"You didn't tell me you were dating," she teases.
I roll my eyes. "You didn't tell me you were sleeping with Billings."
Her face goes bright red and I grin.
I might be an adult and respectable and shit, but I'm still her shithead little brother. I have to at least try to act like it.
~
After four days of back and forth at the courthouse, evenings spent playing with Lainey and Grace cooking while she watched us, I'm going out of my mind. Beauty is texting, but it's slow, like she isn't sure she's welcome, or wants to give me the space I need to fix whatever it is my family broke.
I just want my father in his right mind enough to make our next move.
The problem is that when he was arrested, he had a complete fucking break with reality, all of his paranoia and delusions rising to the surface. It got him tossed into a seventy two hour psych hold, and everything ground to a halt as we waited that out.
I shove a hand through my hair as we're shown to the visitor's room. Dad is there, in scrubs from the hospital, looking older than I have ever seen him, and strung out.
"Is he using again?" I whisper to Gracie and she shakes her head, quick and firm.
The county prosecutor is there. She's a girl I vaguely remember, someone I had to know in a life I left so long ago it doesn't feel like mine. She watches me for a long moment, like she can feel it too—the threads of something that says we were once connected.
"James, you shouldn't be here," Dad slurs, and I dismiss the ghosts of my past and turn a smile on him. "Well, you shouldn't get yourself in trouble, Dad. Then I won't have to fish you out."
He laughs at that, a huff of noise. "You like fishing," he says, grinning at me.
My heart drops. I throw a quick, startled look at Gracie but she's glaring at the table, like she doesn't want to be here, and I swallow hard.
"Yeah, Dad. I love it."
The door opens and I straighten as an officer leans in. "Lawyer is here."
"Um," Gracie says, all kinds of eloquent, and I half stand as Peter Carey walks in, wearing a three piece suit and looking for all the world like he just stepped out of a courtroom in Atlanta and less like he showed up unannounced in backwoods South Carolina.
I know the guy—good Dom—but what the actual fuck? Even if Mal or Wolf knew I was here, they wouldn't overstep this way. They wouldn't.
"I've been retained as counsel for Mr. Jeremy Lutz."
I swallow, my gaze dropping instinctively from the icey brightness of Peter's blue eyes. It's Gracie who asks, "Um, where the fuck did you come from?"
Peter laughs, and addresses the prosecutor. "Could I have a moment?"
She huffs but goes, giving us a second to regroup and for our lawyer to introduce himself.
His gaze darts to mine, and there's something like sympathy in his voice. I feel, impossibly, like I'm in that drafty old building again, taking a test when I don't know what it means.
"I've been hired to represent Jeremy Lutz, by Viviane Dubois."
Chapter 19.
I check out. I know I should pay attention. I know a lot is riding on this, but I check out, and I don’t even apologize. Peter and Gracie discuss what we should do with my father and I offer up my checkbook because that’s what I do, and Peter shakes his head. “Ms. Dubois is paying for his treatment.”
“No,” I say, abruptly. That pulls me back into the discussion real fucking fast, as Grace stiffens furiously. “She’s fucking not.”
Peter opens his mouth and I lean forward. "This is my father. This is not the Kingdom, you are not an authority, and she does not make this decision. Now, you can accept that and work for me, or you can go and explain to Ms. Dubois why the fuck I fired you."
He stares at me, impassive, and something like a smile twitches his lips up after what seems like an eternity. "I'm beginning to see why she likes you so much. Sir."
I snort. "Good to know. Keep your hands to yourself though, she gets jealous. Now, what can we do for my father?"
~
Gracie is silent until we're pulling up to the house and we're both staring at the black town car. I don't know what I expected, but this—this was not it.
"What. The. Hell, James."
I sigh.
"You know the life I have in Atlanta that I don't talk about? The part that involves Charm and Wolf and Mal?"
She nods, uncertain.
"Yeah. She's part of it."
"Who?" Gracie demands but I shove out of the car.
Beauty uncoils from the town car and stands there, patient and still, in a quiet calm that makes me ache.
Seeing her here, where I never expected and only now realize I desperately needed—it makes me lightheaded with relief. I walk to her and stop a few inches short of touching her, close enough that I can feel the heat of her arms and the way her breath catches as she looks at me.
She's wearing a white mask today, a silky thing that wraps around her face and throat but leaves her eyes bare and pulls her hair back. It's strangely exotic and I kinda want to unwrap her like a present.
"Beast," she murmurs in that familiar low, flat tone I've missed like hell.
It takes every bit of willpower to keep from dropping to my knees in the driveway of my childhood home.
"What are you doing here?" I ask and my voice shakes.
Her head cocks, just a little. "Mal gave me your address. I thought—" Something like nerves flickers in her gaze, before forces herself to continue. "You owe me nothing, Beast, but you are still mine, and I could not care for you properly while you were here and I was there."
I let out a breath and she looks up at me, her eyes anxious and her voice is hesitant when she asks, "Do you—would you like me to go?"
"No," I breathe, and her eyes snap to mine, wide and hopeful. "No, Beauty. You're exactly where I want you to be."
