Evernight Publishing ®
www.evernightpublishing.com
Copyright© 2015 LeTeisha Newton
ISBN: 978-1-77233-417-3
Cover Artist: Jay Aheer
Editor: Katelyn Uplinger
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be used or reproduced electronically or in print without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
DEDICATION
This one is for my readers. You asked me to blend my paranormal romance with a fairytale and I listened. Thank you for being behind me, always. I wouldn’t be here without you.
BELLA’S BEAST
LeTeisha Newton
Copyright © 2015
Chapter One
The music was too loud and her feet were aching, but she just couldn’t sit down. The rhythm pulsed through her like a living, breathing thing. Her heart pounded as she shook her hair out and writhed to the thumping base and the pluck of the guitar strings. “Catch Hell Blues” were the realest words she’d ever heard in her life on a song, and she kept them close.
Isabella Thomas, better known as Bella, was sick to death of bullshit and fuck ups in her life. Tired of asshole men who didn’t know how to treat her right, and whiny men who didn’t need to have a dick, because they were way too much of a pussy.
Unfair, maybe, but so damn true.
She twisted around, dropping to her knees on the dance floor, and bent backwards. She sang with the music, letting all her cares free as she shook her hair around her, the strobe lights her dancing partners. One, two. One, two. As the bass beat came back she stepped with it, laughing as others around her circled around her and watched.
Yes, that’s right. Watch me. Wish you were this damn free.
“I’m gonna catch hell!” she yelled to the other dancers and they whooped, flinging their hands up into the air. Funny to think, just an hour before, she was crying her eyes out, wracked with pain like she’d never known. Why? Because her stupid, immature, and nerve-wrecking brother had, once again, taken money he couldn’t repay. And, once again, she was going to have to pay it all back.
For now, though, she could forget about her brother’s gambling addiction, and the loss she’d felt every time. Forget that he’d sent their mother into an early grave. Their mother hadn’t been able to deal with Nathan’s gambling trouble. Nathan had always been the problem child. He’d struggled in school, not because he hadn’t been intelligent enough, but because he preferred the easier way out. Momma had pushed him through, and got him into college, and it had only served to flame Nathan’s rebellious nature. He’d leeched every dime he could from their mom until she hadn’t anymore to give. Their father had died a hero, taking a bullet for his partner while in the line of duty as a police officer. He’d left them the house, and his pension. When Nathan took the house from under her, betting against the deed he’d talked her into signing over to him, that had been the last straw. Anger at her brother hadn’t stopped Bella from fending for him when she could. He was all she had left, and she’d always felt, as his only living relative, she was responsible for him. Their mother had asked her to, at the end.
One to always to take the blame, Bella had paid the first loan shark off, and then others had circled around her. Like the cold-blooded animals they were, they smelled blood, and she was a damn leaking faucet. Her savings, checking account, and liquefiable assets were all but gone to save her brother’s life because—God help her—she couldn’t live with his blood on her hands.
And Lord knew she’d seen plenty of it to give her nightmares.
Tonight, though, she was going to breathe easy and dance her troubles away. Because tomorrow she was going to the one man that the loan sharks feared—one that was a one man army, and she’d have to sell her soul to. She knew it, but if she had her brother under his protection they wouldn’t dare to hurt him. Wouldn’t dare to come after her again. It was a last ditch effort, but, this time, she didn’t have the money to pay for Nate’s release. If she didn’t pay over two million dollars, a sum larger than it had ever been before, he’d die.
Irritated, though she may be, she loved her brother.
She smacked her gloss covered lips and flung her dark brown hair over her shoulder. Drenched in sweat, it pelted the small of her back. Her jeans clung to her thick thighs and rounded hips. She might be closer to a size sixteen than a size ten, but she knew how to strut her stuff. She bent forward, swinging up in a sexy roll and slanting her dark chocolate eyes, at whoever was watching. Warm, large hands spanned her waist and she sank into the body behind her. Whoever the man was, he was tall, massive really. She was a good five-foot-ten easily, and this man wrapped around her so her head rested on his chest.
She didn’t turn around. Let this fantasy stay for a minute. For the last two years she hadn’t the time to give into romance, even a night long one, because of worry and stress. She wouldn’t take this man home either, but she’d enjoy it while it lasted. She gyrated her hips and ran her hands over his legs behind her. His thighs were like oak trees, strong and sure. Her hands traveled higher and his waist was trim and gave into a nice hint of chiseled abs, she could tell by just his oblique muscles.
“I’ve never seen someone move like you,” the man whispered in her ear, his accent thick, keeping step and bending around her to talk. His hot breath heated her wet flesh and she bit her lip against the temptation. His voice rumbled through her insides with the impact of a freight train. She didn’t think she’d ever heard a man’s voice quite that deep. He wrapped his arms around her, well-built arms she noted, and went with her to the floor and back up. She could see the black bands of tribal tattoos down both of his arms, and she could feel them under her fingertips.
