Beast: A Hate Story, The Beginning

by Mary Catherine Gebhard

  Everything was amplified in the dark, quiet room. The swish of his suit fabric against the couch. Her shallow, nervous breaths. When “Have Your Self A Merry Little Christmas” started to play, even the muffled song was like screams.

  “Come here.” He drew one arm out, gesturing with his hand for her to come to him. She slowly tiptoed over, as if reconsidering with each step. When she was within reach, he grabbed her arm, forcing her to tumble off balance and into his lap. She gasped, arms tugging on his lapels. That thing between them sizzled and popped. It was what he’d been waiting for. That connection. That pulse.

  “Do you like this?” he growled against her ear. “Do you like being made to do things, Frankie?” She said something, but it was so quiet he didn’t catch it. His fingers roamed her body, traveling all along her skin. Where he met her flesh, her skin rose and goose-pimpled, but he was sure to avoid the most sensitive parts of her.

  She arched up to him, as though trying to force his hand, but he carefully bypassed the parts she wanted him to touch. She made an aggravated moan. Anteros wrapped his fingers around her neck and tightened his hold, forcing her to look up at him. Her face reddened, her mouth parted, and her eyes widened, but then she slackened as if waiting.

  “I can’t hear you,” he snarled. Still she didn’t say anything. Anteros tightened his hold on her neck and drew her close so his lips were against her ear. “Beg me or you’ll go home with an ache between your thighs.” He loosened his hold on her and she swallowed in air greedily. As he spoke, he lightly dusted his fingers between her thighs, over her sensitive flesh. She bucked against him, her hands gripping his shoulders.

  But Anteros let her go, because she still hadn’t begged.

  “Wait.” She grasped the fabric of his suit, keeping him from leaving. He raised a brow, watching as she pulled her lip between her teeth, eyes darting from his to the floor. He could see the words stuck in her throat, bobbing up and down, but he wasn’t going to help.

  “The car is here,” he offered. “Maybe you’ve reconsidered that option.”

  “Please,” she said, sounding pained. Her nails scythed his shoulders.

  “Good girl,” he murmured, and he pushed her back into the couch.

  Twenty-One

  “Did you enjoy yourself?” he asked, face planting into the leather seat of the limo—a limo this time, not a town car. He was stretched out on the opposite side, but that few feet of distance wasn’t nearly enough. Did I enjoy myself, he asked with a wry smile on his face, a smile that let me know he’d partaken in every form of debauchery possible tonight and there would be no remorse, only revelry.

  He’d ripped me open, and I was simultaneously numb and screaming. Lying in that room, I’d been depressed, abject, totally broken because once again he reminded me I was nothing to him. He left me there for hours, which gave me hours to think about how I didn’t want this life. This wasn’t what I’d dreamed of. I didn’t want to don a mantle of shadows and murder and blood. Not even a month with the Beast and I could feel myself changing irrevocably. What would happen if I became the Princess? Who would I be?

  And then he’d come into the room, hot, wanting, like fire, and stepped on the broken pieces of me, reminded me in the worst way possible that it wasn’t about my wants. He reminded me that my willpower was just smokescreen. He owned me. He could make me move, make me moan despite myself.

  He could make me beg.

  Because my wants were his wants.

  Somehow I’d started to crave him; he’d become my drug.

  If I didn’t get him, I started to shake and shiver.

  How could I be a fucking princess if the dude I was supposed to usurp owned my world, owned me—the very essence of me.

  One of his arms hung limply over the seat. His suit was askew, the hundred-dollar tie he wore undone and akimbo. His shirt was unbuttoned, showing the planes of his muscular chest just lightly dusted with hair. Narrowing my eyes, I regarded him further, realizing he was drunk. This was only the second time I’d seen him drunk.

  “It was great,” I replied, trying to keep my tone warm. He nodded, his head falling deeper into the leather. “But,” I added, gently turning my gaze out the window. “I didn’t like how they kept playing ‘Blue Christmas’ over and over again. It felt kind of lazy by the band.” I desperately wanted to turn and see what his reaction was, but I kept my gaze fixated outside on the rolling, tinted black picture.

