“Look, Bella,” Elijio crooned.
“I hate you,” she answered, not looking toward the table.
“I need you to look at your brother’s freedom.” She shook her head but turned toward the table where Richard showed her the confirmation of the wire transfer of twenty million dollars. A burner phone was handed to her and she looked up at him, quizzically.
“Call you brother,” Elijio said. Bella dialed quickly and he could hear the phone ringing with his excellent hearing.
“Who is this?” a male asked.
“Nate,” Bella sighed, sagging in his lap. He pulled her tighter to him and kissed her forehead. Such a strong woman, and fragile. Any other woman would still be fighting or screaming her head off. But not Bella. It made him think that, maybe, she wasn’t as afraid of him as she even believed.
“Bella. Thanks for coming through, sis. Man, I thought I was going to be a goner.”
“Are you okay?”
“Been better, but still have all my fingers and toes,” Nate said with a chuckle.
“This is not a laughing matter, Nate. What the hell were you thinking?”
“Whatever. I knew you’d come through. You always do. Must have gotten yourself a rich boyfriend this time, because they got me out of there pretty quick. Think he’d let you borrow some more?”
Bella stiffened in his arms and Elijio realized then that he was snarling, deep in his chest. He forced himself to calm down. That little fucking shit. Just out of danger and was already looking for more money. What did Bella see in him? Family was one thing, but the asshole had a death wish that he’d take her down on if she kept bailing him out. Eventually neither of them would have a life raft.
“Don’t do this anymore. You’re clean right now. No debts, no problems. Just walk away. I’ll help you. Just leave all this alone.”
“It’s no big deal, Bella. You got the money and I’m free. The next win, I promise, I’ll pay you back.”
“You’re not listening, Nate. You’re not going to win. I won’t have this kind of money ever again. You don’t know what I had to do for it. Please. Just stop.”
“Your choice, Bella. We’re family. You’re supposed to be there for your baby brother. Mom asked you to on her deathbed, you can’t turn away now. I’m telling you I’m going to pay you back. Give me a week and you’ll have you money back. I promise.” Bella cried out as the line disconnected.
“Nate? Nate!” she yelled into the phone but her brother was gone. She shook, from anger or crying, Elijio didn’t know. He sat there silently, sad for her, and what she was going through.
“I supposed I asked you to do something for nothing,” she said then.
“A deal is a deal, Bella. Your brother is a compulsive gambler, the longer you enable him, the longer he’s going to use you.”
“I can’t just abandon him.”
“Then you make the choice to go down with him. That is fine with me. The more debt he gets in, I’ll be happy to clear for him, but you will still owe me.”
“You can’t be serious,” she cried, trying to struggle out of his arms.
“You wanted me. I could taste it on your tongue, feel it in your body as you rode my cock. Was it big enough for you, baby? Did you like the way it made your pussy feel? Don’t you want to feel it again?” he whispered against her throat. Her scent was stronger here, drawing him in. Her heart rate skyrocketed even as she fidgeted against him. He groaned at the pressure on his dick.
“You fear what I am, that animal, but you want the man, and I can smell it. You can have me, right now. All for me. Give into me. Let go. Forget what’s wrong and what’s right. The night will hold your secrets, and tomorrow, tomorrow we can regret.”
He pulled her chin to force her to look at him. Tears glittered in her eyes, but her pupils were dilated, her mouth parted on gasping breaths. Desire was a blush over her skin, making her hot to the touch. She wanted this, wanted him.
“Tell me,” he said, wanting to hear her say it. Wanting there to be no doubt.
“I want you,” she gasped, and he took possession of her mouth.
Chapter Five
Before she had fallen asleep she’d been terrified of this man, lost under a sea of what was right and what was wrong. But here, under the masterful seduction of his mouth, she could be honest with herself. What she’d really run from when she’d seen him shift—the very fact that she didn’t know if she was more afraid of him and the changes he’d gone through, or the fact that she still wanted him, despite those changes.
