The Virgin and the Beast Page 7

  The floor is a warm, brown, Spanish-type glazed tile, and the grill, stove, and oven take up one wall. Xavier’s set up a small six-person wooden dining room table off to the side that, like his bed, looks handcrafted.

  At the moment, however, my attention is stalled out by the man himself. The dim light is still plenty to see Xavier standing in front of the counter, flipping golden pancakes from a griddle onto two plates already loaded with eggs and bacon.

  He’s shirtless, wearing nothing except some loose-slung jeans while he does this—not even any socks. It brings back vivid memories of all the things he did to my body yesterday and heat burns my cheeks. I cross my arms over my chest as I enter the kitchen.

  The good side of his face is turned to me as he flips the last pancakes on the griddle, and with a shock, I realize that Xavier is actually extremely good looking.

  When I first met him, all I could focus on was the ruined half of his face. But from this angle I can see him as he once must have been.

  Ruggedly handsome. He has strong, angular features.

  “Do you like syrup on your pancakes?” he asks and I immediately look to the floor, hoping he didn’t catch me staring. He transfers the pancakes to the plate.

  “Sure,” I say, toeing at the floor nervously before glancing back up at him.

  He’s younger than I first thought, too. Maybe in his early thirties, if that. He wears his hair a little too long. Is he self-conscious about the bad part of his face? The one mostly missing ear? What happened to him anyway?

  He pours a light dribble of syrup back and forth over the stack of pancakes and then holds out my plate. I’m not sure when I last had pancakes. It’s not a very New York meal.

  I take my plate and turn to the table.

  And then I realize there’s only one chair.

  Xavier doesn’t seem to notice that anything’s amiss, however, as he brushes right past me and sets his plate down in front of the single chair. Then he pulls his phone out of his pocket, clicks a few times and hands it to me. I hold my plate to my waist so I can grab the phone.

  There’s Dad, standing by the railing of what looks like a resort right on the water, which is so blue it’s almost turquoise. My breath hitches. “It looks like paradise.”

  “Not a bad place to retire,” Xavier agrees.

  Dad looks anything but happy, though, as he holds up yet another paper. Daddy.

  “Does he know I’m okay?” I look up at Xavier anxiously. “Can I talk to him?”

  Xavier’s mouth tightens into a line. “That’s not part of the deal. No contact while you’re here.” He takes the phone back, leaving me holding my plate awkwardly.

  I sigh, my stomach churning as I think of Dad going crazy worrying about me. With the way we were taken… which God, was so freaking unnecessary. I grit my teeth, though. Exploding at Xavier isn’t going to get me what I want. “Well can you at least get him pictures of me, too? Showing that I’m okay?”

  He studies me for a brief moment, then nods once. I barely have a second to breathe out in relief and utter a quick, “thank you,” before he’s gesturing beside his plate. “You can set yours down here.”

  I look around as he sits and, without ceremony or preamble, begins to eat.

  “Um, is there another chair or step stool I could use…?”

  I mean seriously, I get that these aren’t normal circumstances, but it’s not like he didn’t know I was coming. A modicum of hospitality might be nice. He certainly didn’t forget to stock up on all the other items in his bedside drawer. Remembering to make sure there was an extra chair in the dining room might have gone a long way toward showing me I’m not just an expensive sex toy/baby incubator.

  Ugh. Baby. Shudder.

  No, not thinking about that right now. Not thinking about that ever.

  Turns out that’s easier than I would have thought, because Xavier levels me with a cold stare and snaps his fingers at me, pointing downward. “On your knees at Master’s feet. That’s the only way you’ll get any food.”

  “What?” I half laugh.

  I mean, of course he’s got to be joking.

  That was a joke.

  Right?

  Right???

  But Xavier just keeps up his icy demeanor, both the good and ruined half of his face immovable as he watches the confusion that’s no doubt playing out on my face. His intense focus makes it twice as hard to think straight.

  He’s apparently not joking. And I note that while he’s got a fork and knife, he hasn’t provided me any.

  Fine. Screw him.