  I wasn’t sure what the meaning behind “Blue Christmas” was for him, just that it would hurt. I wanted him to hurt badly, wanted him to feel a little bit of what I was feeling at that moment.

  I heard the leather creak and knew he’d sat up. “I didn’t hear that song.” His liqueur-warm tone had gone cold, and that made me warm.

  I shrugged and kept watching the window. Women in jackets lined with fur with boots up to their knees walked hand in hand with men in suits and nice wool pea coats along seasonally decorated windows. The windows were bright, dazzling, lighting up fake, fluffy snow. Wonderfully dressed men kissed other wonderfully dressed men beneath the dazzling lights. The people and their shoes smashed into the real snow. The ugly snow. The snow turned gray by reality.

  “Maybe you were busy,” I said.

  A few hours after Nikolai dropped me off at my room and walked a stumbling Beast back to his, I pulled out the journal, too emotionally exhausted to sleep. You know when you’re overtired and can’t sleep? You’re exhausted, fatigued, and your body needs to sleep, but you’ve reached the point of no return. That was me, but instead of sleep, it was my feelings.

  Why do I keep letting this happen to me?

  Why did I keep giving up parts of myself to this man? It was like people who anthropomorphize animals. They only have themselves to blame when the dog bites a leg. It’s in the dog’s nature. We’re the psychos who brought wolves into our homes in the first place. The dog doesn’t feel guilty; we just want to see guilt in those big round eyes. We want a reason for all the madness.

  A reason for why our legs hurt all the time.

  Taking the weathered leather journal, I walked to the blind spot. I pulled two plush blankets over my legs and wrapped another around my body. Before opening the journal, my gaze drifted over to the window. The sun was starting to rise, the white world waking up. Cold. Gray. Snow had settled on the sill, light, like dust, declaring how untouched it was.

  I stared outside as snow fell and wondered. The sun burned such a bright white, I wondered if the sky had caught on fire and the snow was actually cinder. My fingers drifted south, beneath the thin satin of my underwear. The pads of my fingers felt along the newly growing hair, soft yet prickly, like pushing against the ends of a feather—another reminder that even though it felt like it, time did not stop here. My hair was growing past the Brazilian wax.

  I wondered what the Beast would think of my hair.

  Before getting taken, it was the one thing I afforded myself, the one luxury in my cheap life. I waxed religiously. Legs, arms, vagina—everything got waxed. I waxed so much and so often that the hair grew back less and less. I’d been waxing since high school, since the day Alex Wesley pointed at my unshaved legs and said, “Gross.”

  Amidst Papa’s peeling plaster, it was a luxury I made myself afford.

  Beast would probably pay for laser hair removal. Sighing, I turned back to the journal. I remembered that Sofia had wanted to run away with Alessio, before Emilio started fucking things up.

  Anyway, even though I knew it never happened (how could it, with Gabby alive and kicking?), I couldn’t help but wish Sofia would tell me a different story, as if I could open the journal and her inked pen would somehow circumvent history. I slid my finger into the journal, flipping to continue where’d I left off last.

  There was just one line on the page.

  One single line.

  When I do not give Emilio what he wants, he takes it.

  There were wet splotches on the page. I ran my fingers over the puc
kering of the paper, imagining Sofia’s tears. The anger coursing through me surprised me. I remembered what Gabby had told me: if Emilio was Gabby’s brother, that meant he was also Sofia’s son. Why would she name her son after Emilio?

  Finger still on the rippled paper, I heard the nearly nonexistent creak of the floorboard, letting me know I had a visitor approaching.

  My head snapped to the door.

  There wasn’t enough time to put the journal completely away. Quickly I shoved it under the pile of blankets and ran over to the bed, darting under the covers. Just as I pulled the covers up to my chin, the door creaked open, slowly revealing the body of the person in the doorway.

  Naked.

  Familiar.

  Wanting.

  “You’re awake.” He wasn’t drunk anymore.

  I scrambled back against the headboard. I couldn’t do it a second time that night, couldn’t put myself through it again. I was already teetering on the edge of sanity. “Please, go away,” I whispered. “I’m done for the night. I’m so tired.”

