COWBOY ROMANCE: Justin (Western Contemporary Alpha Male Bride Romance) (The Steele Brothers Book 1) (68 page)

Chapter Five

Anita stood outside, waiting for Bruce and wondering how the hell she had landed herself in this situation. Soon enough, she heard his footsteps behind her. She turned to find him staring down at him. It was the first time she had noticed how much taller than her he was. Being around someone so big didn’t make her feel small, it made her feel safe…

“So, how do you want to do this?” he asked.

She shook her head. “I honestly don’t even know. I’m completely against this, you know.”

He chuckled as the two of them began to take an aimless walk. “How the hell did Holland appoint a pacifist to Secretary of Defense?”

“Because Secretary of Defense is just that, a defensive position, not an offensive one. Only a pacifist can be trusted not to get those two confused,” she replied.

He nodded. “So you admit that you’re a pacifist?” he asked.

She shrugged. “I was in the military for almost eight years. Say what you will,” she said, shamelessly bragging about her resume.

“Still a little young to be defending the free world,” Bruce muttered.

Her lips shifted into a crooked smile. “I knew it. It was only a matter of time before you brought up my age to use it against me.”

He shrugged. “You look like you’re skipping class, not helping run the country.”

“Since when is looking young a bad thing?” she demanded.

“Since you’re a woman in government.”

Anita glowered, floored at his intelligent insight. “You’re right. I didn’t even think to comment on the fact that you look like you’re in your late twenties too. So what’s your story?” she asked.

He scoffed. “Tonight isn’t about me.”

Anita winced. She felt oddly embarrassed that she had attempted to make things personal, as if to find some common grounds between them, and he had rejected her nonetheless. She decided to pretend she agreed with him, rather than waste time dwelling on the rejection. “Right. We can go to my place. It’s only ten minutes away from here if we use the underground corridor.”

Bruce nodded and the two of them made the trek back to her house in near silence. Once inside, she realized she had left the television on Bravo (the most girlish television station in existence) and neglected to clean up her home. She quickly realized that bringing him here was the most embarrassing thing she could have done. “Oh God,” she muttered as she dove for the remote, shut of Fashion Police and dropped on to the couch.

He joined her there, leaving less than a foot of space between them. She couldn’t believe she was so close to him and in such a private space. All she could think about was his intoxicating scent and his bed head, and it took everything in her to pick up her legal pad and start writing. “The first thing we have to sight is grievances,” she stated, trying her best to ignore the way that her heart was fluttering in her chest.

He nodded, leaning closer into her.

She bit her lip. This was hard. This was really, really hard. She was supposed to be constructing a mental list of why Russia deserved to be ganged up on by the rest of the world, but all she could do was try to guess how big Bruce’s penis might be.

“Do you have a pen?” he asked.

She nodded. “Uh yeah.” How stupid was she? She had completely forgotten that she needed a pen to write stuff down.

She twisted her torso so that she could pick one off of the coffee table to her left, but he reached over her, muttering, “I’ll get it.”

They were less than three inches away from each other, and she simply couldn't control herself anymore. She reached for him as he leaned into her, and their lips touched just as the legal pad slipped off her legs and onto the ground. Anita wasn’t sure if it was the palpable sexual tension, the fact that she hadn’t had any action in months, the impossible stress that made her feel like she was constantly in a pressure cooker, or all of these things combined, but the fact of the matter was that she couldn’t resist him—and she no longer wanted to try.

Their lips danced together to the sound of her ticking clock and her pounding heart. They pressed against each other as his tongue slipped into her mouth. She moaned, all but melting into him, her hands clutching his enviously thick head of hair. She could feel the warmth between her legs reaching an unbearable level, her hard nipples poking against the inside of her bra, and all she wanted was to be naked with him. He pressed his fingertips against her skin, caressing her as he began to suck on her neck. She shifted her weight so that he pressed down on top of her, and then wrapped her legs around his waist. They grinded together, the couch shifting back and forth ever so slightly as his bulge pressed against her belly, then her waist, then the inside of her thighs, then her crotch...

She peeled his shirt off, a gasp escaping her lips as she took a good look at his washboard chest. A smile played on her lips, and she traced her fingers against his muscles.

He chuckled at this, the dark sound only making her even more aroused, as he returned the favor, effortlessly pulling her t-shirt off. He massaged her nipples through her bra, the titillating sensation sending her into a frenzy. “What about the resolution,” she gasped breathlessly.

He looked up at her. “The resolution can wait. This clearly can’t.”