  I’m a grown woman perfectly capable of finding my own cutlery. My stomach rumbles and I look down at the bacon that has been continuing to sing its siren song ever since I stepped into the kitchen.

  I reach down and grab the most delectable looking piece on my plate. But before I can lift it to my mouth, Xavier’s hand clamps down around my wrist like a shackle.

  “No food goes in that mouth except what I place there. And no pleasure is allowed except what I give you. You will learn to submit to me in all things. Including trusting me for every bite of nourishment.”

  I glare down at him, sitting so casually in his carved wooden chair with an inlaid leather cushion. I don’t know if it’s having been so intimate with him yesterday or even just seeing him today as more of a man and not a monster, but I don’t feel afraid of him so much anymore. At least, not afraid that he’ll hurt me.

  Through my teeth, I manage to grit out, “Let go of me.”

  With his other hand, he plucks the bacon out of my fingers, and then he lets my hand go. My mouth drops open in outrage and I try to reach for another piece. His large arm blocks me from the plate.

  “Stop being ridiculous,” I say, and try for another grab. Again I’m blocked and absurdly, I feel like I’m back in kindergarten fighting over who gets the last piece of birthday cake. I refuse to be humiliated like this and I fold my arms over my chest, infuriated.

  Xavier, on the other hand, picks up the morning paper beside him on the table and starts reading as though nothing’s wrong, completely unruffled.

  “You can have everything on this plate,” he says calmly and conversationally, eyes still on the paper. “As long as you take it from my hands.”

  “With you feeding me like I’m a dog?” I bite back.

  His cool eyes lift to mine and for just a second, they flare when our gazes connect. “Exactly like that, Pet.”

  I let out an infuriated huff and turn my back on him. I start to stalk out of the room, but not before I hear his warning. “You’ll go hungry until you accept food from me. I’ll have you licking my fingers, you’ll want it so bad.”

  I ignore the fact that his words send an absurd flare of lust through my lady bits and stomp back up the stairs to my room.

  Later when the house is silent and I see out my window that he’s walking out toward… wherever the hell it is he goes to spend so much of his day, I hurry down stairs and make a beeline for the kitchen.

  Only to find it locked. Solid oak pocket doors I hadn’t even realized were there have been pulled out and locked securely on both entrances to the kitchen.

  “Son of a bitch!” I mutter, rattling at the doors uselessly, knowing they won’t budge.

  I’m hungry all day, wandering the house and fuming. Xavier stays out until dark. The only interesting room on the third floor is locked, so there’s no exploring up there. And no matter how long I fidget at the kitchen door locks with my bobby pins, none of them magically unlock like they do in the movies. If I just had access to my iPhone so I could google how you break into locked doors. There’s obviously some trick I’m missing.

  It’s a little before sundown when I hear the front door jangling and know he’s coming back in. I hide behind the library door, peeking through the crack to watch him go by. He’s drenched in sweat and as he passes by, he pulls his white t-shirt off over his head.

  And holy muscles.

  Everywhere—huge
, glistening, bulging muscles. I don’t know, I thought maybe I’d been overexaggerating how big they were in my imagination.

  Nope. They’re just as inhumanely large as I remember.

  Suddenly the door I’m hiding behind is swung open and I’m exposed. Then that huge chest is right in front of me, wide as an ox and probably just as strong.

  The scent I was so eager to wash off me assaults me all over again—body wash and animal and sweat and hay and man and sun. That’s not the reason I’m holding my breath when he backs me into the wall I was just hiding against, though.

  “Watching out for the Big Bad Wolf, little pet?” He presses his sweaty, glistening chest against my breasts and almost immediately I can feel his thickening erection through his work pants.

  I close my eyes against the hundred sensations his touch immediately evokes. The mint of his breath that’s combining with his scent and the pressure of his body—all of it drives my senses wild for some stupid reason.

  And he can tell. Goddamn him, he knows.

  “If I reach between those pretty little thighs, I’d find you drenched for me, wouldn’t I?” he rasps, rubbing his stubbled chin over my trembling lips.

