Beauty and the Beast (Not Quite the Fairy Tale #3) (5 page)

Chapter Five

Chill Out

B
elle made it ten minutes late; the doors opened in front of her without a question, and then, she entered another world.

Fucking hell.

The principal room was full; every one of the humongous seventeen tables was occupied by ten people, at the very least. There were piles of chips in front of them, and they pushed them eagerly, without a care about the fact that the smallest one represented more than what Belle made in a week.

The waiter and waitresses were easy to pinpoint; while they had no uniform, they wore the mustard yellow Aiden had clothed her in – his trademark, she guessed.

Choosing that shade had been wise: no guest was likely to wear it. It wasn’t a very popular color, as it matched the Jereenan flag, and no one was overly fond of the unconcerned government.

Her eyes took it all in, before going up to the platform in the center of the place.

She didn’t know how she could have missed it, at first.

There, above everyone else, were shadows she mercifully couldn’t completely make out. They were doing exactly what she’d imagined, though; only, it was worse.

It wasn’t a show, with actors exaggerating every movement to make the scene seem sexy. Oh, no. it was very real.

The shape of a female – a well-proportioned woman, with the tiniest body, and the largest breasts – was bent over a table, and while silhouettes often obstructed her from view, she caught the form of a portly guy fucking her from behind; he moved to the other side of the table, climbed on and sat just in front of her, pushing her face down on his short, but thick dick. In the meantime, someone had replaced him at the rear.

No one forces them to do it: they love sex
, Vera had told her, and Belle had come to believe it, and to feel a bit ashamed for her snap judgment. To be frank, it added up. Somehow, she couldn’t imagine that the Beast, who’d immediately respected her refusal, when he’d suggested a rump in the sacks, would take anyone’s free will away.

Taking it as something consensual, now, she found it strangely disgusting and enticing all at once.

Sure, the idea of that girl doing
that
of her own volition made things far, far less sordid, but she still despised everything attached to it.

Despising it didn’t stop her crotch from getting uncomfortable. 

Damn. Belle reluctantly averted her eyes and closed her legs. Never had she wished she’d worn knickers quite so bad. She might have enough time to nip back upstairs and put some on, if no one had seen her…

“What time do you call this?”

Dammit.

The Beast didn’t sound as displeased as she’d anticipated, but he wasn’t happy either, so now wasn’t the time to run upstairs.

She took the arm he lent her and followed him to a poker table.

Getting bored took all of twenty minutes; she’d people-watched, entertaining herself by trying to guess the occupation of each player, but that only distracted her for a while; then, she noticed that no one talked to her or even looked at her. What were they so afraid of? The Beast? Ha. Ha. Ha. What a bunch of cowards.

They were in front of a tableful of guests playing the roulette when the first person acknowledged her existence; an older man, perhaps still handsome, but also slimy as fuck, eyed her appraisingly, openly, as though she’d been a piece of meat on display, before glancing back up to the Beast.

“A new one of our daily delight?” he asked, licking his lips.

She was going to be sick.

“Afraid not, Marcus. This one is just mine.”

“An exquisite acquisition, Beast. Where have you dug her from?”

“You may have heard I had an issue with a hacker, not so long ago. Let’s just say it’s sorted,” the Beast said, pulling her towards his hard frame to punctuate his meaning.

Belle dropped her eyes to the floor and blushed appropriately, while cursing the said hacker in her mind.

“How delightful. Send her my way when you’re done.”

Who was he and how could she make his life a living hell?

A beat passed during which Belle had to do her utmost to prevent herself from throttling that prick; the Beast better pay her double for dealing with that shit. 

“Afraid she isn’t that kind of woman, Marcus. There’s no price tag on these legs. Normally.”

This directed the old sleaze’s gaze back on her, along her thighs. It stopped at the top of the slit and his eyes narrowed. Belle shifted uncomfortably. It was almost as if he could tell there wasn’t anything underneath.

“That makes you one lucky man,” he finally said, returning to his game.

The Beast was soon moving along, to the next table, directing her with a hand behind her back.

“What a prick,” she murmured.

“A prick with a very good sense of smell,” the Beast responded, clipped, obviously pissed off. “There are a few fay descendants here; you may want to go refresh those thighs of yours before we get to the next guests.”

She stopped right there and pulled him until he was looking straight down at her eyes. 

“Are you saying that it’s somehow
my fault
that that disgusting friend of yours took me for a prostitute, when
you’re
the one who dressed me liked that?”

“I gave you panties, Sibelle Thornton. Be so good as to wear them, next time, and we won’t have any issue.”

His face was very close and she could see his nostrils flaring. Well, get in line, big guy. He wasn’t the only pissed off one.

“Look down,” he ordered her, slowly enunciating each word. “Now.”

Everything in her rebelled against that, but over the course of the next sixty seconds, she recalled what she was here for; her pride wasn’t worth it. She relented and her eyes dropped to the floor.

“Good girl.”

While she didn’t respond to that out loud, she couldn’t help but stomping on his foot at the next step. Hard.

“Oops,” she apologized, grinning away.

Dickhead.