Anita peered back at him. Something was… off. Through her groggy mind, she could hardly figure out what it was, until right before he slipped her pants off. His eyes, which were a vibrant blue less than an hour ago, glowed a dark topaz color. How was that even possible? They'd been together for the better part of the last three hours, so when would he have put contacts in, or taken them out.

Just as she was pondering this, he began to lick her through her green, Victoria Secret briefs, and she found it increasingly difficult to care about particulars like eye color. She bit her lip, reaching down to caress his head and willing him to take the panties off at well.

“
Yes
… That feels so good,” she murmured, wondering in what universe she could possibly deserve sex with a man this beautiful, and she gasped as he began to suck on the inside of her thighs.

Then, just when she was on the verge of her first man-made orgasm in months, from nothing more than a little over-the-panty action, it happened: he bit her. “Ouch!” she screeched as she sat up, ripping her legs from under him.

He sat back from her, his hand covering his mouth.

She glowered it him, panting as her excitement slowly began to dwindle away. “I’m, I just, wasn’t expecting that,” she managed, taking note of the fact that his eyes looked even more different than before.

He nodded, standing up and hastily scouring around him for his shirt.

She gasped, stumbling to her feet. “Wait. You don’t have to leave!” she cried, a little voice in the back of her head demanding to know why he was being so sensitive in the first place.

He shook his head. “No, I really do.”

Then, as he lifted his hand away from his mouth, Anita saw what he must have been trying to hide: two rows of sharp teeth, definitely not human. Her eyes went wide as her stomach flipped in fear. “What’s wrong with your mouth?” she asked, slowly stepping away from him.

“Nothing,” he snapped.

“But—”

Once dressed, he took one last look around her house, then turned to leave.

“Wait, you can’t go,” she cried, trying and failing to hide the desperation in her voice.

“No. I have to. Trust me,” he said firmly.

All Anita could hear was, “I don’t actually want to have sex with you,” and it made her sick to her stomach.

“But what about the resolution? You can’t just run away from your responsibilities,” she argued in a reproachful voice.

He cocked his head to one side, glaring at her. “That's not what this is, and I resent the accusation. I’m not running anywhere. I’m being an adult about this.”

Anita crossed her arms. “That’s exactly why you refuse to stay here and work with me,” she retorted.

“Yeah, says the one who was tonguing me just a moment ago.”

Anita’s jaw dropped. “
You
were tonguing me. And anyway, this whole thing was your idea. If you didn’t want to have sex with me, you shouldn’t have kissed me.”

Bruce’s shoulders dropped and his face fell. He tossed his jacket onto the couch, and then slowly made his way toward her.

She stood her ground, not really sure what to expect from him anymore.

He placed a hand on her cheek. “It’s not that I don’t want to have sex with you. It’s just that I really fucking shouldn’t.”

Anita rested her forehead on his chest, wondering what could possibly have been standing in their way, all the while hating herself for caring in the first place. “Why?”

He shook his head. “I can’t tell you.” With that, he kissed her on her forehead and turned to leave again.

Anita gulped. “But… the resolution….”

He cast his gaze down, taking a moment to think, before he looked back up at her. “Just meet me in my office in a couple of hours and we’ll figure something out.”

With that, he left.

Chapter Six

The next morning, the president was hit with a revelation—inspiration, if you will—and an exhaustedAnita, Bruce, and the rest of the cabinet were stuck trying to find a diplomatic way to execute his strategy.

“The Palestinians and Israelis have agreed to a conference call in about five minutes.”

Anita gave a sleepy nod, far too tired to be annoyed by the sound of Victoria’s voice. She gazed down at her legal pad, aimlessly eyeing her notes to keep her gaze from drifting to Bruce. When she had met him at four in the morning in his office, he acted as if nothing had happened between the two of them. And, if Anita didn’t know any better, it was almost like nothing had actually happened, for his eyes were blue and a normal set of teeth filled his mouth.

Yet, as the sound of the phone's dial tone filled the room, and then the voices of three powerful politicians, all Anita could think about was the way he looked in her dimly lit living room, with his shirt off and his topaz eyes. She shuddered at the memory of those intense looking teeth. She couldn’t have imagined them. She was wide awake and completely aware of herself. But if she hadn't imagined all of that, then there was no real explanation for how they had come to be. This mystery was driving her crazy.

“Okay, understood, but won’t you at least consider pushing the Russians back,” the president asserted, his voice cutting into her drowsy ponderings.

It was so quiet in that room, one could hear and pen drop.

Everyone was tuned in to whatever was happening with the Palestinians, except for Anita… and Bruce. As Anita chanced a glance at him in the back of the room, she saw that he sat with his gaze cast down and his lips clamped shut. She doubted he was even aware of what was going on the room. What was wrong with him?

What was wrong with her?

