Freeing the Beast: Taming the Beast, Book 1

by Tina Donahue

  They were mere immortals.

  She’d just tasted ambrosia from a god. Eric was definitely that. Perfect in every way. Especially now. With the help of the second potion, the first had worked as it should, releasing just enough of his beast. Definitely the best part.

  For seconds he heaved air, then coughed, sighed and finally quieted down.

  Leaving too much silence and time to talk.

  About what? The babes he’d snare now?

  At last, Becca felt horribly naked and downright foolish. The same as in middle school when she’d screwed up enough courage to ask one of the less-than-cool guys to the homecoming dance, a huge deal. He’d said yes then cancelled two days before the event when a cuter girl asked him to go with her. The rest of the school year had been awful, having to run into him constantly, noting his disinterest in her, his adoration for the other girl.

  That wasn’t something Becca intended to repeat with Eric.

  With his next yawn, she crawled off the table, grabbed her clothes and held them in front of her.

  Eric went from sleepy to alert in a second. “What are you doing?”

  “Leaving. Go on, get dressed. You can leave too.”

  “Leave, are you kidding?”

  “The potion worked.”

  “Yeah, I know.” He tried to sit up. The restraints stopped him.

  Shit. She’d forgotten about them. “Hold on.” With one arm, Becca held her clothes to her boobs as she undid his right wrist. “There.” She backed away again. “You can get the others yourself.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. I have work to do.”

  He glanced at her cunt, exposed beneath her clothes, still wet from his tongue. “Now?”

  “Yeah. Glad the portion worked. You did good.” She gave him a thumbs-up and escaped into the hall, not considering what her coworkers might think about her nudity and what just happened. Becca simply needed to flee her feelings about Eric.

  Chapter Five

  Talk about feeling like a piece of meat.

  He did good?

  As opposed to what? Something that would have kept Becca on top of him, indulging in her X-rated fantasies, loving his balls and cock?

  Eric figured he’d done something wrong, but couldn’t imagine what it might have been. He’d behaved like the badass he’d always wanted to be, ordering her around, demanding she strip. She’d had no problem with that, or him gorging on her slick pussy. Hell, he’d suckled her rigid little clit with far more than finesse, he’d adored it with damn need, deliberately driving her wild. He’d lifted his hips so she could play with his boys.

  Aw shit, that had been sweet. The rasp of her tongue on his sac, the taste of her mouth and then her nub had made his ears buzz. Her womanly scent still invaded this room and his senses, turning his legs to jelly.

  What they’d shared had been so damn nice. No, it had been fucking great. Yet here he was nude and used, fighting the leather restraint on his wrist while she was on the other side of the door, trying to console Heather, not him.

  “I’m all right, really,” Becca insisted.

  “But you’re naked,” Heather cried.

  “Look, I’m getting dressed. Okay?”

  No, it wasn’t. Eric wanted to see Becca’s plush ass, lavish breasts and every other damned inch of her for as long as he wanted. The same as what she’d done with him, insisting he undress, screaming at him to keep his eyes closed while she mixed that shitty-tasting potion.

  Secret ingredients, his butt.

  He hadn’t been born yesterday in any sense of the word. Becca had wanted a chance to stare at his stuff. He hadn’t argued at all, giving her exactly what she craved. If anything, that made him accommodating to a fault. The problem that had brought him here.

  No more. He was through with being polite.

  Heather kept whimpering, seemingly on the verge of tears. “Oh no, your top’s torn.”

  “Not that much. See? The ties still work.”

  “But it’s ripped. Did he do that?”

  Eric made a face. She made “he” sound like a four-letter word.

  “No,” Becca said. “I did.”

  Heather gasped. “But why?”

  Because your boss couldn’t strip and crawl on me fast enough, all right? That had been pure passion. No way did Eric believe Becca behaved that way with her other clients.

  Did she?

  Doubt crept in. On a muttered curse, he shoved it away. It pushed back, flooding his brain with all kinds of crap.

  He regarded her champagne flute. She’d said it was Crystal Light. Had she added something that made her horny so she’d be stoked for sex? Eric couldn’t figure out why she’d have to prepare for that, unless he wasn’t enough for her and there was a clause about it in his contract.

  She’d left it on the sink’s counter.

  He finally freed his ankles and left the table so quickly he fell, his left leg and all of his weight thudding on the floor.

  Heather squeaked, “What was that?”

  “Nothing. Go back to work.” Becca rapped lightly on the door. “You okay in there?”

  You, not Eric, as though he was a complete stranger even after the orgasms they’d given each other.

  “What do you think?” he growled.

  She stopped pacing. “Do you need any help?”

  From one of her weirdo staff? It seemed unlikely that Becca would offer him a hand, boob, nipple, clit or anything else he wanted. “Nope. I’m great. Just like you promised in the contract. Page seventy-three, I believe. Right below my initials.”

  She tapped her foot.

  It matched the noise of a pointer hitting a teacher’s palm before she swung the thing at a problem student.

  “Well, good then,” Becca said.

  Eric caught the screw you behind it. Hadn’t she already done that by running out of the room?