~
Dinner is an awkward thing. Beauty sits at my side, almost unnaturally still and it occurs to me that I forgot that it bothers some people. I’ve gotten so used to it that it only registers when I see Lainey squirming nervously.
Gracie doesn’t seem to know what to do with the woman who just landed in her living room, and has apparently decided that the best course of action is ignoring her entirely. Beauty doesn’t seem to mind. She watches me with a kind of avid fascination that is fucking with my head.
I keep it together until after dinner, when Beauty sits on the swing with Lainey, listening politely to my niece babble about school and her friends.
“Who the hell is that?” Gracie asks, and her voice is only a little shaky.
I’m kinda impressed by that, to be honest.
“Viviane Dubois.” I shrug, and smile. “The girl I’m in love with.”
On the porch, Beauty’s head comes up and she watches me with big bright eyes. Curious and something else—something I can’t think about, with my sister staring at me and my niece asking about her mask.
The house is very quiet. Grace retired early, because once Lainey fell asleep, there wasn’t a buffer between her, the bright eyes of Beauty, and the oddness of it all.
“She doesn’t like me,” Beauty says, and the words feel strange, coming from her.
“She doesn’t know you. And she doesn’t know our world, sweetheart. This is—it’s a lot for her.”
She shifts a little, and looks at me, head on. I can feel the shiver she gives, before she controls it and gives me her blank stare.
“And you? Is this too much for you?”
Viviane Dubois. God, of all the things that crossed my mind—
“No,” I say, honestly.
She inhales sharply. “Do you want to hear it?”
I shrug. I know her story. The little girl who was kidnapped and held captive for nine years, who stumbled into the world and told a stranger in a library her name, the girl who was reunited with her parents and thrown into a three ring circus of press junkets and book deals, and there was even a movie or two about it.
She lived through hell and when she finally escaped, she was made to relive it every day.
“Beast,” she whispers, “I can’t give you everything you need.”
“Beauty,” I murmur and she flinches, pulls back just a little. “Sweetheart. You give me everything you can. That is all I need. I need as much as you can give me.”
“What if I can’t ever give you more than this?” she asks, motioning halfheartedly at the mask. Her eyes are wide and afraid, but unless you know what you’re looking for, you couldn’t tell.
How much did she learn in that house of horrors? How much did she learn just to survive it?
I touch her hand softly, and she stares at me, braced for a rejection.
“If this is as much as you can give, then I’ll take it and feel lucky that I was given the pleasure.”
She shudders at that, and I tug her gently, a request.
Beauty almost falls into me in her eagerness, and I smile at that, laugh a little as she snuggles into my side and gives a contented sigh.
“You should find someone else, someone better than me,” she whispers, and I shrug.
“I love you.”
And even through the barriers she has between us, I can feel her smile.
Chapter 20.
Beauty leaves.
It's early the next morning, before the sun rises. She wakes me with a hand over my eyes and her lips pressing against mine, and I whimper into the kiss, arching up to her, just a little, as she bites my lip and then licks over it, soothing the pain. She's straddling my hips, holding me down with her weight and the pressure of her hand on my eyes.
The kiss lasts forever and ends too soon. I sigh her name when she shifts away from me.
"I won't—I won't hate you, if you don't come back."
I turn my head in her direction, even with my vision blocked. I can feel her hesitation and agitation. "My eyes are closed, Beauty. You can trust me."
For a moment, I feel her waver, feel the grip on my eyes tighten a little, before she releases me.
The world stays black, by choice. Even when she sighs, muffled slightly by the mask, I keep my eyes closed.
"Come home, if you want, when you can. But you are not—only come if you want this, Beast," she whispers.
Then she's gone, the slight weight of her removed, and the door closing almost soundlessly. I hear the engine of her town car, a low purr outside my window, and her pulling away from me.
But I don't look.
~
It takes time. It takes so much fucking time, longer than I expect or want. There's money to be arranged, and making sure Dad is fulfilling his legal obligations to get treatment, and work around the house to do so that Lainey doesn't fall through the fucking staircase one morning.
Gracie watches me, and I can feel the questions she's not asking and I wait patiently.
She'll come to me when she's ready.
When everything that I can do is done, I've been in South Carolina for almost a month. It's ridiculous and I'm desperate to go home.
"One more night, James," Gracie says, "It won't hurt you to wait until daylight to drive."
I sigh and nod, and text Wolf that she's driving me insane.
He laughs at me, because Wolf is a fucking bastard.
"Do you—are you happy, James?" Grace asks me, her eyes very serious, and I smile at her.
"I've never been as happy as I am when I'm with her," I say honestly, and Gracie nods.
It's enough. For her, it's enough.
Mal shows up at my sister's house in the morning and I don't question it. I just climb into his car and wave goodbye to my sister.
I even manage to do it before they start fighting, which I'm pretty sure is a minor miracle in some countries.
"I have a car," I point out.
He shrugs. "You said you wanted to get Grace a new vehicle, and God knows you need one. We'll go shopping this week," he adds decisively.
I laugh and lean my head back against the seat. "You're an idiot."