“There is absolutely nothing to fight the Russians about,” Palestinian President insisted.

“So you refuse.”

“You cannot allow them to press into your sphere of influence,” the Israeli prime minister interjected.

“Don’t act like you give a fuck about Palestinian sphere of influence,” The Palestinian President argued. “You just want to turn us against the Russians to weaken us.”

“It would not weaken you,” President Holland cut in. “In fact, with UN backing, you would be stronger than ever.”

The Israeli prime minister scoffed at this. “A powerful Palestine? That’s rich.”

“Please. You must cooperate,” President Holland pleaded.

“No.” The Israeli Prime minister snapped. “I must not trust you or the UN ever again.” With that, his line went dead.

The Palestinian president followed suit.

Holland sat down, the blood rushing to his face, and opened his binder, pretending to write something down. “Well that was a complete disaster,” he muttered to herself.

Victoria placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Not a complete disaster,” she said. “Now we know exactly what our options are.”

The President nodded, then looked up at Anita and Bruce. “You’re right. And right now, our options consist of calling an emergency meeting with the United Nations.” His stare honed in on Anita. “I assume you have something for me?”

Anita gave him a sleepy nod as she slowly went through the notes she and Bruce had awkwardly drafted just that morning.

“Good,” the President responded. “I will expect a finished draft by the end of the week so that we can schedule the conference for next weekend.”

Anita’s eyes went wide as she was filled with a million different feelings, from fear to excitement to all around irritation.

How could she possibly be expected to work with Bruce ever again?

Epilogue

Anita downed the rest of the bottle of vodka that had been in her kitchen cabinet for over a month, and then let it fall into the space between her seat and her car door.

“Jesus, Bradshaw!” Jori yelled over the loud music from the driver's seat. “What are you trying to do, become an alcoholic in one night?”

Anita shook her head, laughing at how heavy it felt. “Oh God no!” she yelled back, perhaps too loudly. “It would take more than one bad decision to make me an alcoholic.”

Jori shrugged. “I’m just saying something because I was hoping I would get a shot at that vodka.”

Anita playfully punched her best friend in the arm. “You can’t drink and drive, Jor!” she shouted. “Besides, you have to focus on the road if we’re gonna get there in one piece.”

Jori shook her head. “Oh come
on
, Bradshaw. You must not know me at all if you think a sip of vodka can possibly throw me off our mission.”

Anita groaned. “Oh right. Remind me why we’re doing this?” she asked.

Jori raised an eyebrow. “Because you’re convinced that Bruce isn’t a real person.”

Anita nodded, and suddenly her drunkenness was making her feel paranoid instead of confident. “Right, but can we do this another time.”

“What’s the matter? Afraid you won’t find anything?”

Anita leaned forward, resting her forehead on the dashboard. “Afraid that I will,” she replied.

Jori scoffed, slapping her on the back. “Chill out. You probably won’t find a thing. And if you do, you can just run back here and I’ll drive you far, far away. I’m just getting sick of you talking about his creepy teeth, so we gottta do this now. Because, if he leaves for New York tomorrow, and you still don’t know a thing about him, you will obsess about him, and then
I
will lose my patience.”

It didn’t matter whether or not Anita thought she was right, because before her depressed mind could attempt to come up with a coherent response, Jori was pulling up to a small, unassuming looking house in front of a small forest right outside of DC.

She cut the engine and sat back, crossing her arms.

“What am I even supposed to do?” Anita asked.

Jori shrugged. “Start by ringing the doorbell.”

Anita nodded, stepping out of the car. But, just as she was making her way to the front of the house, she heard something come from the back of it. It was the sound of a door shutting. The lights, which she could see through the curtains of his front windows, clicked off. With her heart pounding against her chest, she tiptoed around the side of his house, resting her back on a wall of brick as she peered into his backyard.

She furrowed her brow at the sight of him standing around completely naked, his penis dangling in front of his legs. Her eyes went wide at the sight of his perfect body…. before it began to change. He stretched his hands out, the moon caressing his skin as black and auburn fur began to grow on it. The thick hair shafts pressed upward until his was covered in fur. Anita couldn’t believe her eyes as she watched him collapse onto the ground, the sound of bones breaking and reforming until he stood on all fours…A
tiger
.

She knew it wasn’t smart, but she was terrified, so she screamed, the sound practically leaping out of her mouth.

“Anita!” she heard Jori yell, right before she hopped out of the car and hurried across the lawn, staggering to a halt beside her. A whimper slipped out as her best friend stared. “Holy fuck!”

The tiger turned to face them, and even in the dark of the night, Anita knew it had to be Bruce.

                                     
End of Part 1.