  “It’s what you wanted,” she added, her accusation pouring through the door. “Zoe will get you a receipt. Have a great day.” Her heels clicked as she hurried down the hall, leaving him alone, used and bruised.

  Rubbing his battered thigh, Eric went to the counter. A quick scan of the contract told him there weren’t any clauses in it about her having sex with him as a condition of the treatment or for any other reason.

  She’d wanted him and then she hadn’t, and then she’d seemed pissed about it. As though it was his fault she couldn’t get away from him fast enough. No different from every other woman in his life, which put him right back to where he started.

  Except this time, Eric intended to find out why.

  Becca faced her office window, watching today’s first wave of tourists. Mainly families with little kids who jumped rather than walked, their tiny voices squealing, fingers pointing at stuff they wanted their parents to buy. Junk that would make them happy.

  She tried to recall when life had been that simple.

  A time when it didn’t matter if a little girl wasn’t beautiful and slender, or if a boy didn’t measure up to whatever society dictated of a male. Moments when the way you’d been born was good enough. You were alive, healthy, ready for anything.

  Then puberty kicked in and screwed everything up, replacing inexhaustible wonder and confidence with endless uncertainty.

  He’d said he was great. The potion had worked. He’d been so eager to get out of here and test it, he’d fallen off the table.

  She arched one eyebrow. Maybe he’d want another potion to make him a little less klutzy. If he did, she was going to let Zoe give it to him. In more ways than one.

  Becca leaned against the window and fingered the safety pin holding her torn ties together. Proof of how idiotically she’d behaved. The blouse was ruined. She’d have to pitch the damn thing.

  No way would she keep it as a m
emento of anything she wanted to remember. Becca had stopped being sentimental during her sophomore year in high school when she’d intended to save the football program as a keepsake…to commemorate the one game she’d gone to with a guy, a fix-up from another school. She’d tried to dazzle him with her knowledge of the sport. Becca’s dad had drilled her for weeks about each play. Like a trained seal, she’d performed beautifully that afternoon.

  Her date rewarded her with a pat on her shoulder, the kind reserved for a buddy or faithful dog—no kiss—then took off never to be seen again.

  Becca was through with that shit. She pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead. Behind her, the door flew open, smacking into one of her potted plants. Dropping her hand, Becca turned.

  Eric closed the door and righted the plant, trying to fluff its bent fronds.

  “That’s okay, I’ll get it,” she said before he made it any worse.

  He dropped the frond that had fallen off. Shoulders bunched, he faced her. “We need to talk.”

  She went to her desk, her finger poised above the intercom button. “I’ll have Zoe in here in a minute.”

  He stalked to her desk, his fingers fisted around his contract. “Won’t do you any good. I’m not leaving until we talk, even if she goes a couple rounds with me. She can fry the hair off my balls if she wants, but I don’t hurt women. They do that to me.”

  Becca brought back her hand. “I just thought she could quote you a price for our potions and spells if you wanted something else now.”

  “Like what?” His eyes shot up as they had when he’d been strapped to the table. He patted the top of his head. “Is my hair falling out again?”

  “It’s fine.” Tousled and perfect. Damn.

  “Then why would I need another potion?”

  Her cheeks got hot. “You fell off the table in the treatment room. You messed up my plant. We can give you something to make you…” She searched for the right words that wouldn’t piss him off further.

  “Less clumsy?” he said.

  “More graceful.”

  “Just what I want,” he muttered, “to move like a ballet dancer. That ought to make me a real babe magnet.”

  Was that all he ever thought of, his freaking conquests? Becca clenched her jaw. “Just trying to help.”

  He dropped his contract on her desk, then pulled his AmEx from his wallet and tossed the card to her. It hit Becca’s boob. “Sorry for being so clumsy,” he said.

  Didn’t sound like it to her.

  He gestured to the card. “Fill that up for all I care. Just don’t call her in here. I don’t want to be bent, folded or mutilated any longer. I’m tired of getting hurt.”

  Second time he’d said that. Becca finally recognized the unhappiness beneath his new nasty attitude and irritation. “Is the potion wearing off?”

  It was supposed to be permanent, unless her mom had diluted the ingredients, afraid they’d cause some other weird reaction.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Do you?”

  He sounded so uncertain and in need of reassurance, Becca wanted to go around her desk to him but didn’t. She wasn’t that brave or controlled. If he ordered her to undress again, she’d do so gladly, then lay on her desk, inviting him to do all kinds of smutty things to her. Which she’d regret later.

  Best to keep her distance. “How do you feel?”

  “Bruised and used.” He flung his arm out, in the direction of the treatment room. “I did good in there? Are you kidding me?”

  Becca wasn’t certain what he wanted or whether this was the real Eric talking. Could be the result of the potion. She crossed her arms beneath her breasts. “Don’t you think you did good?”

  He stared, laughed, then went around her desk. She backed up. He followed, wagging his finger. “You’re not turning this around on me. Are you actually saying you didn’t enjoy what we did?”

  Ah, this was about her reaction. Becca fled her feelings and his proximity. A chair to the side blocked her. She hurried around it. Eric followed.

