In Bed With the Beast

by Tara Sivec

  “Fine. But only because you asked so nicely.”

  The corner of his mouth twitches and he pulls one of his hands out of his pocket, holding it out for me to take. I slide my small hand into his large warm one, and he laces his fingers through mine, pulling me down the sidewalk to his truck parked against the curb.

  Chapter 19: This is Me Refusing to Share

  It’s been three days since Vincent’s outburst and him “saving me” from my date with Dusty. Once again, we’re like two ships passing in the night, except the ships are listing to the side with holes in them, taking on water and everyone is drowning.

  Okay, maybe I’m being a bit dramatic, but to say things have been awkward and strained between us is putting it mildly. He’s been overly polite with me during the few minutes each day we see each other, which I’m quickly realizing I don’t like one bit. I’ve actually grown to kind of like his surly, overbearing nature. And ever since our quiet, uncomfortable ride home from the bar that night, the door to the library has remained unlocked and wide open. Yet, I can’t bring myself to walk in there no matter how much that room screams to me to come inside, curl up by the fire, and read a book.

  It feels like an invasion of privacy now. There’s something about that room he feels very strongly about, and even though he’s clearly left it open for me, I just can’t do it. Not until he tells me why. Not until I can understand what it is about this room that pushed him over the edge when I went in without his permission.

  On top of all of this confusion, I don’t even know where we stand on the whole teaching me how to be sexy and flirty thing. Does he still want to do it? Do I still want him to teach me how to do it? Does coming after me, apologizing, and being sweet mean he really does like me, regardless of what he said? And do I still like him and want to see if anything more could develop between us?

  “You can go in there, you know.”

  I jump when I hear Vincent’s low voice behind me, whirling around guiltily to find him standing behind me right outside the library, his hair damp from his recent shower, wearing his usual pair of well-worn jeans, black motorcycle boots and a T-shirt that fits him like a glove. Since it’s early morning, I thought for sure he’d be sleeping the day away after working so late last night, but I guess not. The scent of Irish Spring overwhelms me, and I have to squeeze my hands into fists and lock my knees together to stop myself from taking a step forward to smell him.

  Well, I guess that answers my question about whether or not I still like him.

  When I don’t answer him right away, he grabs one of my hands and pulls me into the library, stopping right next to the ladder on wheels.

  “Go ahead. I know you’re dying to climb it.”

  I really don’t want him to see how happy this makes me, but I can’t help it. I let out an excited squeal and quickly grab onto the rungs, climbing a few of them with a huge smile on my face. Holding on tightly, I turn and look down at him over my shoulder.

  “Let me guess. You want me to push you?”

  Instead of answering him, I start bouncing up and down excitedly on the ladder.

  He lets out a low chuckle, grabbing onto the ladder right by my feet, slowly pushing it along the shelves.

  “This is the best day ever!” I shout excitedly, making the mistake of removing one of my hands from the ladder to throw it in the air.

  I lose my balance and one of my feet slips off the rung. With my hands still wrapped around the edge, I cling to it tightly as I slide down, Vincent’s hands grabbing onto my hips to stop me from falling to the floor. When my feet touch the ground, I slowly turn around to face him. He’s standing so close that I have no choice but to press my back against the ladder as I look up at him.

  “New rule,” he says softly, which makes me roll my eyes. “You can come in here whenever you want. But, if you still want me to help you, no more dates.”

  I open my mouth to argue, but he quickly presses his palm against my mouth to quiet me.

  “This is not me being overbearing. This is me refusing to share.”

  Swallowing thickly behind his hand, I reach up and grab onto it, slowly pulling it away from my mouth before I do something stupid like lick his palm to see what his skin tastes like.

  “Got it. Ten-four. Over and out, good buddy. But just so you know, I totally forgot about that one the other night. I would have cancelled if I remembered it. Poor Dusty.”

  Oh my God. Stop talking.