  Unperturbed, Beast stalked over and threw off the covers. He grabbed me by the ankles, pulling me down to the edge of the bed. His fingers speared into my hair, making a painful, tight knot of it, then he pulled me close to his face.

  “You’re not done until I say you’re done,” he whispered against my cheek. Before I could respond, he’d thrown me back to the mattress. His fingers bruised my thighs, spreading me open, and then his palm was on me. Over the satin panties that went with the stupid nightie I had to wear, he pressed me.

  Palmed me.

  Rubbed me.

  He worked into me with a delirious, tauntingly slow method, his other hand keeping me spread and pinned. I pressed my face into the mattress. I would not like this. Sanity demanded I did not like it. He continued to work me, not bothering to remove the panties. I bit the sheets.

  “Feel that?” he asked, rubbing me. “Because I can see it. I can see you fucking ruining these panties.” At that he let go and I sighed, hoping it was over. Then he tore the satin off of me and flipped me over so I was on my back. My breath hitched; I was so open this way. On the edge of the bed with him between my thighs, I tried to keep my legs as closed as possible but he leaned down, bruising me with his hands again.

  “Are you done?” he asked. His gaze ripped into me. Distantly I wondered if I could ever get used to it.

  “I…” I trailed off. Bluegreen eyes washed inside of me, the air licking at my lips, making me feel even more exposed. “Yes. I’m done.” I knew it was a trick question, but I didn’t care. Without removing his eyes from mine, he thrust a finger up into me. I cried out. My neck arched off the bed and then teeth—his teeth—were on me. Hard, too, not soft or sweet nibbles, but deep scoring against my flesh as if he were claiming something, marking it with his bite.

  He pressed against me. Two fingers now, maybe three, entered me. I lost myself in sensations, in the feel of his heat against me, in the sweat building along my arms and legs and neck in a delicious tingle. His cock was iron against my thigh, hard, heavy. I suddenly wished I didn’t have the babydoll on so I could feel him directly, feel his flesh pressing into mine. Feel his muscles, the hard rivets of him press into my soft skin.

  He slipped his fingers out of me and I whimpered, but that whimper transformed into a groan as he plunged inside me. All of him. Thick, pumping. I reached out, needing to touch him, to anchor myself, but he pushed my arms down. With one hand, he trapped my arms above my head. With his other arm he stretched out the babydoll, exposing my breasts. While he pounded into me, he kept one hand locked on the shirt he’d stretched, his other keeping me pinned. His gaze raked over me, watching me with single-minded intensity. It was feral, like an animal that had just caught its prey.

  “Are you done?” he asked, sliding out then plunging inside with ferociousness. “Are you?”

  “I’m not done until you say I’m done,” I replied. My voice sounded drugged in my ears. His cock moved in and out, pounding with wild, ferocious abandon. This was what I’d imagined sex with a Beast would be like, what I’d feared since the night he took me. Right then I wasn’t afraid, though. Right then there was something deep within me, something curling and twisting and yearning for more.

  I don’t know up from down anymore.

  There’s a hurt inside of me. A hurt he created. A big, gaping hurt. He took a shovel to my soul, and dug with abandon, not caring about the cracks and irreparable holes that would be created. It’s a throbbing hurt. A soul-deep hurt that aches and cries and is viscerally alive with its pain. It has strings, it moves for him; he makes my pain dance like a marionette.

  And I cry for him to cut the strings.

  But when he cuts the strings, I bleed, and I think I might die.

  My head lolled to the side as he released the babydoll. The nighty was totally, utterly stretched. I sighed, feeling deliciously spent, uncaring that I was naked and on display. With his free hand, Beast grabbed my chin.

  “Are you done?” he asked. I nodded. I was done, but not for the reason I had said before—not for the reason that had driven him to this. My body and legs were jelly. I was positively satiated. I could sleep for days. I could practically feel the Cheshire smile on my face.