  And then, him being him, he drops his hand beneath the skirt of my peach, floral print dress. He easily pushes past my tiny excuse for panties and plunges his thick finger inside me.

  He hisses low when he feels exactly how wet for him I am, and I drop my head back to the wall in shame.

  “Come join me in the shower,” he demands, pulling his finger out and withdrawing from me. I blink my eyes open at him and set my jaw.

  The nerve of this bastard. “Unlock the kitchen.”

  He grins at me and it’s a dazzling sight. I’m so shocked by it, I forget to breathe for a moment. It’s then that I realize that even though it’s been just four days, I’m already becoming accustomed to the ruined upper half of his face. After getting over the shock of it, it’s not actually that gruesome. The skin is just kind of flat and smooth. Yes, his eye droops and while the top half of his ear is missing, his hair mostly covers it.

  After realizing how good looking he actually is earlier and with the brilliant smile he just flashed me, my brain almost automatically maps out the corresponding structures on the other side of his face underneath the burned part. Though, is it a burn? Is that what happened? What about those streaky bits that extend down his cheek where his stubbly beard won’t grow. Maybe some kind of explosion or shrapnel?

  “I’ll unlock the kitchen later for dinner when you show me you can be a good pet who submits and takes food from my hand. In the meantime, I suggest you come with me now to take a shower and be fucked like you’ve never been fucked before.”

  Oh right. It doesn’t matter what he looks like. He’s still an asshole.

  My mouth, probably perpetually half-open in a state of shock around this man, drops open even wider.

  Eventually, I find my voice again. “You can’t just starve me.”

  He shrugs and as he pulls back, his face goes neutral like he’s indifferent on the subject one way or the other.

  Outrage wins again. “You brought me here to pop out a baby for you. I didn’t agree to the rest of this bullshit. We’ve already had sex. I could be pregnant right now.” God, even the thought makes me want to run screaming out the door, but dammit, I have a point to make here. “And what—you’re going to starve the mother of your child? You’re really willing to risk harming—”

  In a millisecond, he’s got me pinned up against the wall again, his body flush against mine. “Don’t you ever dare accuse me of risking the health of the baby.” His voice is dangerous.

  “I’m doing all of this for the baby. You will be walking around with my son or daughter in your belly for nine months but you’re unruly, undisciplined, and untrained. I won’t stand for it. A few days without food won’t hurt you as long as you have liquids and vitamins. There’s something far more important at stake. The woman bearing my child will obey and submit to me in all things.”

  “Obey you!?” My head is literally going to explode.

  “Yes.” He nods decisively. “Obey.”

  “Let me tell you something, buddy,” I pound his rock-hard chest with my pointer finger. “I am a woman in the twenty-first century. We don’t have to meekly submit and obey anymore.”

  “Oh really? Haven’t you figured out by now how pleasurable obedience can be?” His good eyebrow arches imperiously and the next thing I know, I’m on my back on the library floor carpet. My lace panties are yanked to my ankles and Xavier’s head is buried between my legs.

  I want to stomp my foot and scream, “no fair!” But at the same time, I don’t dare do anything that might make him stop.

  Because in a few days, he’s apparently turned me into a sex maniac.

  It’s just that, when his mouth latches onto the bud at the top of my sex, I can’t even— It feels so…

  Everything else is crazy, but then there’s this. I close my eyes and my body takes over. I don’t have to think— It’s just— So… Oh…

  He sucks and sucks so hard I see stars. I reach down to bury my hands in his curling locks but at the last second he catches my wrists and pins them to my side near my hip.

  I buck against his mouth.

  Oh God, he’s barely been at it two minutes, but I’m already almost there.

  So close.

  Muffled cries of ecstasy groan from my throat as he takes me higher and higher.

  It’s almost there.

  I’m frantic with it. I need it so bad.

  Everything’s been crazy and insane, but this need is so pure and clear and—

  My stomach bottoms out even as I jerk my pelvis up into Xavier’s face, ready to ride out my climax when he suddenly pulls away.

