Chapter 32
CHAPTER 32
B ELLE
It’s almost midnight before Beast returns to our room.
But gone is the man who earlier took gentle care of me when I was sick.
In his place is a man with a deep frown on his face and the weight of the world on his shoulders.
I can feel the heaviness when he walks in.
“Is everything okay?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says, removing his keys and wallet and placing them on the dresser.
“Something happened,” I say.
“Something always happens. How are you feeling?”
“Don’t change the subject.” I give him a soft smile. “Talk to me.”
His expression softens and there is an unfamiliar look in his eyes. A wariness.
“It’s nothing to worry yourself about. It’s club business.”
He removes his cut and then his shirt, and I try to ignore my salivating mouth at the sight of him wearing nothing but a pair of jeans and a wallet chain hanging off his hip.
A shirtless Beast is pure eye candy.
And now that I’m feeling much better, it’s candy I wouldn’t mind sucking on.
God, when did I get so corny.
“Have you eaten?” he asks.
“A sandwich. But stop trying to change the topic.” He sits on the edge of the bed to remove his boots and I climb on behind him. “Sometimes it helps to talk about things.”
“Unlike my wife to be, I’m not a talker.”
“No kidding, I would never have guessed. But you look like you need to get something off your chest. And I am going to be your old lady.”
He turns his head to face me, but there is no humor on his face. “But not a real one.”
His words sting like a palm against my cheek, and I sit back, my smile slipping.
The rejection whips through me. Which is ridiculous because he’s right.
I try not to let the feelings burrow into my chest but fail.
“You’re right.” I climb off the bed and gather some clothes to sleep in. “I’m going to take a shower.”
His words cut deep and I hate that they do, and to hide the way they churn in my stomach I escape to the shower and stay there for a while.
Until this insanity ceases.
I have no business feeling crushed by Beast’s acknowledgment that I won’t be a real old lady. Because he’s right. This isn’t real.
But then we kissed…
Several times.
Under the steady stream of warm water, I attempt to make sense of my emotional reaction. I’m exhausted. I’m worried about Uncle Maurice. We crossed the line of intimacy when I slid onto his lap and kissed him for real. And he almost made me come.
Of course his words stung. I’m clearly losing my mind.
After my shower, I take my time getting ready for bed. I brush my teeth and moisturize my skin with the face cream Mya left for me.
I’m kind of praying Beast gets called away on club business while I’m in here. But when I open the bathroom door, I’m hit with the delectable aroma of pumpkin pie. My favorite dessert .
And this one smells good.
Really good.
Beast is sitting at the little table near the arched window, a plate of pumpkin pie and cream in front of him.
“I had dessert brought to our room,” he says.
“Why?”
“Because I know you like it.”
I gnaw at my lip.
“Come here,” he says.
“I think I’ll just go to bed.”
I climb onto the bed and pull the sheets over my lap. Which doesn’t perturb him in the slightest.
He makes a show of how delicious the pie is, scooping a heap onto the spoon and devouring it. I watch him slowly slide the spoon from his mouth.
My stomach rumbles.
My mouth waters.
Fine.
If he wants me to eat, I suppose I should. After all, I have decided to be more compliant.
I climb out of bed while Beast pulls another scoop onto the spoon.
Before I reach the chair, he grabs it and positions it so it faces him.
“Sit,” he says.
I eye the plate of pumpkin pie. It’s a huge piece. I could break some off and take it back to bed with me. But the crumbs…
So I sit, and Beast offers me a spoon. He holds the plate between us and we start to eat.
“Want to tell me what that was about?” he asks casually, taking another spoonful of pie.
“What?”
“It cut you when I said you wouldn’t be a real old lady.”
I slice into the end of the pie with my spoon. “Are you a mind reader now?”
“One of my many talents,” he says, spooning up more pie. “Wanna tell me why?”
If I only knew why.
I look away.
“Look at me,” he says.
But I can’t look at him. Because I feel vulnerable.
“Belle.” My name sounds good on his lips when he rumbles it in his deep, throaty voice. “Look at me.”
Fuck it.
I put my spoon on the plate and look up at him. “Because when you kiss me, it feels real.”
His eyes twinkle across from me. Dark and feverish.
“But I know this is fake?—"
He puts the plate on the table and taking me by surprise, pulls me onto his lap.
“What are you doing?” I protest.
He reaches up and cups my jaw. “This.”
He pulls my face to his and kisses me deeply. It’s the kind of kiss that makes your toes curl and your heart race.
“Does that feel fake to you?” he asks, before driving his mouth onto mine again and kissing me like it’s his final moments left on earth.
And I kiss right back with just as much desperation.
“This confuses me,” I whisper against his lips.
“Because you keep fighting it. Don’t overthink it, little one. Just let go.”
Which is so easy to do when you are on the lap of a handsome giant and he kisses the breath out of you.
My hips have a mind of their own, and I begin to rock against him where the friction ignites a raging fire in my blood.
He reaches around and grabs my ass, and takes control of the maddening rhythm, rubbing me across the ridged outline of his cock behind his jeans.
God, this feels too good.
His taste, his smell, his everything is heady and addictive, and I can’t get enough of it.
“Take it from me,” he growls in my ear, then trails his lips along the soft spot beneath my ear and down my throat. “Let go, Belle.”
It’s all I need to unravel on his lap. Days of pent-up emotion rocket through me, and in a completely unguarded moment, I let the pleasure sweep me over the cliff and into the ocean.
I collapse against him, forehead to forehead, my breathing rapid and my heart racing.
Slowly my pulse evens out, and I come back to reality.
I lick my lips.
I just came on his lap. This has to be the next level of humiliation. I feel the prickle of it crawl up my neck, dampening the fires Beast so expertly lit with his kiss.
I just dry humped my captor.
“Can we pretend that never happened?”
“Fuck no.” He drags my face back to his and kisses me hard.
And those embers that started to dampen with humiliation roar back to life.
I clutch his face as I kiss him back, and he groans.
Humiliation be damned. This is happening.
Cupping my ass, he stands and carries me over to the bed where he lays me down and crawls over me.
Pushed up on his big arms, he blankets me with his big body and ducks his head to kiss me.
I know what’s coming. What line I’m about to cross.
But I don’t give a damn.
I’m probably going crazy but I need this. I want this. I’ve already taken one orgasm from him tonight and I’m ready for another.
I think about the size of his cock and how it will feel inside me.
But then his goddamn phone rings.