  Vincent’s eyes narrow and he studies my face for a few seconds, until it takes everything in me not to squirm under his stare.

  “Ask me. I know it’s killing you.”

  I look up at him questioningly.

  “About this room. And why I was such an asshole and a jerk the other night,” he replies.

  I bite my bottom lip and stare with fascination as his eyes drift down to watch what I’m doing, the beautiful brown irises growing darker the more I worry my lip. Shaking my head to clear my thoughts, I let out a small, uncomfortable cough.

  “Um, well. I guess I’m just kind of wondering why you would keep a room like this locked. It’s amazing, Vincent. I would live in this room if I had something like this in my home.”

  He takes a minute to look around at the shelves while I take that minute to stare at him. His chiseled jaw and the scruffy hair covering it makes me wonder what it would feel like to run my palm over it. Would it be soft or would it be scratchy? And what would it feel like on other parts of my body?

  A full-body shiver goes through me, and I quickly steel myself when his eyes meet mine again and he lets out a deep sigh, dropping his hands from my hips as he takes a step back from me.

  “It is a great room. It just reminds me too much of my past, and that just pisses me off. Which you already know. I got angry and I lost my temper because . . . it’s embarrassing. I made that rule when you moved in because I didn’t want you to know about that part of my life. About the stupid choices I made that got me to this point. About how much I fucked everything up.”

  He runs one of his hands through his damp hair and I keep my mouth shut, not wanting to ruin the moment of having him finally open up to me. A few quiet, tense minutes go by before he finally speaks again.

  “I wasn’t always a bouncer at Charming’s. I used to be an English teacher at Magdalene Preparatory.”

  My eyes widen in shock, and it takes me a few seconds before I can speak.

  “That’s the most prestigious school in the state. I wanted to go there, and I had the grades, but my dad couldn’t afford it. Even with the couple of scholarships I’d earned, it wasn’t enough. The teachers there are the best in the country. . . .” I trail off, looking at him in a whole new light.

  “Don’t sound so surprised. I was a damn fucking good teacher,” he tells me.

  “I’m not surprised at all about you being a teacher. You’re smart, and you’re commanding, and I can just picture you pacing back and forth in the front of a classroom, talking passionately about a subject,” I assure him. “I guess I’m just surprised you aren’t anymore. I mean, Charming’s is a great place, and PJ and Eric are wonderful, but . . . it’s not exactly Magdalene Preparatory.”

  “No, it’s definitely not.” Vincent lets out a laugh without any humor in it. “I was engaged a few years ago. To a woman named Kayla. She was a dancer at Charming’s. We were together for three years and . . . I thought she was the one. It turns out she thought every man who walked through the door of that place was the one, as long as he had more money than the guy before. I found out she was sleeping with half the customers, and I showed up there one night after I finished grading papers. Found her in the back room in between one of her sets, ten seconds away from fucking a customer. Long story short, I beat the shit out of him, the school board found out when he pressed charges, and they fired me. PJ tracked me down a few weeks later when his regular bouncer quit, offered me a job, gave me the nickname Beast, and the rest is history. I’ve kept this room locked since
then because coming in here reminded me too much of everything I’d lost.”

  “Oh, Vincent, I’m so sorry,” I whisper, taking a step towards him and resting my hands on his chest. “That must have been horrible. A clinical psychologist who specializes in relationships said in a recent study that she thinks cheating can be contagious, and you’re more likely to do it if people around you are. So, if you think about it, cheating is kind of like herpes. It’s gross, painful, and the scars never go away.”

  The corner of Vincent’s mouth tips up into a smile, and a few seconds later, I’m rewarded with small chuckle from him as he stands shaking his head at me.

  “You’re so weird,” he whispers, staring down at me with a smile.

  “So, that’s why you don’t trust strippers.”

  He just nods.

