The Virgin and the Beast Read online

  No. I do not want to be here. This is all against my will.

  …Isn’t it?

  Because it didn’t seem like it when I was howling with pleasure earlier. What if I am my mother’s daughter after all?

  Slut. Whore.

  I heard the words people in the country club whispered about my mom behind Dad’s back. Because of her heritage, she was never warmly accepted in Dad’s wealthy circles—they were married in the nineties, after all, and women from Mexico were supposed to be serving the food or cleaning the place, not on the arm of one of the wealthiest members. It wasn’t fair and Dad tried to shield her from the worst of it. But then, of course, Mom went and made sure to live up to all of their worst expectations.

  Still, what does it say about me that I could enjoy sex with a stranger who all but kidnapped me? How could I respond like that?

  I wrap my arms around myself and drop my head. And that’s when I smell him. His scent is all over me. It’s as if he marked me as his, like an animal might. I don’t even know exactly how to describe the scent. I close my eyes and try to pick out distinctive elements. Some sort of manly scented body wash and… is that hay? Leather, too, maybe.

  And the earthy smell of sweat and sex.

  I want you still smelling like me when I come for you in the morning.

  I shiver.

  Screw that.

  I can’t stand smelling like him for another second. I speed walk to the bathroom and flip the shower to the hottest I can stand it. Then I step in and scrub hard at my entire body as soon as I get under the spray of water. When I go to wash my hair, my hand stutters after grabbing the bottle. It’s the same brand of shampoo that I use at home. What the—?

  I take a step back out of the shower spray and look at the rest of the items in the bathtub. It’s my brand of body wash and conditioner, too. All in full, brand-new bottles.

  How could he—? Did he have people break into my apartment to figure that out? Or watch me shop?

  Just how long has he been watching me?

  I look around the shower and up at the ceiling. Are there cameras on me right now? I raise my arms and cover my breasts.

  Because that matters when the man had his mouth all over them just an hour ago, Mel. The thought makes me cringe in shame and embarrassment.

  I can’t believe I just… gave in like that. I mean, yeah, I knew that sex would be expected of me in coming here. I’m not naïve.

  The second I signed the contract, I knew I was basically prostituting myself for my dad’s freedom. But somehow it seemed like a noble sacrifice or some BS back when it was just an idea and not a reality.

  And none of my ideas of how this would all go down ever involved enjoying myself or getting off.

  I grab my body wash and spurt a generous handful in my palm. Then I get to work scrubbing at every inch of me he touched. I rub especially vigorously between my legs, ignoring the sensitivity and soreness of the area. The shower has a detachable head and when I turn it on my lady bits, it immediately feels good against the aching flesh. I wash up and down, making sure I’m extra clean.

  And then the stream of water strays back my sex.

  Did I bleed? I didn’t notice any blood, but then, I wasn’t hanging around to examine the sheets. It barely even hurt.

  I remember his skilled fingers. How he played me so expertly. My own fingers stray there.

  My eyes snap open and I jerk my hand away from myself. I replace the shower head back in its place high on the wall to finish the rest of my shower as quickly as possible.

  Then I get out of the shower, towel off, and get into bed. Skipping dinner is a no brainer. I’m ready for this day to be over.

  Sleep is still a long time in coming but eventually, blessed unconsciousness takes me.

  ***

  “How hard is it to obey simple instructions?” His voice is a roar that jerks me from sleep.

  I sit up in bed, my heart pounding as I look around me frantically. The room is completely dark. Still nighttime. Where am I—? What—?

  “You washed me off you.” While slightly quieter, I can hear anger barely restrained in his voice. Xavier. I’m at his lodge in the middle of nowhere. Effectively captive.

  “I, I’m sorry—” I stutter. “I didn’t think you—”

  “You didn’t think!” he thunders. “You didn’t think you needed to obey orders? You know what happens to soldiers who don’t obey orders? They die.”

  I scramble away from him on the bed, but he grabs my ankle and yanks me back, just like he did yesterday.

