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I couldn’t really argue. Xavier was anything but tame.
A slight smile cracked, though his focus on my lips didn’t waver. “So, what did the beast do next?”
“I—I don’t remember.” I was having a hard time recalling my own name, much less the plot of a children’s movie.
He tugged my lip, then slid his thumb between my teeth and pulled down slightly, urging me to bite.
I obeyed, slipping my tongue around the salty end of his finger.
His smile was full of teeth.
“I think he ravishes the young girl,” Xavier said as he ran the pad of his finger over the edges of my incisors. “I think he rips off her clothes to examine his prey. Has her right there. Marks her as his own.”
My breath shook. Everything around me was fading away. The books. The art. Everything but this larger-than-life creature and the shadow he cast.
The hand at my mouth dropped down, briefly gripping my neck, then continued a path downward, toying with my neckline, then the buttons just below.
“I reckon he takes whatever the fuck he wants.” His eyes sparked like embers as he watched his hand progress down my chest, pausing to pull lightly at one of my nipples through the thin silk.
I sucked in a harsh breath. “Is—is that so?”
“I don’t think she has a choice.”
Xavier rubbed his stubbled chin over my neck, grazing his teeth over my thumping pulse. His other hand traveled up my leg, slipping under my skirt to find a solid handful of my backside and slip between my thighs, teasing for more.
He squeezed. Hard.
I grabbed his jacket with a gasp as his fingers touched the dampness forming just under the lace that separated me from him. “Xavi.” My voice was a breath.
“Your Grace?”
“Fucking hell,” Xavier growled into my ear.
Forehead against the bookshelf, Xavier swore again under his breath, then pushed away hard enough to make the wood creak and turned his head toward the voice that beckoned. I thanked God his frame was large enough to block me from Edith Willoughby’s shrewd gaze. For some reason, getting the stink eye from the top librarian in the entire UK seemed worse than receiving punishment from the queen herself.
“Dinner is served,” she called across the room.
I relaxed at the sound of her retreating footsteps and took a moment to put myself back together. There would be no helping the rosy flush that was no doubt all over my skin, but at least I could smooth my hair and fix my dress.
When I finished, Xavier was watching me once more with a curious expression.
“What?” I asked. “Is my dress straight? Is my hair sticking out?”
“Is it fucked that I sort of want you to walk out there a mess?” he wondered with a sheepish expression. “I’d mark you all over too if I could. Maybe I am a beast after all.”
He reached out to brush my hair off my neck, his fingers lingering over the spot on my neck where his mouth had been. No doubt there was already a bruise forming in the shape of his mouth.
He looked so guilty, but I couldn’t help but smile as I finished patting things into place. Then I popped up on my toes to give him a quick kiss, which he immediately turned into something a bit more.
“Maybe you are,” I said against his lips when he finally let me go. “But you’re my beast, aren’t you?”
God, I wanted it to be true.
That rare grin reemerged, lighting up the dim room. “Damn right, I am. Now let’s go. This beast needs to feed his girl and get her into bed, pronto.”
FIVE
“This wasn’t necessary,” I told Xavier for probably the fourth time that night.