Yum, tattoos. She was a sucker for a tatted up bad boy.
She intertwined their fingers, sucking in a breath when electricity streaked through her. God, touching him was like magic. She held him tight to her, feeling a delicious shock everywhere their bodies connected. Her partner gasped behind her, a tortured sound filled with such longing her body answered to it of its own volition. Her breasts felt heavy, her pussy heating and growing slick. Never, never in her life had she had such an immediate reaction to a man without even seeing him.
He took her breath away when he spun her around, fitting one of her legs between his and dipping with her again. She kept her eyes closed, lost to sensation as his big hands held her at her waist and the center of her back. She gripped the front of his shirt. It was slick and cool against her palms, but the well built body beneath the material was tantalizing. Even without looking at him the package was a gift on Christmas to a woman starved for presents.
The song started to filter out but the crowd yelled encore and it thumped on again, taking her worries over having to finally open her eyes away. The guitar rift at the beginning was slow and sexy, and her partner swayed with her, running his fingers through her hair. She leaned into his hands as he gripped the strands and pulled her head back. His hips rocked from side to side faster as the beat picked up. Touch me more, she begged internally. As if he heard her musings, one of his hands left her hair and gripped her throat, in a powerful and yet gently grip. His other hand then wrapped around her and pulled her close. He controlled her with his hand at her throat, and she buried her face in his chest and she moved with him.
Catcalls and whistles filtered to her ears and she smiled against him. Whoever he was, he
was helping her give the people a show. Before her brother, Nate, had taken her down the road to Hell, she’d been a different woman. She would have laughed with this man, looked into his eyes and let him know just what she’d wanted to do with him, on him, and around him. She would have never let such magnetism go to waste. But she wasn’t that woman any longer. She was a scared little girl, living on the knife’s edge and seeking the Devil to help.
Elijio Vargas, the man who could make her dreams of freedom, even if she had to stay in a gilded cage, come true. With Elijio, ruthless was a nice term. No one knew exactly where he’d come from, or why even the mob steered clear, but he was a force to be reckoned with. He was known to clean house, in the worst way, when someone challenged him. Known to make people disappear if they wronged him, and he was paid well for it. No one, absolutely no one, held his leash, and he was a monster that could eat the others. He was the one the loan sharks were afraid of.
And he was the only one who could save her and her brother.
“You’re stiff, baby. What’s wrong?” he asked, stroking her neck soothingly. She leaned into the caress for a moment, loving the security there. It was only temporary, she knew, but she still needed it. Just a few seconds of peace. That’s all she needed, before she walked away and went home for her last night of freedom. Because when Elijio helped, he had to get paid, and if you couldn’t pay, then you belonged to him. Bella had nothing but herself to give to him.
“Problems you couldn’t take away,” she whispered, knowing he wouldn’t hear her.
“Try me,” he whispered back, surprising her. Startled into opening her eyes, she was staring into the most amazing face she’d ever seen. His jaw was strong and firm, his lips full and lickable, if you asked her. His nose was straight and his cheekbones high. Dark, almost black eyes, were focused on her intently, surrounded by the longest eyelashes she’d ever seen in her life—the kind that curled into the eyelid and gave women some serious penis envy just to have them. His hair curled around his face with a flair that had to be created in a salon, because nothing was that perfect. For a moment she was speechless. He smiled sadly, and gripped her hand.
“Come on,” he commanded and walked her off the floor. Other dancers cried out as they left, but he didn’t stop. He made a beeline for the door, and no one got in his way. Even the bouncers moved as he stalked past them. Bella was helpless to stop. Once outside, the cool autumn air chilled her. He tucked her under his arm, warming her, as they walked just a little way from the club’s entrance. It was far enough that the sound of the music was muted, but not enough that she would have struggled. He stopped near a low-slung sports car that she didn’t know the name of but looked like it cost a hell of a lot of money.
“Tell me,” he commanded as he leaned against the car frame, never releasing her hand.
“You wouldn’t understand,” she started.
“Isn’t it good to tell someone who doesn’t know? No loss or gain.”
“I need to meet a really dangerous man tomorrow to help my brother,” she said finally, not sure why she wanted to tell this man her problems.
“What’s wrong with your brother?” he asked. It surprised her that he didn’t even bat an eyelash at the dangerous man part, but she didn’t stop talking.
“He’s got a gambling problem.”
“And you pay the price. How much is he under for?”
“Two million.”
“Is that with inflation or true debt?” he asked.
“True debt. How the hell—”
“Then it will increase ten percent, at minimum, every week. When was the demand for payment made?”
“I don’t think—”
“Don’t think. Just answer,” he interrupted.
“A week ago. I have until tomorrow to make a payment. Two weeks for the in-full amount.”
“He’ll owe two million two hundred thousand by tomorrow, and two hundred thousand more by next week. Did they tell you that?”