  “Of course, I did,” she finally confessed then stopped backing away. “Didn’t you hear the noises I was making?”

  “I was too busy making my own. However, mine were real. Men can’t fake orgasms.”

  “You think I faked that?”

  “I don’t know. You tell me.” He pulled up a chair and sat. “Go on.”

  Becca leaned against the lip of her desk and stalled for the right thing to say. Something that would convince him what a stud he was—no lie—while avoiding how much she foolishly wanted him, which would leave her dignity intact. A win-win for both of them.

  Eric wasn’t having it. Planting his hands on his knees, he leaned forward. “I’m waiting, Becca.”

  She pulled at a loose thread on her ties. The tear in them widened beneath the safety pin. “It was wonderful,” she mumbled. “I wasn’t faking. I don’t do that.”

  “Why did you do it at all? It’s not in the contract,” he added. “I know. I finally read the dumb thing.”

  She gestured helplessly, her cheeks burning.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I can’t read sign language. You’re going to have to tell me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I want to know. Why did you do it, Bec—”

  “I got caught up in the moment, all right? Same as you.”

  A muscle in his jaw jumped. “And that’s all it was.”

  Not even close. However, Becca wasn’t a schoolgirl any longer, wanting what she couldn’t have. Wanting to be noticed, liked, loved, pumping up a guy’s ego in the hope that he’d notice her. “Isn’t that enough?”

  He glanced past her to the hazy sun streaming through the windows. The light turned his skin a paler gold and lightened the blond streaks in his hair, making him look like an unearthly vision of the perfect man. In other words, irresistible. Precisely what he’d asked for when he hadn’t needed it to begin with.

  Something passed over his face, an emotion he repressed so quickly Becca couldn’t read it.

  “I don’t know if the potion’s still working or not,” he said. “Guess I’ll have to test it out.”

  Of course. What other choice did the poor guy have? Becca went behind her desk. “Have fun.”

  “I intend to.”

  A pang of envy and sorrow tore through her, stealing Becca’s breath. To hide her pain, she made a great show of writing down his AmEx number, expiration date and the codes—which Zoe already had—then leaned across her desk, extending the card to him. “We’ll keep your information on file if you need additional treatments.”

  “Thanks.” He slipped the card into his wallet.

  “If they don’t work, we’ll refund you fully,” she promised. “It’s only fair. You can use what you paid us for behavior modification. Maybe that’s your best bet. Doing it the mortal way.”

  He didn’t seem comforted. His silence grew. His focus on her never wavered.

  What else could she offer? What more could he want? She, and her mom, had tried their best with the potions. Becca had celebrated the success of the last one by giving him sex and admitting she enjoyed it. Hell, she’d even torn her blouse. Talk about enthusiasm. “I know you’re upset.”

  “You don’t know me, Becca.”

  Okay, that hurt. Deep and hard. Her blush didn’t help, humiliating her further.

  No, she didn’t know him, nor would she. That wasn’t in either of their futures. Still, it didn’t take a psychic or a trained shrink to see he wasn’t happy. She cleared her throat, avoided his gaze and tried to comfort. “I just want you to know that we’ll do everything we can to see that you succeed at what you came here for.”

  “Yes, you will. Be ready at nine tonight.”

  Becca stopped writing his description next to the card number, all of her adjectives pornographi
c. She rested her fist on them. “You want an appointment tonight?”

  “I want to test out the lasting effects of the potion.”

  “We don’t have any way to measure that here. You’re a first.”

  “Lucky me.” He lost his smile. “Not here. At a restaurant.”

  Becca wasn’t following and then she was. She drew her brows together. “You want me to follow you to a restaurant and watch how you’re behaving with another woman?”

  “Not at all. I want you to be that woman.”

  His answer caught her so off guard, she sank to her chair and murmured, “Like a date?”

  “Call it a test run.” He watched her closely.

  As though he was gauging her reaction. To what? Him? Hadn’t she already passed that test when she’d been on top of his gorgeous body, worshipping his cock? “A test run.”

  “Isn’t that enough?” he asked breezily, as she had earlier.

  It wasn’t, though it might be a start. No, that was nuts. He was nothing more than a client. Once he had his new personality down pat, he’d forget her in a moment. There were too many distractions in life…blondes, brunettes, other redheads.

  Right now, he seemed to notice only her, his attention riveted.

  Becca made a mental note to ask her mom if his current behavior was a result of the potion she’d created.

  “I’ll pick you up at your place,” he said.

  Sounded good. “No.”

  Eric studied her for another long moment, then rested his forearm on his knee and leaned forward. “You’re refusing me?”

  Uh-huh. And if Becca had any sense, she’d continue to do so. Not that acting reasonably had ever been her greatest strength when it came to men. Although she’d locked her heart away when she’d dated weres, vamps and warlocks, she’d still pined for more. Hopelessly. Endlessly.

  “You can pick me up here—no, wait.” She didn’t want Heather, Constance, Zoe or the twins to know what was going on. It was bad enough when a guy dumped her. Suffering through her staff’s condolences only prolonged the agony. “I’ll meet you there. Wherever there is.”