  Oh my God. This guy is crazy. Like crazy crazy. You’d have thought the whole locking a girl up in an abandoned resort thing would have tipped me off, but it really only becomes clear in this moment. This guy just might be certifiable.

  I wasn’t kidding when I said we’re in a place so remote no one will hear my screams.

  I scream anyway.

  Chapter 7

  “Let go of me, you psycho!” I scream.

  Xavier doesn’t say anything else, he just flips me over on the bed so that I’m face down on the comforter. The next second he’s lifted up my nightgown—the only kind of sleepwear provided and nothing like I would wear at home—and pulled down my panties. He grabs both of my wrists and pins them at the small of my back, forcing my face even deeper into the mattress. I thrash and turn my head enough so that I can at least breathe.

  Oh God, is he going to rape me now? So was earlier just some fluke? Like, he had to wait till full dark to do it how he really likes? Psycho fucker. Well, I’m not going to make it easy for him. I don’t care if I agreed to be here. No always means no and—

  A resounding slap on my ass startles all my thoughts momentarily quiet.

  “Count,” he demands. “And ask, please Sir, may I have another?”

  My mouth drops open. I crane my neck to look over my shoulder. I can only make out the barest outline of him. It must be a new moon outside because there’s barely any light coming through the curtains. He’s just a looming shadow at the edge of the bed behind me. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

  He lands another punishing slap to my ass, this time on the other cheek. “Language,” he snaps.

  “Fuck you!” I spit, yanking even harder to get away from him.

  He spanks me again. I yelp in outrage, at the same time noting that his hand landing just feels like a sharp sting. It doesn’t hurt hurt. But, still, this whole thing is just getting more fucked up by the second. Who the hell does he think he is? I haven’t been spanked in… well, never. It was frowned upon by the time I was growing up. And the fact that this man has the gall to spank me now when I’m twenty-six years old is just—

  He lands another blow.

  “We’ll keep this up until you learn your lesson.” He sounds calmer now. “As soon as you start counting, you’ll only have ten more.”

  I grit my teeth. If this asshole thinks he can get me to humiliate myself with one little spanking, he’s got another thing coming.

  He spanks me again, landing it on a spot he’s hit previously. It stings like a bitch, but I don’t make a sound. I do flinch, though, and he chuckles, sounding even more relaxed. “You’re stubborn. Good. You’re here to be a breeder, and I want my child to have good, strong, stubborn genes.”

  Oh my God, I’ve been trying so hard to forget that whole part of the deal and he has to go and remind me of it now? Like this?

  When his hand next comes down, it’s not with impact, but a caress. His voice is likewise caressing. “But it’s just as important for stubborn people to know when to give in.”

  His hand dips lower and underneath to my sex where he starts to play with my pussy. And even though I barely know him, it’s like my body is already trained to his touch. Within seconds I’m softening and moistening for him.

  No. Stop that, body. Enemy! He’s crazy. He came in here yelling about soldiers and acting nuts and reminding me he expects me to be his baby mama and—

  His
middle finger starts to rub circles round and round my clit while his thumb teases at the entrance of my pussy.

  My breath hitches and almost immediately his hands are gone.

  Another smack lands on my ass.

  “It’s easy,” he says, totally calm now. “Sir, may I please have another? Then the punishment will be done and we can return to your pleasure.”

  Punishment? I am not going to play his screwed-up games. “What the hell does that have to do with anything?” I say, desperate to try to get back to some vestige of sanity. “You need me here so I can make you a baby. So just fuck me and let’s be done with it.”

  Thwack. His palm lands again, jarring my whole body into the mattress.

  And then his hand dips to my sex, teasing me even more thoroughly than he did before.

  “Language,” is all he says. I hear the rustle of a buckle and then I feel the hot, smooth weight of his cock lying against my ass. He presses against me, his long, thick rod caught between us. My sex immediately contracts upon feeling it.