“Look, I don’t know who you are, but I’m done. Thanks anyway,” she said and she pulled her hand from his. She felt the loss of his heat immediately, but didn’t stop. She spun on her heel, determined to get to her car and go home.
“I wouldn’t walk away from help so easily,” the man called out.
“And who the hell are you?”
“Elijio Vargas. And I’m sure, whoever you are going to see tomorrow, isn’t as dangerous as me.”
Bella couldn’t get her mind to function properly, no matter how hard she tied, as she turned back around slowly to look at the man she’d danced with. Elijio Vargas. He was standing in front of her. The man she had planned to see the next day, to ask if he could help her with her brother’s debts. What sort of luck did she have that he was here now? Did he already know she was coming? Was this some sort of trick? She though wildly. When Pace Giuseppe, one of the men who held Nate’s debt, told her she could either get the money from the bank, sell everything she had, or herself to him to help, she’d hung up on him. But not fast enough not to hear one name.
“The Beast can’t even help you now,” he’d said. She’d put out feelers to other families, walked the streets, and put herself in danger to find out exactly who the Beast was. She’d succeeded in gaining an audience with him. She wasn’t prepared. She couldn’t have been. She clenched her hands into tight fists, resisting the urge to run away. She had made a complete fool out of herself, and she was terrified that Elijio wouldn’t help her. That he would turn his back and leave her standing there, alone.
And the way he made her feel?
God, she’d been an idiot letting him paw all over her. Please, she thought in a quick reverent prayer, don’t let it be him. Please.
Chapter Two
Elijio stared at the woman who’d got his blood pumping more than any other in his fucking existence, and that was a long time. He’d smelled the desperation and need on her, even over the liquor, body odor, and perfumes in the club. The summer rain scent of her flesh had been the first thing to catch his attention, her body the second. She’d danced around the floor as if no one was watching, her full lips curled into a come-hither smile against white teeth. Her long hair made him want to grab it, luxuriate in the strands, and burry his nose in her neck. Her face was heart shaped, with big doe eyes that were almost too large for her face, but enchanting on her. Add a pert little nose and he was enraptured.
Not to mention that hot body of hers.
Call it the animal in him, but he wanted her—preferably on all fours, in front of him, taking every inch of him deep in her body.
He’d been the beast for so long, ruled by an affliction that forced him never to venture out in the day, and pushed the human side of him toward aggressiveness in astronomical proportions. He normally got paid, very well, for that aggressiveness. He counted his checks in the millions. Something that he was sure that bitch of a witch hadn’t planned on when she’d cursed him over two hundred years ago. It may have taken time, but his sort of retribution came at a high price in the current century. Humans now weren’t afraid of the seeding things that went bump in the night, at least the ones who made their homes in the darkness didn’t.
But this woman, so afraid and sad, and yet dancing the night away with a freedom he envied, made him stop. Made him worry over the blood he had on his hands. For a moment, inside, he hadn’t wanted to touch her. Hadn’t wanted to mar her with the sins of his past. Centuries cursed for spurning a woman he hadn’t known was a witch had left him raw inside and aching for something more. It had been his fault, really. He’d been careless, taking a woman to his bed, without knowing more than her want of him. She’d wanted more than he’d been willing to give. Was he supposed to marry her? Give her his name, his life, and all the prestige that would have come with it, simply for sleeping with her for one night? It hadn’t been either of their first times, and, even in the era of his birth, she had known the game she played would end. He just hadn’t known how he would suffer. The curst tha
t would turn him into something no woman would ever again want near them.
Who could ever love a beast? A man that wasn’t a man in the daylight, and didn’t always care who his victims were? But love him, they had to, in order to break the curse. Not fucking likely, he said to himself. He wasn’t looking for love, not anymore, but he could look for companionship.
“Do you want my help, or not?” he asked roughly as the woman stared at him in shock.
“You? You’re Elijio Vargas?”
“This century I am,” he muttered.
“What was that?”
“Nothing. What’s your name?” he asked. He didn’t even remember the name he was born with. The first few decades after the curse had been bestowed on him he hadn’t been much more than an animal. He only remembered what happened from the time he woke up, and that was it. He chose whatever name fit the times and lived with it.
“Isabella Thomas, but they call me Bella,” she answered, taking a deep breath. He watched her gather her resolve around her and stand a little taller. He admired her spirit, her strength, but, for some reason, he missed that free woman he’d seen in the bar. It didn’t matter. Whatever he had to do to get her in his bed, so be it. He wasn’t above nefarious deeds to get her there. What was the point of being a bad guy if he didn’t have any fun?
“Bella, it fits.”
“I was coming to see you, tomorrow.” He lifted a brow at that. She’d been in the muck a long time if she knew enough to come to him. Better for him.
“Then I saved you the trip. Get in the car. Let’s go.”
“What about my car?”
“I’ll send someone to fetch it. Do you want my help, or not?”
Bella's Beast Page 1