He slides a curious eyebrow at me and I shrug. "You act like I don't know what the hell you're doing."
"No idea what you're talking about," he says blandly.
"I have a Domme," I say, as gently as I can.
He nods at me and his eyes are soft and sad. "I know, Beast. I do. I'm taking you back to her."
He's quiet, and I listen to the sound of the road and his breath, and I think about how very strange life is.
A little girl is stolen from a department store. A boy is pushed into a draft old building to take a test. Lives are changed.
I wonder if Beauty has ever gone back to that department store, the way I look for my old building.
~
The penthouse is still and almost mournful. I creep into it on silent feet and go to the office. This early, I should be able to find her at breakfast, but the entire floor is silent, and it worries me.
Where the hell is she? Where is Cook?
I shake the fear that she's gone. That she didn't wait for me. Going down that particular road is really fucking stupid and self-destructive.
I go to my knees on the cushion by her chair, settle into position, and I wait for her.
It takes longer than I anticipate. It’s almost noon when I hear her, the soft rasp of her feet on the wood floor, and the quiet hum of Cook talking to her.
"I don't want breakfast," Beauty says, her voice low and angry, "I want you to leave me alone so I can work."
Cook doesn't respond to that, and Beauty steps into the office.
I don't look up when I hear her gasp. I keep my eyes on the ground when her steps stumble, and she chokes out my name. "Beast."
I don't look up until her voice grits out the demand, "Look at me."
She's wearing her plain black mask and it does nothing to hide her rioting emotions, the ones that feel too big, too strong, too much.
"You're here," she whispers, her voice full and breaking.
"Beauty," I laugh, "I told you. I love you. I'm always going to be here."
She makes a sound then, a choked thing that cuts me open, and tugs out all of the doubt I've been feeling. "Beast, you're an idiot," she hisses, and then she's dragging me into her arms and I press my lips into the smooth curve of her skin and it doesn't matter if I'm an idiot or not.
I'm in her arms and that means one thing, pure and simple.
I'm home.
Epilogue.
The air is thick and heavy in the room, and I shiver as it shifts behind me.
I can't see anything, can't hear anything. The only thing I can do is feel and I'm left, standing still and untouched in the center of the big black room, until my nerves fray and I have to bite my lip to keep from babbling and begging.
The air shifts again and, sensing it, I swallow the shout that threatens to break free as the cane slams across my back.
I shape the word, force it out, but I don't hear it.
It falls into the black room like raindrops in a well, absorbed soundless and whole.
The air fluctuates and the cane slaps down and I think I scream.
Something very soft brushes against my arm, and I lean into it. I think I whimper, and then something soft presses against my throat, something that opens, wet warmth sliding over my skin, licking away the sweat.
It eases some of the tension in me and I sigh. Her name falls into the soundless room and the cane slams down. Long elegant fingers stroke over my cock and I shudder, arch into it, even knowing it won't last. The wet heat vibrates, and something clamps down on my balls as my orgasm surges up up.
I yell in frustration and the wet heat pulls away.
A hand finds mine, holding it limply, and I fight the fog that's eating up the last of my sense to figure out what that means.
Check in.
I squeeze her hand, tight—once. Twice, and then drop it.
She presses against me, and then she's gone and I feel the cane again. I smile into the dark sile
nce and count, the words dropping into nothing.
The fog is there still, and as she hits me, methodical and precise, even here, I reach for it, and slide, so fucking easy, into that perfect space.
It isn't pain that brings me back. It's wet heat, sliding around my cock, and the pressure of her hand on my throat.
It's the tiny noise she makes, the one I fucking live for.
I blink, and the two candles she lit earlier almost blind me.
Beauty grinds down on me, her hips circling in a filthy little twist that makes my breath jerk in my chest and I thrust up, helpless to do anything else while she fucks me. Her eyes are gleaming in the low light and her fingers are digging into the collar I'm wearing.
She gave it to me the night I came home—took me to the black room and fucked me for the first time, cuffed me to the bed and rode me until she was sobbing and I was begging to come, and even then, she didn't let me. She slid off my cock and pulled the collar from her toy chest. Even on the edge of orgasm, I knew what that was and--
I wanted it.
"Don't come, Beastie," she’d whispered, before she fastened it on my neck, and I fought the urge, fought the orgasm that was right there, so close I could taste it.
Then she sighed that noise, and whispered, "God, Beast. You look so pretty in my collar."
She laughed when I came, harder than I had in years, riding the high of that claim, of the fucking collar on my neck.
She was smiling, her eyes bright behind her mask, when she turned her come splattered face to me and told me to clean it up.
Beauty tugs my collar now and fucks down hard on me. My balls are tight and achy and my back stings from the cane, every thrust a delicious pain. She kisses me, and it’s delicate. It’s as soft as she has ever been with me, all gentle pressure and the tentative nip of teeth. It drags a groan from me and I want to reach for her.
It terrifies me. Everything about this girl terrifies and thrills me.
She smiles at me, and I let my hand ghost over her face.
Her face.
Wicked Beast (Wicked Ever After Book 2) Page 9