♦

Painful. It was just fucking painful. The fragrance was still dominated by honey and cinnamon, but underneath it all, there was a layer of bittersweet spices, a raw carnal, feminine and alluring scent he – just like Marcus – had no problem recognizing. She was very wet, more so every time she looked up towards Julia and her guests. It might have been bad in any case, but as she’d decided to refrain from covering her damn pussy, it was all he could smell.

He lasted exactly thirty-seven minutes.

Aiden didn’t spend more than a couple of hours in the casino each day – his actual job was running it behind the scenes – but tonight, he couldn’t manage even that.

He’d turned caveman and suddenly grabbed Sibelle’s hand, dragging her out. Everyone would assume he was about to take her to the first available room and rip her clothes open; hell, for a minute, he even thought he might.

Then, he turned to her, met her tantalizing amber eyes and remembered.

He was a Beast. She looked like
that
. Even horny as she was right now, any kind of move on his part would have ended in an embarrassing rejection.

“Is this where I practice screaming your name?”

Fuck. Those sweet lips were delicious, but it was when they opened that they became dangerous.

Silent, he could see her for what she was, the impossibly perfect unattainable beauty; however, the feisty, friendly, and – if he wasn’t mistaken – flirty banter she threw his way was confusing his senses.

Dammit.

“No screaming.”

Please, no screaming,
he would have begged, if necessary. 

He stopped after he’d guided her upstairs; no one was going to follow them, here. They’d done their job for the night. It was time to retire to his rooms, and to let her return to hers.

They’d both stopped at the top of the grand staircase. She didn’t say a word, nor did he.
Goodnight,
while appropriate, just didn’t want to come out of his lips.

She was looking up at him and he couldn’t think of a thing that he wouldn’t have given to know what was happening underneath the brown-auburn waves right then.

On impulse, he grabbed his keys and opened the door in front of him. He walked in, refraining himself from formulating an invitation. She could go to bed if she wanted to.

The old library had been turned into his man cave. He’d left the books on the walls, but there was also a giant TV screen, plenty of movies, two different gaming platforms, a minibar and a really good sound system.

He always closed the doors, unwilling to let it become some sort of a social place – it was his
chill out room.
His
.

Yes, Aiden was a bit on the possessive side of the scale – however, he didn’t have anything against sharing with her, for some reason.

He sank right onto his favorite sofa, grabbed the remote and turned on a good tune, as if everything was just peachy. As if the most beautiful woman in the world wasn’t on his threshold, pondering on whether she wanted to walk in.

He expected she wouldn’t.

♦

Everything about the Beast said
bugger off, I’m relaxing.
His eyes were closed, head thrown back, arms folded behind it.

But damn, she’d had a long week, too. Preparing for a battle, she straightened her spine and stepped inside.

She’d been solely focused on the Beast, before, but now she took in the surroundings and her mouth fell open.

Most people ended up doing a job to pay the bills, but there was a reason why Belle worked in a library, and that reason was the books.

She was fond of reading, and it was practical – not to mention, cheap – to do so on an electronic device; she’d bought a second hand eReader ages ago but, to her, nothing compared to the smell, the feel, the pleasure of holding a book. Especially a well preserved, old one, at that. There were half a dozen of originals in the Royal Library, and she valued them like the treasures they were.

The circular walls were completely covered by priceless, ancient books. Her hand shakily went to the first shelf on her right, and grabbed a hand written manuscript of the Old Tale.

Belle could recall the illustrations of the original; and that was
it.
She recognized the logo stamped at the back as well as the neat calligraphy in green ink.

She almost dropped it, in her daze. Fuck. No. It was just a masterful copy. Right?

She put it back and resolved to step away from the shelves.

Turning, she saw the Beast glancing her way; he seemed very amused. She breathed out; of course it was a copy. He would have stopped her from grabbing it without gloves, if it hadn’t been.

“You like books?”

“I like coffee, cake, good music and soapy movies. Books? I adore. That’s quite the collection.”

“Family heirloom,” he responded with a shrug. “These are only those that were given to me when my grandmother passed away. You should see my father’s library.”

It was strange, imagining the Beast had a father, a grandmother; she frowned, wondering why it didn’t compute in her mind.

Probably because of his appearance. It was definitely standing out, and most children did somewhat resemble their parentage. No eminent figure had looked like that before he’d come out of the shadows a few years ago, and to possess such a library, his family was obviously part of the crème de la crème.

It just seemed strange.

On the other hand, Belle looked nothing like her fair “siblings,” so he might have been like her – raised by people who weren’t his flesh.

She wondered if he had more answers than she did; did he know where he came from, or had  his parents just died on a cruise before saying a word to him?

She couldn’t ask, though. Asking would mean revealing what she was – something Ben had made her swear she’d never mention to anyone. Medically, her body was the kind of miracle that
should
be studied and understood by scientist, if it helped cure some ailment; she’d just rather live a long, happy life and die of natural cause before spending some time under the scalpel.

“What?” he asked, taking in her baffled expression.

“What’s your name?”

He had to have a name and it couldn’t be Beast. No parent was that cruel. Although, to be fair, what hers
had
called her translated to “So Beautiful,” in the ancient
Jereena
n tongue; she’d take Beast any day. 

“It doesn’t matter,” he replied.

The tone was harsh, final; which meant that it
did
matter quite a bit.

Belle narrowed her eyes, irritated.