  The next moment, his thick, bulbous head is pressing against my netherlips. I gasp and unlike earlier, he doesn’t hesitate. He just pushes right in. Not a shove, but there’s no hesitation either.

  I’m drenched and other than some brief discomfort, his passage is smooth. Still, I can’t help my uneven breathing at the foreign sensation.

  Does this mean he’s going to dispense with all the other nonsense and we can just have sex like normal people until his swimmers do their job and I get pregnant?

  I can’t believe I just had that thought but seriously, the sex is enough to handle. I can’t deal with all this extra shit he’s throwing at me.

  “So goddamned tight,” he mutters once he’s bottomed out inside me, his hips pressed against my ass. He’s coming from behind this time, and it feels different than when we did it chest to chest earlier. I clench around him reflexively at his words and he groans.

  The breath I haven’t even realize I’ve been holding expels at the sound because it’s like it finally sinks in—he’s having sex with me again for the second time in 24 hours.

  I’m having sex. Right now. This is what sex feels like. The fullness is still like nothing I could have described before feeling it.

  He pulls his cock out halfway and I can’t help but to concentrate on every inch of him as his cock drags along my inner walls.

  And then he spanks me again. While he’s inside me.

  It shocks my concentration loose as I cry out in frustration.

  Especially because by this point, with Xavier’s fullness inside me and, I don’t know—maybe in part because of how screwed up it all is—I am so turned on. I press my forehead to the bed in humiliation.

  He grabs my hips in his large hips and fucks me with long, slow plunges. He hits a spot so deep inside it makes sparks light behind my eyes.

  Still, this is all just so screwed up. I try to pull my hands out of his grasp at the small of my back but his grip is unrelenting.

  He spanks me again. “Just ask, please Sir, may I have another?” His other hand comes around my body and whispers over my pulsing clit before he pulls away again.

  “Wait!” I gasp, trying to twist my body to chase his hand. But he’s gone. Instead, his hand goes back to my hip. He abandons slow and starts pumping away, hard and fast. I imagine the muscles of his ass as he thrusts and withdraws from my pussy. He’s so huge, all those tanned muscles flexing with every—

  I’m disgusted with myself even as the thought makes me gush over his cock. I feel so dirty and wrong and—

  “That’s right,” he murmurs. “Christ, watching my giant cock disappear in you. You have no idea what I want to do to you. The hundred ways I want to desecrate your tight little body.”

  The hand on my hip clenches tighter and then lifts before coming down hard on my ass in a resonating smack.

  I cry out a high keening noise of pleasure.

  “Listen to the sound of that.” He seems so awed by it. He fucks me twice as fast for a few moments before slowing down again. “You want it. I know you do. I’m going to finish inside you and plant myself so deep. But you don’t get to come.”

  What? No. I have to. I’m so close. I jam myself down on his cock. Oh God, it’s so close. I need that insane high. It will make all of this disappear, just for a second if I can get free and—

  “Not unless you beg me. Not until you learn how to obey, little pet. It’s so easy.” He spanks me again. “Sir, may I please have another. That’s all you have to say, ten times while you count, and I can give you what you want. What you need.”

  His hand comes back around to my clitoris.

  Yes. Yes, fuck yes.

  Tears well up at the release that’s right there. It’s going to burn me up from the inside out. I’ve never needed anything so badly in my life. The wave is climbing, climbing, climbing, and then finally it starts to crest—

  My mouth drops open right at the very moment.

  But. Then. He. Pulls. His. Hand. Away.

  Immediately the high drops.

  I cry out in devastated loss at the denied peak.

  He clucks his tongue in disappointment and spanks me again.

  And oh God, it’s on the tip of my tongue. Please, Sir may I…

  Pleasure and oblivion are right there. So close. Just there— My whole body strains toward it.

  But the slight dip in consuming pleasure without his hands on me allows my brain to finally catch up with my runaway body.

  And no!

  Holy shit, no.

  What the fuck am I thinking?

