Winter's Beast: A Beauty and the Beast Novel

by Twyla Turner

  My jaw clenches tightly.

  I am surprised that I have not broken any teeth since Winter has been here. All I have done for the past three weeks is hold in my rage.

  But what am I supposed to do? If Winter decides she wants to stay, will I go on my own? Would Ivan even relinquish his control over me? And if he did or if I could disappear, who am I besides Ivan Petrov’s bodyguard/assassin? His dog?

  Yet, I cannot stay and watch them together. It would kill me.

  I reluctantly head back upstairs to stand sentry in front of Ivan’s bedroom door. I am only here for a few minutes before I hear her melodic voice.

  “Yury?”

  I do not answer.

  “Yury, please. I know you’re there.” Winter pleads. I can hear tears in her voice.

  All I can see is her pressed against the bedpost, quivering in Ivan’s arms.

  “You can’t possibly think that I wanted that. I mean, not really. You know that he finds a way to take what he wants. You can’t even imagine how…how…” she chokes on tears, “…disgusted I feel. For not being strong enough to say no to him. Or strong enough to not find pleasure in it.”

  At least she is honest.

  I hear her sniffle as she pauses. I think maybe she’s done, but her voice comes through again.

  “My whole life my mom told me to suppress my sexuality. To almost be ashamed of it. Everyone at school told me how wonderful sex is and I didn’t know who was right. So I held back from boys and then men. I let someone in, and he used me to further his career. And I thought that maybe I should give up. On men. On finding pleasure in lovemaking. Then you stole me away like a thief in the night and brought me here.

  “I may not be completely happy with my introduction into finding pleasure in sex, but it has happened, and I can’t change it. And you have a part in it. You played your part in taking me. You’ve assisted in holding me, prisoner. You helped break me.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut in regret and shame.

  “But you’ve also shown me what pleasure is like with someone I care for. What it’s like to be cherished. And I can’t regret that.”

  She refrains from using words of love. ‘Someone I care for’ could be anyone from the postman to a favorite teacher. Not a lover.

  I remain quiet. One, I don’t want anyone to accidentally catch me speaking. That secret was only between Winter and myself. Two, I don’t know what to say to her.

  “You’re not going to say anything?” She whispers against the door. “What about that note you left for me? Did it mean nothing?”

  I pull out my notepad and write quickly.

  What is there to say?

  I am no good for you. Ivan suits you better than I ever could.

  I am a monster who brought all of this on you.

  I slid it under the door. She was silent while she read it.

  “‘You’re no good for me,’ ‘Ivan suits me better?’ Are you kidding me? I would never willingly be with Ivan. And you’re not a monster. When will you start believing you’re so much more than some hired henchman? Than someone’s dog?”

  I did not answer, and she did not say anymore.

  If this is what a broken heart feels like, I would rather not have anything to do with love.

  Chapter 18

  When Yury brings my dinner, he refuses to look at me. As we ride down the elevator to the club, he gives me a wide berth.

  I feel sick to my stomach. Confusion and a slew of other emotions churn in my gut. One emotion rises up to shadow the rest. Anger. I’m just so fucking angry.

  I didn’t choose to be here. I didn’t ask for Ivan’s unwanted attention. I can’t help that I fell for my disfigured bodyguard. I couldn’t stop Ivan from breaking me down, making me beg for him to give me relief. I refuse to regret the most profound lovemaking of my life only minutes after with Yury. I can’t help that I wasn’t strong enough to physically or emotionally fight Ivan off earlier and that Yury had to witness it.

  There was nothing I could do about any of it. And yet, here I am made to feel ashamed and guilty by the only one who was supposed to understand where I’m coming from. I feel like a teenager again, with burgeoning emotions and feelings of a sexual nature and feeling shame when I was scolded by my mother at home and by our preacher at church. Yury’s silent disapproval pulls all those feelings of guilt back up again.