Even as he’d run her down, her heart pounding and her mind whirling, deep inside, so deep she didn’t want to acknowledge, she had reveled in his actions, in the chase, and being captured. That he’d had the care to roll at the end, and take her fall. The knowledge that, even as the beast, he hadn’t wanted to hurt her. He’d called her mine, so possessive, and so full of need she’d ached for him.
He awoke within her the woman she’d been. The woman who took her choices with open hands and didn’t let them go. I want to be her again, she thought, and sucked his tongue into her mouth. His hands were everywhere—molding her breasts, gripping her waist, or caressing her back. He stood up, with her in his arms as if she weighed nothing, and carried her to his bed. She’d seen the large bed, bigger than what she knew a king sized one to be, in the back of his room, covered in deep blue covers and pillows. Now, to feel the silk beneath her was decadent.
He kiss/sucked his way down the side of her throat, stopping at the pulse of her neck for a moment to nip there. She arched into his bite. His tongue burned a hot trail down her clavicle and to the top of her tank top.
“Too many clothes,” he said against her flesh, his voice husky. He moved his hands to the top and ran his nails down her body, sitting up so he could reach the tops of her thighs. Her clothing split like butter. Her pulse stopped and ran away from her. He didn’t give her a chance to fear him because he was ripping his own clothes away, and she was in awe. He had complete control in a way she’d never dealt with before. Hadn’t realized how much a man of such strength would tantalize and excite her. The animal she’d seen in him was pushing toward the surface as he stripped them both, but now she could not fear him. Instead she ached for him.
He was muscle upon muscle, but his skin was a map of pain and torture. There was a wide swath of molted skin, like a burn, over his right hip that looked like it had been painful to endure. Puckered scars over his chest and abdomen. Even more scars up high on his right arm. He’d seen battle, and had survived. Forged in the fire, he was tougher than steel. And this man wanted her. Somehow she knew figured the animal was the reason for the scars and she suddenly felt ashamed for running away from him. How many others had done the same?
She sighed, lifting her arms to him. An odd sound, like a whimper, filled the air, and she felt tears come to her eyes. How many had turned him away? Afraid of the beast, and yet needing his strength? How close had she come to being one of those people? His skin slid warmly against her own, the hard pebbles of her nipples loving the sensation. He groaned, and gripped her shoulders as he kissed her within an inch of her life.
When she struggled to catch her breath, he left her mouth and bent down to suck one of her turgid nipples into his mouth. She gripped his hair, pulling him into her body, and her back lifted from the bed. He suckled, nipped, and teased her nipple until her clit throbbed and her pussy was soaked. He left her nipple and paid equal attention to the other until her head was thrashing back and forth on the pillow.
“So beautiful,” he husked, before kissing his way down her stomach. He paused at her navel to drop in his tongue and swirl around the sensitive flesh. She moaned, but he moved on, nipping the rounded flesh before her groin. This was passion, this was need.
She opened her legs for him as he fit his broad shoulders in between. His scalding breath danced over her moist folds. Here, he gave her no quarter. He sucked her clit into his mouth and hummed against her. She nearly flew
off the bed. Every lash of his tongue was pleasure, and every nip of his teeth full-blown ecstasy. He shifted and slid one thick digit deep inside of her and her sensitive tissue clamped around him like a vice. He groaned against her flesh, slurping at her as he pumped his finger in and out. The pleasure whizzed over her body in waves. It thrummed through her blood. Each lash of his tongue had her back arching and her toes curling.
“Yes,” she said, gripping the covers with her fingers. She closed her eyes, unable to focus on anything as he sucked her flesh into his mouth and flicked his tongue over her clit She screamed as he shook his head from side to side, never losing his grip on her distended clit, and then circled his face around, pushing harder against her body. She rode his face, finally letting the covers go to grip his head and hold him to her. He pushed in a second finger and twisted his wrist. The pumping action of his hand matched his sucking motion of his mouth. He turned his hand one more and as he withdrew his fingers he curled them upwards to the top of her pussy. With his free hand he pushed down on her groin, just above his mouth.
