing on her porch at first. He was tall and dark with rain slicked hair and sodden clothes, disheveled and dirty.

“Yes.” Raine said to his filthy trainers.

“Raine?” The voice tugged at her mind as if caught on a fish hook. “What is wrong?” Raine raised her eyes as if in slow motion to study this stranger’s features. His green eyes jolted her memory, and everything cruelly shot back into focus.

“Antony?” she asked pointlessly. “Antony!” Raine launched herself at him, making them both stagger out into the rain. She wrapped her arms around his chest and laid her head against him, listening to his heartbeat. “Real. You’re real.” She assured herself.

“Allez, we should get out of this, Raine.”

“And this rain. When did it start raining?” she asked.

“Who cares?” he asked.

Inside, Raine handed him a towel and started brewing coffee. As soon as he had dried himself a little, he pressed himself against her back.

“This is where I need to be,” he whispered into her ear. “Where I belong.”

“Crutch Junction?” Raine asked, smiling. “What happened to you?” she asked then, seeing his rumpled and dirty state properly for the first time.

“I...crossed the family.” Her eyes widened, “I was doing some business of an...extraneous nature.” He added cagily. “They cut me off like they did my cousin, and I have been working my way back to you ever since.

So now that you’re broke you come see me?

Raine stepped away from him, turning and searching his face.

“I went through hell when you threw me away,” she barked at him. “I wanted to
die
. Now you come back because you need somewhere to stay? And you think I’m just going to let you waltz back in here?” She patted her chest unconsciously. Antony took her hands and knelt on her kitchen floor.

“I am so deeply sorry for everything I put you through, but I needed to protect you from
them
. I suffered too. I wanted to see you, speak to you every day.” His words caressed their way into her heart, warming it a little. “You must believe me. I did this for us, so we can be free, together, without the DuBesne family controlling us like puppets.” His voice was strained, as if he believed it at least. Raine lifted his chin and looked deep into his eyes, seeing the honesty there.

“What are you going to do now?” she asked.

He grinned. “Make love to you for the rest of time,” he said in a suggestive tone.

“Tempting as that is, normal people have to work for a living, baby.”

“You think I am normal?” he asked with mock seriousness. Raine smiled. “You remember Celine?” She nodded, “We have been friends since childhood, almost as soon as I was sent to France.” He moved closer to Raine, taking hold of the dressing gown she wore, “Celine owns ADB Holdings, not I.” He pressed his lips to hers, flicking his tongue across them and lighting fires in her belly. “So I have plenty of time to make love to you and a little time to work with Celine.” He grabbed her hair and tugged gently, turning her face up to his, “I love you.” He growled, “And we are rich.” He smirked.

THE END

A Billionaire Romance

Possession

For Raine Daniels the last six months had flown by like a shot. Since that rain soaked night when Antony had shown up, drenched and dirty, with rumpled clothes, and told her he had managed to get away from his controlling family the DuBesne’s, they had moved and created a new life for themselves.

Both had wanted a clean break and chosen to move north to Connecticut, choosing a large house nestled between an area of forested woodland and a sandy beach offering views out across the bay.

Raine woke each day to the bright, warm sun pouring through the huge windows and looked down at the garden below her with wonder. It was the same as it had been the first time she saw the place. Antony had come and wrapped his arms around her while she gazed longingly out at the view across New Haven Bay.

“Could you be happy here?” he had asked, his French-American accent like an aphrodisiac in her ear.

“
We
could be happy here.” She corrected him. That short sentence had been all it took for Antony to put in a bid for the place, and after a few weeks, they had bought it.

It still felt new to Raine, far detached from her previous life in Texas and Illinois, far from her mother’s modest home back in Crutch Junction, where she had grown up among the dust and cacti of rural Texas. Everything was clean and shone with the obvious love and care, which had gone into its construction and maintenance. Marble surfaces complimented the wood flooring throughout, and the bathroom suite looked as if it had come from heaven, with sunken bath – big enough for both of them – and a shower in the corner with a wet-room floor – again, big enough for both of them – and every conceivable convenience already fitted.

Raine padded through and took a shower, sadly alone as Antony had left early that morning to attend a business meeting in Detroit and would be away for a few days. Her body ached for him, even though he had been inside her a few scant hours ago, and she hated how she felt when he was not here.

The whole place seemed far colder, much more spacious and vastly empty when he had to leave on business. Even when their friend, Celine, came over for coffee and a chat, Raine felt his absence like a physical ache, a loss she couldn’t describe. It probably didn’t help that she had fallen for him so hard and fast, meeting in a gym in Crutch Junction, where he had rented an entire hotel to ensure his privacy, and she had crashed in. A smile crossed her face as she showered, thinking back to the first time they met.

