COWBOY ROMANCE: Avery (Western Contemporary Alpha Male Bride Romance) (The Steele Brothers Book 3)

by Amanda Boone

  “What can I get you?”

  He extended his hand out in front of him, glancing at the strange, minimalist silver watch on his wrist. With a sigh, he said, “I’ll settle for kale and grapefruit juice.”

  Jenna’s eyes went wide.

  “Jen!” Marge snapped.

  Jenna looked to find a large population of cups waiting to be filled with drinks.

  “Grab the other espresso machine.” Marge said.

  “We don’t have any kale,” She said as she unhooked one of the spoons from its lash.

  A flash of annoyance shot across his perfect face. “What do you mean? This is a café. Is it not?”

  Jenna pressed the spoon back into its latch, filled with espresso. “We have a menu with all of our items written on it.” She gestured at the chalk board behind her.

  He glanced up at the list of coffee drinks and pastries. “Just give me a slice of bread, no cheese, and black coffee, then.”

  Jenna nodded, but she found it difficult to look away from him. The scent of boiling water filled her nose. She looked back at the machine to find that water poured out of its spout. “Jesus fucking Christ!” she bounced away from the register.

  “It’s broken!” Marge snatched a rag off of the back counter to wipe up the mess.

  “Yeah, I can tell,” Jenna replied as she lifted the hood off of it. Luckily for the both of them, the rush was beginning to die down and the line hadn’t grown at all since Jenna had gotten sidetracked by the strange man and his ever stranger order. “Okay, give me $3.49 and step over to that bar over there.”

  Jenna couldn’t help but notice the fact that the man had not taken his eyes off of her as he dropped the allotted amount of cash on the table and stepped to the side.

  She continued to stare at him through her peripheral vision, even as she tried to fix the machine. She sighed at the pool of water that had built up around the cogs. Without thinking anything of it, she stuck her hand into the machine. A sharp pang shot up from her hand through her arm.

  “Ah!” She screeched as she ripped her hand out of it. A hot, thick stream of blood flowed from a cut on the side of her palm. “You have got to be kidding,” She said as she stepped away from it and grabbed the first towel she could get her hands on.

  “Could you grab that first aid kit on the wall?” She asked her alluring patron.

  He cocked his head to the side, eyeing her from head to toe before turning around and doing as she asked.

  Jenna unlatched the small pack and pulled the gauze out but it was nearly impossible to wrap her hand on her own.

  “Would you like assistance?”

  Jenna froze. The last thing she wanted was to be the damsel in distress in front of her new instant crush, but she could hardly refuse him and then continue to struggle right in front of his face. “Uh yeah,” She said, scurrying to her office.

  He followed her, shutting the door behind him.

  It suddenly felt extremely stuffy in her spacious office. “Thank you for this. I’m Jenna, by the way,” She said as he went to work, gauzing her hand.

  He pursed his lips in concentration but refrained from offering his own name. “I couldn’t have just let you struggle.”

  Jenna found it difficult to sort the jumbled mess of thoughts in her head into something that could even vaguely resemble a complete sentence. “A lot of people would have.”

  He dropped a cool cotton ball soaked in alcohol on her hand.

  She winced at the sting. “I don’t usually make mistakes.”

  His lips folded into a crooked smile. “Interesting.”

  Jenna couldn’t help but to giggle at this. “What? Do I look like I do?” She asked.

  “You look like you overwork yourself…. A lot.”

  Jenna had to stop herself from smiling at this. “You’ve known me exactly five minutes.”

  The man began to wrap her hand. Jenna bit her lips at the sensation of his fingers pressed against her skin. Her chest rose and fell with her breaths as she struggled to stop her heart from freaking out.

  “I don’t have to know your name, or your birthday, or your address to understand you.” He said.

  Jenna’s jaw hung open as she gazed at him. Standing there, less than half a foot away from him, with her hand in his, she couldn’t hear anything going on outside of the office. Somehow, having him in her vicinity silenced all the other distractions racing through her mind. “You understand me?”

  He met her stare. “You’d be surprised how much is in your eyes.” With that, he finished tying the gauze, letting go of her hand.

  Jenna wanted to ask him for his name or his number or anything she could use to find him again, but the way that her fluttering heart pumped hot, excited blood through her veins frightened her. She wasn’t sure she liked the sound of silence inside of her head.

  “Well, I suppose I could go find a place that actually has kale,” He said, stepping away from her.

  “But you already paid me,” Jenna said a small voice in the back of her head begging her not to let him go.

  “Consider it compensation for your trouble.” He turned away from her, his hand resting on the doorknob.

  Ask him his name.

  Go ahead.

  It would have been so easy….

  But the man yanked the door open and disappeared out of the shop.

  Just like that, he was gone.

  Chapter Three

  Darys stood behind a tree directly across from Jenna’s Café. He pressed his back to the bark, his eyes peeled and ready to catch any and all of her movements.

  It had taken everything in him not snatch her up right away that morning. The woman was practically irresistible. Everything from her elegant lavender eyes to her this, quick fingers invited him in. She was perfect, exotic in her human features and yet irresistibly familiar.

