“As small as you are, it is inconceivable to me how when I am with you, I don’t feel as though I’m a great hulking beast.”
She tried to break free of his hold so she could run her fingers through his hair, over his face, but he held tight. He always held tight.
“Make love to me. Fully, completely. I don’t want to retain my virginity. I want to feel you moving inside me. I want to be only yours. I want you to be mine.”
With a growl, he moved her hands to the small of his back before spreading his fingers over her throat, beneath her chin, and lowering his mouth to hers, his tongue sweeping along the contours. She scored her fingers up his back, outlining the defined delineations that flexed with his movements. So much strength. Such power. How could he consider himself hulking when he possessed an incredible elegance? Yes, he was taller than most and broad shouldered, but there was a sleekness about him, like a panther she’d seen at the zoological gardens.
He nipped at her collarbone, soothed it with his tongue.
She brought her hands around. He laced their fingers together. She stilled. Her brow furrowed. “Why do you do that?”
He stilled as well, although if it was possible, he was more still than she. “Do what?”
“Take hold of my hands—” No, it wasn’t hands, not always. But it was always the left one. “You won’t let me touch the right side of your face, your head.” It was an area he seemed to shelter. Never had she seen him without his hair covering it. “Why?”
She heard his swallow more than saw it. “Because I didn’t want you to discover why they first began calling me Beast.”
He shoved himself off the bed more with a sense of resignation than anger or frustration. Before they went any further, she had the right to know, to know everything about him. With the truth of him, she might decide she wanted to become another man’s mistress, might return to her original plans.
The bed creaked with whatever movements she was making.
He wished he had with him the match safe his mum had given him, that he had those matches available because they could ward off the darkness now threatening. Instead, he tapped his fingers over the bedside table until he found the matches he knew rested nearby, struck one, and lit the oil lamp, bringing forth a light that chased all the shadows away from the bed, away from her, away from him.
She was sitting with her back to the headboard, the sheet clutched in her hands just below her chin, covering what she’d bared when he’d first walked into the room. A thousand times he’d yearned to see her unveiled in the brightest of lit rooms or in a field dappled with sunshine, had even considered not dousing the lamps, but he couldn’t shine light on her without shining it on himself.
He sat on the bed, his hip resting next to hers. She’d yet to take her eyes from him. “Go ahead,” he said quietly, “touch what I’ve not let you touch, see what I’ve not let you see.”
She continued to stare, to press her lips together, and to draw in one unsteady breath after another. It was as though this woman whom he’d seen demonstrate courage countless times was unable to find it now.
“It won’t hurt you.”
She opened her hand, fisted it back up. “That’s not my worry. Will it hurt you?”
He wouldn’t experience any physical pain, but depending on her reaction there could still be hurt. “No.”
Very slowly, she placed the flat of her hand where his shoulder curved into his neck and glided it up, stopping at the spot where his pulse thudded in his throat. For a moment she just waited as though counting the beats of his heart, and he wondered if she realized each one was for her. Tentatively, she slid her fingers up, the strands of his hair brushing over them. Another minute of stillness, looking into his eyes, before directing her attention back to where her fingers trembled slightly. A deep breath from her. None from him. She slipped her hand beneath the fall of his hair, raised—
A tiny pleat formed between her brows. She lifted higher. She released her hold on the sheet and it dropped down to reveal the magnificent breasts that he’d denied himself the sight of in light, but his gaze only darted down for a second because he was too mesmerized watching her expression. It had yet to reveal horror. The hand no longer clutching the sheet cradled his other cheek, and she shifted her eyes over to hold his gaze. “You haven’t an ear.”
“No.”
“What happened?”
“I was born without it.”
“Can you hear?”
“Not on that side. Sometimes I cock my head so nothing escapes my good ear. I’ve learned if I watch the movementof people’s mouths, I can discern the words I might not have heard clearly.”
“You always sit me to your left.”
“I don’t want to miss hearing a single word you utter.”
“And they cruelly called you Beast because of this, something over which you had no control, something nature inflicted upon you?” A spark of anger hardened her voice.
“Children, yes. Beast, monster, devil. Mum would keep our hair short to decrease the likelihood of lice. Eventually, I wouldn’t let her cut it. But even then, if I got into a scrap, it would be uncovered. And the taunts would begin. I can’t tell you how many noses my brothers bloodied trying to get them to stop. Or how often I ran off because I didn’t want anyone to see how I hurt, to witness any tears I couldn’t hold back. I don’t think they meant to be cruel. I was different, and I think the difference frightened them, because they feared it could have been them. Then one day I decided if I called myself Beast, if I pretended that it was of no consequence to me if I wasn’t exactly like them, I would take away their power to hurt me.”
“You thought I would taunt you?”