  If I knew it would make a difference and wouldn’t break my hand in the process, I’d clobber Yury upside his stubborn head. But every inch of the man seems like he’s made out of solid concrete covered in deceivingly soft flesh. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t do anything other than hurt me. So I keep my hands to myself.

  When Yury leaves me on stage, as usual, I head towards the birdcage. I frown in confusion at the four women stretching on stage. They all have slender figures yet with the powerful legs of a dancer. They’re in sheer or nude colored, sparkly briefs covered in clear rhinestones and crystals. Their breasts are bare except for their nipples, which are concealed under matching crystal pasties. The whole look gave them the illusion of being completely naked except for strategically placed sparkles.

  Before I could question what they were doing on stage, Ivan bounds onto the stage with a pleased look on his face. I want to punch him too. In the throat and in the dick. That would surely wipe the cocky look on his face as he looks me up and down.

  “Winter, my dear. These are your new dancers. I’ve added them to your performance as more…eye candy for the audience.” Ivan explains with a secret smile on his face. “While you’re in the cage they’ll dance around you. But during Fever your new finale song, they’re going to bring you out of the cage. Just follow their lead, and everything will be fine.”

  I open my mouth to say something, but he stops me.

  “Ah.” He holds up his finger. “Just follow their lead. I have new members in the audience today and at least half the reason they’re here is that they heard the rumors about the club’s main attraction.”

  He winks at me and quickly walks off the stage, giving me zero opportunity to question or deny him.

  Lovely.

  I already know I’m in for something… I’d say unpleasant. But can I say that when everything that happens to me here turns pleasurable?

  Can my life get any more confusing?

  I get in the cage and start my performance. I manage to keep the quiver in my gut out of my voice. Especially as I finish the song before the finale.

  The dancers walk gracefully towards me. One opens the door to the cage and another steps forward to help me out. A stagehand runs across the stage with a chair and sets it down in the middle and runs back off. The dancers lead me to it. I reluctantly sit. One of those old-fashioned chrome microphones drops down from the rafters on a black cord. It startles me as it stops just above my eyes.

  The sexy strum of the bass, the beat of the drums, and the snap of fingers cue me to the beginning of Fever. I begin to sing the first line, and a black cloth lowers in front of my face before I’m blindfolded. My years on stage and experience with technical difficulties keeps my voice steady as my sight is taken from me.

  As the seductive lyrics pass my lips, I feel multiple hands caress my body, and I’m only able to continue singing by pure memory. Muscle memory. Otherwise, the only thing the audience would be hearing is my breath panting through my open mouth. Panting in a combination of anticipation and desire.

  Gentle hands pull at my clothing. Skin exposed. Warm breath. Goosebumps. Fingertips touch. Nipples. Lips. Thigh. Neck. Labia. Ear. Clit.

  I can’t stop the tremble in my voice or the catch in my breath. The words to the song come out breathy at first. They end with heavy pants and moans. But as always when Ivan decides to teach me a lesson, no release. I’m left a bundle of pent-up need and nerves as the song comes to an end.

  I hear the audience go wild with applause and whistles. I sit trying to gain my composure as the spotlight fades. With shaky hands, I remove the blindfold. I loo
k down and see that my breasts are bare. My thighs are spread with my dress hiked around my hips. My lady bits exposed to everyone. Not like I haven’t been naked in front of this crowd before.

  That still doesn’t stop the flush that spreads through my cheeks.

  Yury and Ivan walk up to me from either side of the stage. Ivan’s eyes dance with pleasure. He loves torturing me. Yury’s eyes burn with reluctant need. Every ounce of torture Ivan forces on me, he forces it on Yury simultaneously. I have a feeling that the torture he inflicts on Yury now is to punish him for touching me last night. Although it was Ivan, himself who ordered him to do it. What a mind fuck!

  “You were amazing, Winter. My members were enthralled.” Ivan compliments me as if I had a choice. “We must end your show with that number every Friday and Saturday. It’ll bring new members and keep the ones we already have.”

  He reaches out and cups my chin as he caresses my bottom lip with his thumb.

  “I knew you would be perfect for my club. I just didn’t know how much.”