  He cocked his head to the side as he heard a car door shut. He leaned ever so slightly to the left, just far enough that he could see her figure in his peripheral vision. She was unloading crates from her jeep. As she piled them in front of her door, he twiddled the needle in his pocket. It held a serum that would put her in a deep slumber… a drug from his home planet.

  Darys had never done anything like this. The kidnap and seduction of a human that, for all he knew, could end up completely fruitless was not high on his list of desired operations. His lips pursed at that thought. He had an intuition about her. Something in her was impossible to deny. Her lavender eyes weren’t contacts. He had seen them, up close. Her towering seventy inches in height and oddly glistening body spoke volumes.

  The door shut as she dropped the crates in the shop. Darys knew he was really running out of time at that point. It was only a matter of minutes before she would come back out, get in her car and drive off. Tracking her down would have taken far too many resources and too much time. It was this moment, or never.

  But what if she wasn’t a match? What if he went through all of this, kidnapped her, and showed her his ship—in effect, revealing his identity to her—and her DNA did not match as much as it needed to? He would have to let her go. But he couldn’t do that…. It would be too much of a danger to his kind.

  He would have to get rid of her.

  He could hear the muffled sound of her shoes as she stomped towards the door.

  This was it. No more hesitation.

  So, he stepped out and made eye contact with her just as the weak, swinging door shut behind her.

  “Uh,” the word barely slipped out of her mouth, but he could hear it loud and clear.

  He took quick, deliberate step towards her, all the while loading his gun with the sedative. By the time he was within ten feet of her, he pointed it at her.

  “What the hell…” she said.

  Darys hesitated for a short moment, his eyes locking with hers. But as soon as that moment ended, he shot at her. By the time the serum hit and she started to fall, he raced across the street, catching her before she could hit the groun
d.

  Darys glanced around, one quick once over to see if any damage control was necessary, but alas, this part of Venice was not popular to non-natives and no Southern Californian in their right mind would frequent this area this late at night.

  He hoisted her over his shoulder, swiping up her keys from where they had fallen on the ground and made his way to her car. Once there, he put her in the passenger seat, taking generous whiffs of her coconut body lotion as he buckled her in and positioned her to where it looked as if she had simply fallen asleep.

  He started her engine and gingerly backed out of the driveway, putting more attention than necessary into driving, so as to catch any nervous activity before it could come back to bite him. By the time he got back to the small bungalow he had rented from an unsuspecting old man, the moon had risen high in the sky and he had to struggle to keep her under cover.

  He carried her out of the car and hurried through the thick brush of trees behind the bungalow until he got to the small landing craft that served as his “ship away from Ship” while he was stationed there.

  Once inside, he laid her on a make-shift bed of wool and feathers and went to work. He double-checked the lock on his craft before grabbing a large needle and vile from a cabinet just off of the small control room. DNA sequencing and blood testing kits were common in Daed. Anyone who had even remote knowledge of science carried one of those around. He unpacked the kit next to her unconscious body, picked a vein on her arm and jabbed the needle into her perfect skin.

  The longer he spent staring at her, the more certain he was that she was an adequate match. How could she not be? Her tanned skin practically sparkled in the harsh lighting.

  He watched her blood splatter into the vile, quickly and sporadically at first, then slow and controlled. With that accomplished, he stuck her blood in the small cooler next to his cabinet and leaned over her so that he could collect her DNA. His fingers trembled the closer that he got to her lips, his stomach rolling with butterflies.

  There was something about this woman, an intangible quality that rendered her absolutely irresistible. He could feel her pulling him in… even as an unconscious, common, part-human woman. Darys cleared his throat and peeled her lips apart. The soft skin made him wild with desire, but he ignored it long enough to take a swab of the inside of her mouth.

  After an hour of work isolating her DNA, replicating it and sequencing it, he was able to match it to his own. A pure human would have had a 67% match…. This female matched Darys to 99% conservation. After he tested her blood, it told the same story. Her plasma cells held the same plasma markers that any occupant of Xerxes would have had. They were ubiquitous among his race… but complete absent in humans.

  Darys took in a deep breath to steady his excitement. It was a small step… but a necessary one.

  Chapter Four

  Jenna’s eyes flickered open. She had only time enough to blink twice before the rush of a feeling a little like being hung over and a lot like being high engulfed her. She tilted her head from left to right, trying to make sense of her surroundings. Everything looked metallic, like she was in the middle of a five star kitchen. But it was too small to be a five star kitchen. In fact, as she stared at the curved walls, as she extended her legs only to hit a hard wall, she realized it was too small to be a building of any kind.

  She tried to sit up, wincing at the way her head spun. As she lifted her arm to wipe her eyes, she noticed a bandage in the crease on the inside of her of her elbow. Her heart skipped a beat. Someone had drawn her blood. She rushed to her feet just as the sound of footsteps could be heard from around the small wall to her right.

  Her jaw dropped when the man from the café stepped around the wall. He had stripped himself of his long coat and shirt and wore nothing but black dress pants. Jenna scanned his ripped body from head to toe, drinking in the smooth skin that covered his rolling muscles before the panic set in. She glanced around her, her own reflection bouncing off all of the stainless steel surfaces. Directly in front of her, she could see a vile of blood and a bunch of strange, scientific-looking gadgets on a counter.