  A harsh sting vibrated against my cheek and my eyes popped wide open. He had slapped me! The sting ricocheted in my body then settled into a dull, delicious ache as if reinvigorating all the parts of me that had fallen into their satiated comfort.

  “You’re not done until I say you’re done,” he growled. I nodded and he pumped into me again. I could feel my body working back up. His bluegreen stare was heated, on fire, like a forest ablaze. I looked away from him.

  There was a hurt inside of me, a hurt he created.

  But he was the only one that could make it go away. He was the only one that could fix me now.

  His touch seared my skin and soothed the wound.

  His kisses flayed my lips and stitched the flesh.

  His length tore apart my insides and wove sinful satisfaction.

  He was the god of my pain, but his touch was my religion.

  He pulled out, still hard, and asked, “Are you done?”

  “Am I done?” I asked, looking up to him.

  “Yes, mio cuore.” He smoothed the hair from my face, looking intensely into my eyes. “You are done.” He lifted me up from the bed, pulling me into his chest, and then lay down again, holding me.

  I did not exist without him.

  He was my universe.

  I was Galileo staring at the sun, realizing I was nothing, and then the bastard blinded me. He was the sun, and I couldn’t even close my eyes.

  One heavy arm bracketed my body. I didn’t have to wonder what it meant, the Beast sleeping with me. In nature, when an animal falls asleep next to another animal, it means they feel safe. Beast’s steady breathing against my back, the deep pulls, the warmth he exuded, all of it—it was the single worst thing he’d ever done to me.

  Beyond the mental torture.

  Beyond any of it.

  Because in that moment, as he curled me against him like a wounded sparrow, he stole my will to leave. I tried to think back to the last time I’d slept. My eyes felt sticky with fatigue, staring unblinkingly at the white wall made gray and fuzzy with darkness.

  I couldn’t sleep.

  Everything was alight with fiery pain. My soul was burning. It was supposed to be black and white. Beast was the bad guy. Beast was threatening to kill my father, he took me, he was no good, but every minute I lay with him I got sucked deeper into the gray. Tick. I wondered what it would be like to love him. Tock. I wondered what it would be like to be loved by him. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

  I needed to move.

  I couldn’t move.

  His arm flexed, pulling me deeper into his embrace. He smelled so good, like winter pine and musk and cigar smoke, and something else, too, something spicy. Something that tingled my nostrils.

 
; Or maybe that was the smell of my soul burning to ash.

  The fuzzy gray wall started to blur. My eyelids drooped.

  Shit.

  I needed to get up. I needed to get out of the embrace. If I didn’t, I was going to sink into the delicious warm feeling of being held. Of being comforted. Of being warm and…

  Not loved.

  I gripped the sheets, slowly pulling myself toward the edge and out from under his arm. Beast groaned, and I paused. My heartbeat roared in my ears. As the roar subsided and Beast’s breathing returned to normal, I continued my escape, slowly tugging and pulling toward the edge, trying to slide out from under him like I was the golden idol in Indiana Jones and he was the potential boulder.

  I made it to the edge, his fingertips still grazing my back. Less than gracefully I slid off, knees and hands meeting the floor with a thud. I paused on all fours, waiting for him to wake and bring me back to bed. One heartbeat, I stared at the floor, the way my palms splayed against the plush white rug. Two heartbeats, the way my hair made a curtain against everything I didn’t want to acknowledge. Three heartbeats…

  I stood up.

  Asleep still, the chiseled musculature of his chest was all too visible now that I wasn’t there to block it. Even asleep, his features were beautiful. Intense. Unfair.

  Going with the Indiana Jones theme, I put a pillow where my body used to be. Beast did not take to it, instead turning away and facing the other direction.

  Whatever.

  As long as he didn’t wake up.

  I tiptoed to the bathroom and leaned forward, my fingers gripping the cold porcelain. I stared hard at my reflection, forced myself to take in the person staring back.

  She wasn’t who I remembered.

  She was hardly someone I recognized.

  She’d been changed by the man in that bed, changed irrevocably. There was no coming back from this. Like it or not, the man in that bed owned a part of me now.

  Whether or not that was right, or fair, or even made sense, it was what it was.