  “Well, at least now I know you weren’t hiding dead bodies in here,” I tell him with a sheepish smile. “I really am sorry we got drunk and broke in here. If it makes you feel any better, I was firmly against it and tried to talk the girls out of it. At first. And then—”

  “You let the wine do the talking,” he finishes for me. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, I was planning on unlocking this door and letting you in here when I got home from work that night anyway. I felt like you deserved it after all that shit I said to you that day about you pretending to be sweet and innocent. And I know that makes me sound like a hypocrite, after the way I behaved when I caught you in there. I guess I just wanted to do it on my own terms, and it pissed me off when it was out of my control. I haven’t set foot in a library or even touched a book until the first night I walked into your library. You made me realize how much I missed reading and talking about books.”

  “And then I had to screw it all up by breaking your trust.”

  Suddenly, he grabs onto my hips and pulls me flush against him.

  “You didn’t break anything. You’re exactly who you say you are and I guess . . . I’m just not used to that kind of honesty.”

  His fingers dig into the skin of my hips, but not in a painful way. It’s almost as if he’s trying really hard to hold himself back, and it makes my skin heat with excitement.

  “Are you going to keep teaching me how to be sexy and flirty now?” I ask in anticipation.

  He lets out another chuckle and shakes his head at me again.

  “Not until you’re comfortable.”

  “I’m wearing a soft, cotton jersey dress and I’m barefoot. This is about as comfortable as it gets,” I reply.

  His hands tighten on my hips and he lifts me up a few inches, setting me down on one rung of the ladder.

  “That’s not what I mean,” he mutters, moving forward until his body is between my legs. My hands come up to grab on to his thick biceps. “I meant, not until you’re comfortable with me.”

  I let out a nervous laugh when his hands move from my hips, trailing down the outside of my legs.

  “Oh, ha ha, yeah, that. Um, I’m totally comfortable with you!” My voice comes out high-pitched and squeaky, and he raises one eyebrow at me as both of his hands slip under the skirt of my dress, his palms sliding up my bare thighs until he gets them back to my hips.

  I swallow thickly, the back of my neck tingling and my body breaking out in a cold sweat when the tips of his fingers trace over the band of my underwear resting on my hips.

  “Are you wearing satin?” he asks softly.

  “Yes. I have a thing for pretty lingerie even though no one ever sees it but me, and a whopping eighty-four percent of women say they have special sets of sex lingerie, according to a recent survey. They make you feel like vixen, highlight all your best assets, but are totally impractical for everyday wear, but I still wear them every day. In fact, eighty-nine percent of the women surveyed said that these special sets make them more sexually confident, and I need to do whatever I can to feel more sexually confident so I can be a stripper,” I ramble nervously as his fingers continue playing with the edges of my red satin thong, which I had no idea would be seen by anyone, least of all him, when I put it on this morning.

  My heart starts thundering in my chest and I’m panting so hard I think I might hyperventilate when his fingertips start sliding from hips to between my thighs. My hands immediately let go of his biceps and I reach between us, grabbing onto his wrists before he goes any further.

  “What are you doing?!”

  “You asked if I was going to teach you how to be sexy. That involves touching,” Vincent replies easily, his warm palms still resting against my inner thighs. “Also, I like you. I don’t want to just be your stripping teacher. I’m not a fairy tale kind of guy, but I’d like a chance to see where this thing between us can go.”

  “I . . . um . . . I just . . . well . . .”

  He lets out a soft chuckle, pulling his hands out from under my skirt and taking a step back from me, and slowly my breath returns to normal again.

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought. You are not comfortable with me yet, and that’s fine.”

  He grabs my hand and pulls me down from the ladder, tugging me across the room and out into the hallway.

  “What are you doing? Where are we going?” I ask as he pauses in the living room to grab my purse and hand it to me, waiting for me to slip into a pair of shoes before scooping his keys up from the kitchen counter.

  “Somewhere you’ll feel more comfortable,” is all he replies as he leads me out the front door.

  Chapter 20: Is This Okay?

  “That man sure does have a nice tush.”

  “Mrs. Potter!” I whisper, looking at her in shock.