  “Wha—?” I blink in confusion as he stands up, leaving me in a useless puddle on the floor.

  He wipes his mouth with his forearm, face placid. “Follow me into my shower and we can continue. Then at dinner I’ll feed you like a good little pet.” He holds a hand down to me to help me up.

  So I can be his pet.

  Goddamned-mother-fucking piece of—

  “Fuck you!” I shout again.

  “Language,” he says with a frown, turning on his heel, “But I will be seeing you at dinner.” He tilts his head sideways, eyes focused on my still exposed pussy where he flung up my skirt. “I want to eat you out again for dessert after the filet mignon.”

  He ignores my scoff of outrage and leaves to shower.

  When I try to beg off dinner an hour and a half later, Xavier lifts me over his shoulder—so goddammed annoying he can toss me around like that!—and deposits me on my feet by the dining room table. Where again there are no chairs other than his own.

  He proceeds to eat the most juicy-looking filet in front of me. Both the cut of beef and Xavier himself look mouthwatering. Xavier’s freshly showered and changed into a blue Henley and a worn pair of jeans.

  Every so often he’ll hold out a bite of meat on his fingers to me. Not even on a fork. Each time I turn away in disgust even though the rumbling of my stomach echoes loudly in the mostly empty common room.

  Xavier finishes the last bite of his steak with a satisfied burp and I glare at him. I have no idea how I can both be so attracted to him and repulsed by him at the same time. He’s starving me and for what—just to prove some dumb point?

  And you’re refusing to eat for the same reason, an annoying inner voice argues.

  Shut up, I snap back. He started it.

  Glad to know I’ve got the mature high ground here. Sigh.

  Especially since I don’t know where the hell I’m standing when, after Xavier finishes his meal and downs half a glass of red wine, he declares it’s time for dessert. He stalks toward me where I’ve hovered at the opposite end of the table.

  I thought he was joking about that.

  Nope, apparently not. He grabs me and hikes me up on the edge of the table, then rip
s my panties off before going to town on my pussy as voraciously as he attacked his meal.

  Which is to say, in minutes, he has me straddling the same edge he had me on earlier in the day. I grab the tablecloth with my hands, knowing if I reach for him at all, he’ll just pin my hands down. I bite my lip and try to muffle my cries.

  Oh God, I’m so close.

  The waves are shattering. Higher and higher.

  So close. Almost there.

  If I don’t make a noise, maybe he won’t realize and I can climax before he pulls away.

  I try to stay still. So achingly still when all I want to do is shove my pussy against his face until he’s sucking down all my honey. So hard, never stopping and—

  Oh, oh, God, yes—

  The bastard pulls away right before the sweetness hits.

  “Wait—no, please don’t—!”

  He pauses, wiping his mouth with his forearm, eyes glittering. “Did you have something to say? Are you hungry for Master to give you your dinner?”

  He reaches lazily up with his thumb and gives my pulsing clitoris a caress.

  I bite down on my lip because, oh God, just say yes. Let him give you what you need. It would be so easy. Stop fighting it. Bliss is right there. I try to press into his thumb but he retracts it, leaving me whining and panting for him.

  “Just say the word, Pet.”

  Pet.

  Fucking pet.

  The word stings and cuts through the haze of lust. God, would I so quickly give up my self-respect for one little orgasm?

  I don’t need this asshole for those anyway. I can take care of it all by myself, thank you very much. He said no pleasure is allowed except what he gives me. But he leaves all day to take care of his farm or ranch or whatever the hell it is he does all day.

  While the master’s away, the mice will play.

  I am not his pet. I am my own master. Always have been and always will be.

  I turn my face away from him stubbornly, shove my dress down, and scamper off the table. I ignore his dark laugh behind me as I run up the steps toward my room.

  ***

  He knocks on my door and invites me to breakfast the next morning, but knowing it will just be more of him taunting me with food I can’t have, I ignore him and stay under my covers. For once he doesn’t drag me down to torture me with the smells and sights of food I can’t eat.