  He leans in and kisses the corner of my mouth, and I shudder. I quickly pull my face away from his lips and hand. I stand with my lips sealed in a tight line, my chest rising and falling rapidly, my nostrils flaring as I give him the side eye.

  How can I find someone as sinful as him attractive? How can I be turned on by someone I despise? How can I want to have angry, violent sex with him? To bite, hit, scratch, and fuck him until we’re both battle-wounded.

  Ivan holds my eye contact for several beats. Challenging me. Then he turns on his heels and walks away.

  I turn to Yury and his beautiful sorrow-filled brown eyes nearly knock me off my feet.

  At the same time that I want the hatred and violence of my volatile relationship with Ivan, I wanted the love and gentleness of my steady relationship with Yury. Not that my relationship with Yury lacks passion. Our passion is explosive. Whereas my passion with Ivan is…scary.

  “I’d like to go upstairs now,” I inform Yury.

  I don’t wait for a response. Not like I would get one. I turn and rush off the stage, down the hall and out into the vestibule with Yury hot on my tail. I hit the call button on the elevator and ignore him. Though it’s not easy to ignore a six-foot-five, two-hundred and sixty-pound man. But right now, I want to be alone.

  The minute I get into Ivan’s room, I stride into the closet. I find an extra couple of blankets, grab two pillows off the king size bed and walk into the bathroom. I shut and lock the door and then start to create a makeshift bed in the spacious and elegant bathtub.

  I meant what I said earlier. I’m not sleeping in that bed with him and he’s not touching me again if I can help it.

  I’m about to settle into the tub when I hear a knock on the door.

  “Winter.”

  Ivan.

  I sigh.

  The doorknob wiggles.

  “Winter,” he says more sternly this time.

  I slide down into the tub, on top of the blankets.

  “Winter, open this door.”

  “Go away, Ivan.”

  “Open the goddamn door!”

  “Leave me the fuck alone!”

  “You already know I could break this door down, so I don’t know why you think it’ll keep me out.”

  “I know it won’t. But since I know you have too much pride to force yourself on a woman without her express consent, I figured you’d just leave me alone and let me fucking live.” I growl out the last of my sentence.

  “Fine. But heed my words, you will give in. It is inevitable.”

  And then he was gone.

  I release a big breath. Though his words fester like an infection in my mind. In his presence, I’ll never be able to relax.

  Chapter 19

  It’s been two weeks, and Yury still won’t speak to me. I’ve passed him notes like I’m in high school, under the door. I’ve tried to talk to him when he takes me down to the club. But nothing will get through to him.

  It’s also been two weeks’ worth of avoiding Ivan. From that first day in his room on, I refuse to have my back to a door. He’ll never catch me unawares again. At night, I lock myself in the bathroom with the spare blankets and pillows from the closet, and I sleep in the bathtub.

  After the first night that I slept there, Ivan stopped being mad or trying to get me to come out. No, he had way too much pride to beg. Instead, he simply brought a woman or two to his room every night. They’d have loud, marathon-level sex. I don’t even know how the man has the stamina to do it every night and work five days a week.

  And of course, I was not completely immune. But what else is new?

  Since I’ve been here, I’ve realized another thing about me. I’m very much turned on by visuals and sounds. I spend the weekends singing and watching people fuck, while dancers touch me and every night I listened to Ivan screw the lady of his choice.

  So once again, I am in a constant state of arousal. My lady parts are continually throbbing and persistently wet. Changing underwear after every show is a must. And not wearing any to bed (or bath as it were) is for the best as well.

  Speak of the devil, and he’ll appear.

  The sounds of people crashing into Ivan’s bedroom vibrate through the whole master suite as I get comfortable in the tub after my performance. I hear giggling. It sounds like it's only one woman tonight.

  “Ooh, la la! Ivan, I love your place!” The woman purrs with a slight slur.

  “Mmm…don’t get too comfortable, my pet. I’m not the committed type.” Ivan says between what sounds like kisses.