  “I’m old, not dead. Just look at the way he fills out those jeans.”

  Both of us are leaning on our elbows at the reference desk with our chins resting in our hands, staring at Vincent, who is shelving a cartful of books that were returned today.

  “Mr. Potter didn’t have much of a behind, even in his younger days. But it didn’t matter, that man could still light me up like a Christmas tree. How’s the electricity between you two?” she asks, giving me a nudge with her shoulder.

  “It’s fine. Very . . . electrifying.”

  We both let out a quiet sigh when Vincent bends over to shove a book on the bottom shelf.

  When he pulled me out of the house earlier and said he would take me somewhere I felt comfortable, I never expected him to bring me to the library. He’s stayed here with me all day, making me show him what it takes to run a library. I showed him how to catalogue new books on the computer and tried not to laugh when he typed with just his two big pointer fingers, taking three times as long to enter the books into the system than a normal person. When I asked him how in the world he could have been a teacher if he couldn’t type worth a damn, he just shrugged and said he had an assistant for that. He watched me help a few patrons find specific books they were looking for, show someone how to use the old microfiche machine in one of the back rooms to look up some newspaper articles, and he leaned against one of the bookcases in the children’s section, quietly watching me read to a group of kids during story time.

  Trying to pretend that having his eyes on me wasn’t distracting through an entire story about a mouse attempting to find a piece of cheese was almost impossible, but I managed to get through it.

  Now it’s almost closing time, and I sent him away to shelve some books for a little bit, so I could breathe. Having him here, all day, in my space was overwhelming. I wasn’t used to someone being so interested in what I did here on a daily basis, but he never acted like he was bored or would rather be anywhere else. And his idea worked: I’ve never felt more comfortable with him. He understands me a little bit better now, and I understand that there really is a kindhearted, sweet man underneath that tough exterior.

  “Okay, what’s next?” Vincent asks, pushing the empty cart up to the desk and pausing in front of it.

  “Closing time!” Mrs. Potter announces, pushing away from the counter and grabbing her coat and purse from th
e drawer. “You two kids have fun!”

  She gives me a wink and then rounds the counter, stopping in front of Vincent.

  “Don’t forget what I said about the sturdiness of the A-B shelf in the children’s section,” she says in a loud whisper, rising up on her tiptoes to pat him on the cheek.

  I groan, dropping my head into my hands as she makes her way across the room and out the front door, the bells above it chiming loudly.

  “So, what all does closing up entail?” Vincent asks as I open the top drawer and pull out a set of keys.

  “Nothing but locking up, taking a trip around the library to make sure everyone’s gone, then turning off the lights,” I tell him as he holds his hand out over the counter.

  I drop the keys into his palm and watch him walk over to the door and lock it, coming around behind the counter and setting the keys on top of it. He grabs my hand and tugs me towards him.

  “Come on, I’ll help you look for stowaways,” he says with a smile as we begin walking through the library. “So, tell me how it is you started running this place.”

  A smile lights up my face as we check behind doors, under tables and walk up and down every aisle.

  “Well, obviously I love books. When I was in high school and wanted to get a job just so I had enough money to buy more books, this was the only place my dad approved of,” I tell him with a shrug. “He’s a little overprotective. My mom died when I was a few years old. She worked at a bank that was robbed. When she refused to give the man any money, he shot her in the chest.”

  “Jesus, Belle. I’m so sorry,” Vincent says quietly as we move to the nonfiction section.

  “It’s fine. I was young, and I don’t even remember her. Sometimes, I don’t know what’s worse—knowing someone and having all sorts of wonderful memories of them after they’re gone, like the way they smelled, the sound of their voice and what their smile looked like, or not having any of those memories at all and having to pretend,” I explain. “I guess that’s where my love of books started. I liked to read books about children with mothers, wanting to know everything about what it was like to have someone braid your hair, help you pick out clothes, teach you how to put on makeup, and all that other stuff.”