Once dressed, Raine made her way through to the kitchen, filling and switching on the coffee machine – her caffeine intake had become legendary in these parts already – and the TV for the morning news. She busied herself, while the machine brewed her stimulant and took the pot out onto the deck to enjoy the morning. A quarter of the way through her latest read, Raine jumped when she heard the doorbell ring but made her way through to the front door, smiling as she recognized Celine’s perfect figure through the panes of frosted glass.

“Bonjour, darling!” Celine greeted when Raine opened the door, leaning in and kissing her on both cheeks.

“Hey, Celine,” Raine said with a giggle, happy to see her friend. Raine had been worried at first by Celine’s perfection, with her angelic face and tight, blond curls – especially as they had met when Celine was almost naked and in the suite of rooms where Antony and Raine had just spent the night – her figure could grace the catwalk of Paris, Milan or Rome, and her French accent merely added to her overall appeal. Her saving grace, for Raine at least, was that she was gay,
and
she had known Antony since he had been sent to France as a child to stay with relatives and get an education abroad.

“I wasn’t expecting to see you today. Everything all right?”

Celine nodded. “Oui, mon cher.” She began, “Well I suppose not everything.” Raine grabbed her hand and led her through the house, grabbing an extra cup as they went through the kitchen. Outside, Raine poured her friend a cup and slid it to her, the midnight liquid contrasting with the bone white porcelain starkly.

Raine said, “Spill the beans.”

Celine pouted and crossed her lightly tanned legs, letting the light brown, Louboutin simple pump dangle from the toes of her right foot.

“I have split up with Betsy,” she said in a small voice.

“Oh no, babes.” Raine managed to strike the right tone. “What happened?” She prepared herself for a dramatic recounting of the tumultuous relationship Celine had been having – for at least a week – with her latest girlfriend. Raine had come to love Celine in the short time they had known each other. The fact she had helped Antony get away from his family and kept his money safe from them aside, she was just a loveable person. But she couldn’t seem to work in any kind of long term relationship, and Raine often had difficulty in keeping up with which girlfriend she was with at the time. The simple fact was that Celine was irresistible to both men and women, so had no difficulty in finding someone else, and that merely added to the problem.

“I don’t know, darling,” Celine began. “My main problem was she didn’t keep herself clean.” Raine’s eyebrow shot up, and Celine laughed. “She washed but...fuck it. There are only so many times you can go down on a woman and get toilet tissue in your mouth.” Raine just managed to turn her head before spraying her mouthful of coffee onto the lawn.

“
What
?” She demanded after choking for a minute or so. Celine laughed her throaty laugh and fixed Raine with a disapproving stare.

“Come on, darling, you are a woman. You know what things are like down there,” she said indicating her crotch, “If you don’t get a wax or shave or something you get a stubbly pussy.”

Raine laughed but felt a flush creep up her neck. Celine was many things, but open and vocal about her sex life was certainly one of her major traits, and sometimes she embarrassed Raine with her tales.

“So anyway after she has been for a pee-pee, then Betsy must have gotten some paper caught on her stubble, and I find it with my tongue. This means she doesn’t wash before coming to me.” Raine nodded in sympathy, not feeling much at all.

“You do know what this all means, don’t you?” Raine asked after a few minutes of failing to wipe the image of Celine and Betsy from her mind. Celine’s face lit up.

“Do you mean it?” She squealed, as excited as a little kid at Christmas.

“We’re going to have a girls’ night out.” Celine clapped her hands. “Oh, I must get my hair done, and I need to go shopping. ’You’ll come with me won’t you, darling? And I’m going to need new shoes and...”

Raine smiled. It didn’t take much to make Celine happy again, despite the fact she was a business genius.

The phone chimed as Celine babbled on about the new purchases she might make, and Raine grabbed the handset, hoping it was Antony calling from wherever he had managed to land.

“Hello?” Raine breathed. She was met with silence, and her face fell.

“Darling?” Celine asked. “What is wrong?”

Raine hung up the phone and tried to force a smile. “It’s nothing really,” she said. “Not long after we moved in here, I started getting these calls. ’There’s no sound, no voice, nothing in the background, but...I know there’s someone there.” She sniffed. “It only seems to happen when Antony’s gone away. We never get any calls when he’s here and...”

Celine got her cellphone out and called a number.

“Jackson, Celine. I need some phone work done.” Her tone was completely different to when she spoke to Raine, tough and commanding as she gave this Jackson Raine’s address and phone number. “Get me a list of all the numbers calling here in the last four months.” She demanded and then just hung up. Raine was astounded. “What?” Celine asked.