“Elijio,” she cried as the pressure built. He kept his fingers there, flicking back and forth as he ate at her pussy. She rocked against him, fighting the rising tide, even as she grasped for it. The pleasure spiraled, heating until she could barely breathe. She clamped her legs around his head and planted her feet on either side of him on the bed. She lifted her hips off the bed, riding into his pleasure. She gripped at the pillow under head as he sucked her harder. Then he released her clit.
“Now,” he said with a growl and then took her clit back in his mouth and bit down, even as he press/rubbed on that special spot inside of her. The pleasure detonated and tossed her into the sun.
He lifted over her, his eyes flickering to gold and his teeth clenched. He gripped his stiff cock and pumped it with sure strokes. He was long, almost as long as her forearm, with a bulbous heat nearly purple it was so hard. Pearly pre-cum dripped from the tip to her groin. She gripped his hand and guided him to the entrance of her pussy, letting him know that’s just what she wanted. He gripped her hip and slid inside of her. He took his time, sliding in inch by each delicious inch, until she was gasping.
“Faster,” she begged him, her voice breaking.
“Savor it. Take all of me,” he begged as his hips flexed and he sank in another inch. She rode the wave with him as he pumped into her, slow and steady, but so deep she didn’t know where he ended and she began. The pleasure took her away, washed all the worry and pain out of her until there was nothing else but this man and her. Nothing more than a man and a woman coming together in need. She could feel him, deep inside of her, sliding against her moist walls. Such power that he held in check as he moved. He forehead was on hers, his eyes screwed shut, with such a look of rapture on his face her heart pounded. She wrapped her arms around his neck and let him take her away.
A slow fire built into her groin and she keened, pulling him tighter to her. He tilted her hips, driving in deeper, and then wrapped his arms around her. His hips jerked faster, deeper, until he’d set a punishing rhythm and she couldn’t keep up. She lost her breath between one heartbeat and the next and shattered into a million pieces. He didn’t stop. For long hours he took her, into the night, until exhaustion swamped her, and, her ears filled with a hoarse cry as his body tensed and hot cum shot deep within her. He curled around her, breathing roughly as he slowly pulled out of her. She flinched slightly, but his hands, soothing her back, helped take her mind away the small sting. She could not say, in all honesty, if she was angered, at all, with her deal with Elijio Vargas. Even if he hadn’t been giving a million each time, there was nothing about sleeping with him that was hard.
Hell, she’d die a happy woman finally having a man please her the way that he had.
Even now, though her body felt full of concrete and she didn’t think she could move even if the house was on fire, she couldn’t stop a small smile from playing on her lips. She couldn’t fight to keep her eyes open, and her breathing was already slowing, sleep creeping up on her, but she wrapped around Elijio. He sighed against her forehead and helped her get closer, fitting her in the crook of his arm. Comfortable, she let the night’s events with her brother slip away, and let Elijio’s heartbeat rock her to sleep.
Chapter Six
The brightness of the sun finally forced her awake and she groaned. Her body ached in muscles she’d forgotten she owned. Elijio was a tireless and consummate lover. He’d needed to hear every scream, every moan, until her throat was horse and her body limp. Not to say that wasn’t something she greatly appreciated, but in the morning after? Ow. She shifted, feeling something tickling her nose and sniffed at it. It didn’t go away so she swiped at it with her hand. She was met with the sound of a grunt.
Her eyes flew open and she was staring into black fur. She frowned. The bed hadn’t been covered in fur when she and Elijio had lain on it. She remembered the slide of silk, still felt it over her stomach. But she was hot. Very hot. She ran her fingers through the pelt. It was softer than she thought it would be. A soft grunt made her look up—right into the eyes of a goddamned werewolf. She sat up, scrambling.
“Bella,” the wolf said. Holy shit, it can talk!
“Wh-what?” she stammered, dragging the covers up over her body.