  The wound on her arm started to itch out of nervousness. She gulped, trying to swallow the lump in her throat as she faced the man in front of her. He had kidnapped her.

  She tilted her head from right to left. There was an ache in her throat. Upon examination with her right hand, she could feel the pull of a bandage. It was where he had shot her. Just as she touched this place, she remembered that last image of his shadow in the darkness.

  One quick assessment.

  Jenna knew she couldn’t stay. She twisted her body around, her hands wrapped around the handle of the door. Of course it was locked. The heavy door protested against her grip, clicking with her pulls. Jenna slammed her hand against the door, but there was no visible lock.

  Before she could even ponder an alternative, Darys wrapped his arms around her waist and yanked her away from the door.

  She let out a screech, but his hand pressed fast against her lips. Goosebumps rose on her skin, but she ignored them and delivered a back-handed slap to his face. He loosened his grip enough for her to slip out of it.

  “What the fuck is going on!” She yelled. Her voice bounced off the walls of the small cabin, the acoustics amplifying the sound.

  “Shhh!” Darys hissed as he launched himself at her. He grabbed her face in both of his hands.

  Jenna’s eyes went wide. She was panting as she failed at avoiding his gaze. She could feel the body heat radiating from his skin as he showered her with his breath.

  “Calm yourself.”

  Jenna tried to fight against him again, but this time, she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted him to let go of her. “You kidnapped me.”

  “You would have come willingly if I had had time to explain.” He said, not bothering to move his face away from hers.

  Against all forms of reason and decision making, Jenna could not deny the attraction she felt to him. She could not deny the way that her tall body seemed exactly complementary to his, or the way that her heart fluttered for him more than it ever had for anyone she had ever been with.

  I want to kiss you.

  The desire was real. Those five words were the only thing on her mind.

  In that moment, there was nothing she wanted more than for his lips to find hers.

  “I don’t care what your excuse is…” but her voice trailed off as he leaned into her.

  His stare had turned smoky. His grip had loosened: less restrictive and more… romantic.

  “You can’t just—” she tried again, but he brushed his lips against hers. A spasm rushed through her entire body. Her womanhood practically jumped at the sensation. “… Take me like this…”

  She was panting, her chest rising and falling at the same rate as his. There was no one around except the two of them and she was impossibly attracted to him and she was running out of reasons to resist.

  His hands trailed down to her hips and sat there.

  “Take me.” she whispered.

  It was all she had to say. He kissed her with full force; his hands clutched her hips. They trailed down to her butt, gripping her flesh. She fell back on to the wall behind her, her right leg hiking up to his hip. His hand pressed under the cloth of her romper as she slipped the straps off of her shoulder. He slammed himself against her, over and over again until she could feel her wetness seeping through her panties.

  He turned her around and ripped the one-piece right off of her, peeling her panties off as the romper pooled around her feet. She pressed her palms against the cool metal as he unbuckled his pants, then wrapped his arms around her. She reached behind her, unlatching her bra in a quick second before he pulled it out from in front of her.

  His hands found her nipples easily, his fingers flicking them as she bit her lip, searching for his penis.

  There it was, rock hard and pressing against her back. She twisted her arm back, wrapping her fingers around the pulsat
ing rod of flesh and jerking him off. He grunted, practically throwing her up against the wall. As Jenna pressed her cheek and her breast onto the cool metal, he entered her.

  She moaned in ecstasy as he fucked her. His lower torso hitting her ass over and over again. Jenna’s moans grew louder and louder as she slammed her hand against the wall. Her spasms extended down through her thighs, her toes curling under her. Her ejaculate spurted out of her, dripping down her legs as he continued.

  He grabbed a handful of her hair, pulling her head back as he wrapped his free arm around her waist, and rammed himself even harder into her.

  She came three times in a row as he did this, sweat sprouting from her pores and dripping down her neck and back. His grunts grew louder and his pace, more frantic, until finally, he withdrew from her, his shallow breath shooting through the dense air as he coaxed his seed out of his body.

  Jenna bit her lip, moaning at the sensation of the warm liquid spraying onto her lower back.

  Chapter Five

  Jenna was lying face down in that strange pod. A billion thoughts raced through her mind but none were as strong as the one that wondered what the hell had just happened. The situation she was presented with when she woke up was confusing enough in and of itself—she had been kidnapped. Now, not only had she been kidnapped, but she had had sex with her kidnapper.

  As she listened to this man making odd sounds in the other room, her eyes drifted to the only door in sight. She wondered if she would have long enough to work the lock if she started right at that moment. She started to get up, but then hesitated. Thirty minutes ago, escaping would have been considered normal, expected behavior. But now, this man wasn’t just her captor. She had impulsively entered into a sexual relationship with him and so now escaping was nothing short of rude.

  She turned her gaze in the direction of the noise as she allowed herself to relax a little, her back pressing against the wall. A smile played on her lips. The first time she had laid eyes on that man, this would have been considered beyond her wildest fantasies. But it had actually happened. She had actually had sex with him.