“Who was that, and who did you turn into?”

Celine smiled. “That was Jackson. He does...certain undercover things for us.”

“Illegal things?” Raine asked.

Celine waved her hand back and forth uncertainly. “Not really illegal, darling, but he can get information when others can’t.”

“What about you? It was like you were someone else.”

Her friend chuckled. “That was my business voice. I use it for work all the time, or people do not take me seriously, with me being so fabulous and beautiful.”

Raine laughed.

***

Later, she got the call again and really listened hard to see if she could pick up on any little sound that might come through the line. Apart from a few clicks, there was nothing. Almost as soon as she put the phone down, it chirped again, and she almost screamed.

Picking up the handset she snarled into it. “Now listen to me you sick fucker...”

“Raine?” The puzzled voice was one she knew well.

“Antony.” She breathed and her entire body warmed. “Hi, babe.”

“Who is this sick fucker you are talking to?”

“Nobody, babe. I just keep getting these weird calls where no one talks,” She explained. “How are you?”

“Tired from the flight and missing you.”

His words warmed her inside, chasing all the chills and fright from the odd calls away. “Where are you?” She wanted to know.

“In a hotel in Detroit. I have just ordered room service and wanted to hear your voice.”

Raine smiled but felt a little guilty. “Didn’t you want to go out or to the bar in the hotel?”

“No, some of the other guys said they were going to hit the bar, hoping to pick up a woman, but I only have eyes for you, so I didn’t want to go. Plus any women hanging around in hotel bars are probably prostitutes anyway.” He laughed. “I expect some of these idiots will end up paying for it in more ways than one. How are you?”

“Bored and lonely. Much better for hearing your voice though.”

Raine and Antony chatted about nothing for a while, before coming around to Celine.

“She has split up with
another
woman?”

Antony exclaimed, “I swear she is going to run out of lesbians if she’s not careful.”

Raine giggled. “She might have to turn straight.”

“Ha! Fat chance of that. I remember back in France, when we were growing up, the amount of boys who got up the courage to ask her out, and she would look at them like they were crap and just go, ‘Non.’ Then she would walk away like they were nothing.” He chuckled. “I can also remember her first crush.”

Raine was hooked on the story.

“Ooh, tell me everything.”

“She was English, Jessica or something, sent over to finish her education in France, practice speaking the language, you know. As soon as Celine laid eyes on her, I knew she had fallen for her.”

“How old were you then?”

“I was sixteen, I think, and Celine’s younger, so maybe fifteen. I don’t know about Jessica but around that age too.”

“Did you know she was gay back then?” Raine asked.

“I think I knew she was gay before
she
realized it,” he said. “I mean, we were like brother and sister almost from the first time we met, so I could see when she looked at women in the street, not men.” He laughed. “It was quite funny. She must have thought I was blind because she was so nervous when she told me, but I just said, ‘Oui, je sais’. I know this already.’”

Raine fell silent, trying to quell the irrational jealousy she felt over Celine and Antony’s friendship. Celine had known him for years, and they had a bond Raine couldn’t share. Knowing it was irrational didn’t make it any easier for Raine, but she managed to squash it down regardless.

“I love you, Antony.” she told him in a quiet voice, the miles between them like a dagger twisting in her gut.

“I love you more,” he said.

She smiled. “Not possible.”

“Is too,” he declared

“No,” she chuckled. “I love you more, and that’s the end of it.”

“I beg to differ.”

Raine laughed loud then. “Hey, I sort of said I’d go out with Celine now that she’s single
again
.
Is that okay with you?”

“As long as you don’t let her empty the business accounts on your shopping trip beforehand, I don’t have a problem.”

“How did you know we were shopping?”

“Raine, I have known that woman more than half my life. I know she absolutely needs six new pairs of shoes and four outfits to choose from.”

Raine laughed.

“You are getting something as well?” Antony asked.

“No, I’ve got enough clothes and enough shoes. I’ll just wear something I’ve got.”

“But if you buy something new, I can look forward to peeling you out of it when I get home.”

A spike of desire lanced through Raine, and her mind filled with images of their lovemaking.

“Well, if you put it that way.” Her voice had deepened with lust. “Fuck, I wish you were here.”

“Me too,” Antony said in a seductive tone. “I would be kissing your neck, standing behind you with my hands running up and down your breasts and belly. Can you feel me?” Raine lay back on the bed, knowing what he was going to do, and touched herself where his voice guided.

“Mmhmm...” She breathed, already hot. Raine listened to the sound of Antony’s voice, urging her on to touch herself. Raine’s breathing sped up and her pulse beat quickened as her hand traveled down below the waistband of her pajamas.