“It’s me, Bella. Don’t be frightened.”
“Elijio?” she questioned, shocked. She slid forward slightly in the bed. “Is that you?”
“Yes,” he answered, his ears lowering. He was big, even bigger than Elijio in man form, and covered completely in black fur. His face looked just like a wolf, with the elongated snout and dark eyes. When he spoke there was a slight lisp to his words. She supposed human words weren’t meant to come out of a muzzle.
“Please,” he said again, and once more, since the night before, she heard him whimper. It was that sound that made her look at him, really look at him. For all his size and strength he sat motionless on the bed, trembling. His eyes shifted, looking for any sort of movement, and his ears were plastered to his head. He’s afraid, she thought suddenly.
“How is this possible?” she asked, inching closer until she could sink her hands back in his pelt. He groaned, his eyes closing, and his ears perking.
“I don’t know,” he said. “A long time ago, I was cursed with this. By day I am the wolf, by night I am a man.”
“Who cursed you? Why?”
“A witch. She’d wanted a piece of my prestige, my money, but I didn’t want to share it after just one night in her bed. My refusal caused her to put a spell on me.”
“That takes gold digging to a whole new level,” she said, and was surprised by his bark of laughter. It looked good on him.
“I’ve never thought of it in those terms before, but you are right,” he said with a wolfish grin.
“Is there any way you can break the curse?” He hesitated for a moment before shaking his head.
“No, she didn’t design it to be broken. I am what I am.”
“Is that why they are all so afraid of you?”
“Who?”
“The loan sharks.”
“No, they only see me at night. But having the wolf inside me has some benefits. I’m stronger, much stronger than the average human male, faster, smarter, and I can see better too. And it’s pretty hard to kill me. Using those things in my human form can give most men a reason to pause when they come for me. All they know is that I can’t die, and there has been a few stories about me getting shot and still fighting my way out. It’s useful, and it keeps me from being bothered.”
“I would guess so. That’s why there were so quick to let my brother go.”
“That, and I have the money to back me up. Sometimes it more feasible to pay off trouble then to go at it with violence.” The reminder of exactly what she was doing here left a bitter taste in her mouth and she pulled her hands away from Elijio. He lifted her chin with one big hand gently.
“There were a lot of t
hings that were said last night, I know. But we don’t have to have that between us. We are just a woman and a man, well, at least half of one,” he finished self-deprecatingly.
“Don’t do that. Don’t talk about yourself like that. Honestly, I don’t know why I’m not running for the hills screaming right now. Any other time I think I’d be trying to throw myself out a window to escape. But after everything my brother has done, and all the things I’ve seen, you are not the worst. I’ve seen real beasts. Men who beat and torture innocent people because others can’t stop them, or won’t. I’ve seen my brother broken so bad he could barely move because he couldn’t pay back money that the loan sharks knew he wouldn’t be able to give back in the first place. I watched them harass my ailing mother until she couldn’t take it anymore and the stress gave her a heart attack. And then I’ve seen my brother, uncaring, and unfeeling for all the things we’ve sacrificed, even as we are unable to stop sacrificing for him, because he can’t give up gambling. No matter what he sees, he just can’t give it up, not even for us. They are the real beasts.”
“I’m not so sure, but I see what you mean,” Elijio said. A knock at the door interrupted him from saying anything else, and Richard stepped into the room, freezing when he saw Elijio curled around her.
“I’m sorry. It’s daylight, I thought …” Richard trailed off.
“I guess he knows your secret?” Bella whispered to Elijio after he jumped in front of her to shield her from sight.
“Yes, though he’s going to be a dead man in a second.”
“Don’t be mean. I’m sure he didn’t think I was going to be here. You ripped up my clothes, remember?” she whispered fiercely.
“I’ll do it again, soon,” he said back. “Richard, have Mary get some things together for Bella to wear and have the cook begin breakfast for us. I’ll be down once I escort Bella to her room.”
Bella's Beast Page 3