  I roll my eyes. He’s certainly committed to making my life a living hell.

  I can’t see what’s happening, but I can certainly imagine. Clothes being clumsily stripped away. Tongues entwining in between.

  I hear the sounds of suckling and a soft gasp. Lips, teeth, and tongue on tight nipples. Next, I hear the soft slurping sounds of a woman being eaten out.

  “Aaaah! Yes, Ivan! That’s so good!” She moans out.

  I squeeze my thighs together tightly. I can already feel the slickness coating my lips.

  Ugh!!!

  “Oh, fuck! Oh…oh…aaaaaah!” She cries out.

  I hear more sucking sounds, but these sounds are more like the guttural noises of a blowjob. I know I’m right when I hear Ivan groan.

  I can see lips around a thick shaft. The one that comes to mind is long, extra thick and curved. Attached to a kind, scarred man. Just picturing him with my mouth around him, makes my breath hitch.

  The throbbing between my legs intensifies, and I can’t take another sleepless night of unfulfilled arousal.

  I take a deep breath. I self-consciously slide my hand into the little sleep shorts I’m wearing. I know there is no reason to be embarrassed or shy. That so many women do it, but I have so many years of religious shame to get past. After everything that’s happened to me since I’ve been here, pleasuring myself seems to be the last thing, I should be ashamed of. I ignore my learned behavior to feel shame and listen to my baser instincts to find release.

  My fingertips touch the edge of my labia, and they’re drenched with my arousal. My fingers are coated with it instantly. It makes stroking through my folds easier. I’m so slick with it that I feel it run down the crease of my backside.

  I timidly stroke the tip of my index finger in a circle around my clit and it feels so good that my breath starts to pant through my lips. The more I caress, the better it feels. The better it feels, the more my inhibitions fall like leaves in autumn.

  On the other side of the wall, I can hear the slap of skin against skin. The wet sound of an aroused woman welcoming an eager, equally aroused man. My fingers stroke faster and I feel the building tension. I hear the cries of release from the other room, and they tip me over the edge. My pussy flexes and spasms. My hips roll rhythmically against my fingers. My brows furrow and my mouth pops open. I only allow the softest of cries to pass my lips.

  As I come down from
my high, I melt into the bathtub. My bones liquid. My body finally sated.

  Too tired to get out of the tub to wash my fingers, I lick them clean instead. Always curious as to how I taste, anyway. My flavor is clean and tangy.

  As my eyes become heavy with fatigue and I drift off to sleep, I smile. That moment with myself. Pleasuring myself was life altering. This whole situation has been. I feel like I’ve been released from a cage that my mom, my religion, and society put me in from the moment I was born with a vagina.

  We are not supposed to be sexual. We are not supposed to find pleasure from sex. We are only here to bring pleasure to men.

  Although Ivan is a man who obviously believes in the ideology that women were sent to pleasure him, he unknowingly gifted me with the complete opposite.

  He was the catalyst that eventually started me on my path to find my sexuality. Which gave me the power to confidently take my pleasure when and where I needed it.

  As I fall asleep, a plan starts to formulate for my performance tomorrow night. A plan to torment my captor and bring down my beast.

  Chapter 20

  Every day that I do not speak to Winter or even acknowledge her is another day that I feel more dead inside.

  Before we forced her here, I merely existed. I woke up, I got dressed, I protected Ivan, I followed whatever orders he gave me (legal or not), I ate, I slept, and I did it all over again the next day. Once I saw her on that stage that first night in Moscow, I felt alive. As if all of those mundane tasks finally had a purpose.

  Now things are different. Instead of just existing, I feel dead. Lifeless. And I am afraid I cannot go back to feeling numb again.

  She still tries to talk to me every day. But I can’t even look at her. Not after the daily briefings by Ivan.

  Every morning he tells me how he fucked Winter all night. Sometimes alone. Sometimes with other women.

  “Oh, Skotina. I’m breaking her in quite nicely. She’s becoming a good little concubine.” He’d say arrogantly.