  I will not be reduced to some pathetic little girl, begging her captor for pleasure. Even if I am the one currently captivated by him. He’s speaking so much more than the bare monosyllabic phrases I’ve heard him utter before now. I’m getting more of a peek at the man himself. Even if that man is a filthy, sex-fiend control freak.

  “Last chance,” he lands yet another smack on my ass, which has to be red as a ripe strawberry by now.

  I bite down on my bottom lip. Rational mind wars with sex-starved body.

  “Stubborn little pet,” he growls, leaning over and biting at my neck as he thrusts in and out of me. Each time he bottoms out I’m teased by a pleasure that threatens to light me up but never quite does.

  Then he thrusts hard and stills inside, clutching me to him.

  And I don’t know how I can be so totally full and yet feel so empty at the same time.

  Chapter 8

  I wake to the heavenly smell of frying bacon. I’m famished, I suddenly realize as I sit up in bed and clutch the covers to my chest. I barely ate a thing yesterday and God, that smells good.

  In spite of my hunger, I linger in bed a moment. All the memories of yesterday run on an unforgiving reel in my brain. My body’s absolute lack of self-control.

  I can’t believe I... that I was like that.

  My hand drops down between my legs and I wince slightly at the soreness there. I squeeze my eyes shut and force all my confused thoughts away.

  Thinking about all of it won’t help anything. There’s just today to face. One foot in front of another, one day at a time.

  I take a fortifying breath and then get out of bed and head for the dresser. I know from my exploration on the previous days that all I’ll find inside are lacy underthings that are nothing like the no-nonsense supportive undergarments I usually don.

  I hold up a see-through red lace demi-bra with dismay. But then my nose catches the scent of bacon again and I shake my head and put the damn thing on. It’s better than nothing. I slip on the matching underwear and head to the closet.

  Here is another crime against Melanie Van Bauer’s personal aesthetic: Dresses line the rack from one end to the other. And not just any sort of dresses—flowy, pastel, floral print dresses. Did you hear me? I said floral print.

  I’m a woman who wears power suits. Black is the only color in my palette, I’ve often joked. It makes up most of m
y wardrobe, interspersed with the occasional gray.

  When you’re a woman striving to be taken seriously in a man’s world, you have to go to certain lengths to make them forget about the fact that you’re actually female. Not that it ever actually works. It still always felt like a boy’s club. But I was used to chopping my brown locks short and maybe it felt good to continue being the opposite of everything my mother had been. I abandoned any color even remotely feminine—aka, all color.

  This closet, though? It positively drips with color. And the dresses are the most ridiculous little frilly things. My first day here, I slammed the closet shut with a gasp after one glimpse.

  Now that my Gucci suit is shredded, though, there’s no choice but to don one of these—I pull out the least offensive dress—things.

  It’s a dark-blue A-line dress that reminds me a bit of every dress Maria ever wore in the Sound of Music. A lot of the dresses in the closet have a similar shape. So maybe Xavier has a thing for the 50s?

  Awesome. ‘Cause that was notoriously a great time for women’s lib.

  Well, Mel, he did spank you.

  I stare at the dress for another second, debating with myself. The only other option is to go out with no clothes on at all. And what message would showing up for breakfast in nothing but red lacy lingerie send? Or I could just skip breakfast altogether and stay up here in my room under the covers?

  My stomach rumbles with hunger.

  I swear the bacon is calling my name. Mellllllll, it calls. I’m deliciousssssss.

  I slip the dress over my head. I catch the briefest glimpse of myself in the mirror but turn away before I can see my girly reflection full on. There’s just no need to see the complete effect.

  Let’s go get stuffed with some over-salted, fatty meat.

  Bacon makes everything better.

  I exit my room and hurry down the stairs.

  The kitchen is large and must have once served the whole resort. It’s dim with light only filtering in through the heavy drapes. I briefly explored it during my initial wanderings. It feels much more intimate than some of the industrial kitchens I’ve glimpsed when my friends waitressed throughout college.