The BBW and the Beast: A Shifter Retelling of Beauty and the Beast (A BBW Shifter Fairy Tale Retelling Book 1) (3 page)

“Tomorrow’s fine.”

Bel snuck the marshmallow from the bottom of the cup and popped it into her cheek, hoping the sugar would soothe her nerves. “Tomorrow?” Although with the marshmallow sticking her teeth together, it sounded more like, “Foomarew?” She licked her lips to remove a stray fleck of sugar.

His gaze stalked her tongue.

Bel swallowed. “But what about the contract?”

“My brother will have it drawn up by then. Can your father drive you here?”

Bel bit her lip. Having her father give her a ride would mean telling him about this unorthodox arrangement, and that wouldn’t go over well. She could lie and walk, but somehow she felt like Mr. West wasn’t a big fan of liars. And she had seen enough of his bad side already.

Before she could decide, he decided for her. “I’ll come by and pick you up at ten.”

Bel glanced at him suspiciously. “Okay.”

What was she getting herself into? 

 “
S
he’s damn frustrating
, Rex,” Samson growled as he stalked through the woods outside of his house. “She broke three plates on her first day and another three on her second. I think she’s purposely trying to do a terrible job so I’ll fire her.”

Snow crunched under his feet, and his brother glared at him. Usually, he was a perfect, silent hunter.

 “At least she signed the contract,” Rex said, wading through the snow a few paces in front of Samson, sniffing the air every minute or so. “So she can’t quit.”

 As werebeasts, they retained some of their powers in human form. Ideally they’d hunt as wolves, but with the humans’ paranoia because of Luther, they couldn’t risk it.

 “Yes,” Samson said. “But she fought me like a cat every step of the way.” He shifted his weight forward, and his steps quieted. His wolf did not. Just the thought of that curvy, pugnacious little human made his blood seethe. “I don’t know what I was thinking with this bargain. I should’ve just done it the old way and taken her right there. I wouldn’t be so distra—”

 “Shh.” Rex held up his hand, which glimmered white in the shafts of light slipping through the naked branches above them.

 Samson closed his eyes and listened. But all he heard was her voice echoing through his mind. 
”What if I have a hot date?”

 The thought of another man touching what was his made the hairs on Samson’s arms lengthen into his wolf’s pelt and his eyes flash a furious yellow. She was his mate; that she had returned to him proved it.

 “Look,” Rex said, hope in his soft voice.

 Samson smiled grimly. Maybe it was Luther. God, he would love to shift and do battle with that son of a bitch. It was his fault this was happening at all. If his youngest brother hadn’t gotten stuck in his wolf’s form and decided to haunt their old house, slaughtering livestock like a common animal, Samson would’ve never returned to this hellish town to find him. And he would’ve never run into Isabella again. 
Samson opened his eyes, haunches raised, ready to spring forward and attack.

 But there was no wolf in the trees, only a deer—skinny-legged, with ears twitching, staring at them with a stupid curiosity.

 Samson’s disappointment that they hadn’t found his brother soon faded into hunger. It was impossible to resist.

Against Samson’s will, his spine cracked and compacted, his teeth sharpened, and fur poked through his skin. He usually found satisfaction in the wash of pain the change brought. It sharpened his emotions, transforming them from distractions into motivation, into tools he could use to take what was his.

 And the deer was his.

 Samson began the chase. The deer pranced around the trees, but Samson didn’t need grace. He was a huge animal; each of his forceful strides carried him twice the distance of the deer’s. Before long, he was upon it, a black bullet in the pale forest.

 Samson leaped onto the deer’s back, tackling it down, his teeth at its throat before they even hit the ground. The deer twitched in his jaw, and an ocean of hot blood flowed into his mouth. He drank it down greedily, relishing the visceral sound of the deer’s flesh ripping under his fangs.

Red trickled through the white snow, blooming like the petals of a flower. And for the first time since Isabella Booksmore had opened his door, Samson’s wolf was silent.

Samson panted, his eyes closing as he folded upward and back into his humanness, naked but not shivering. Shreds of his clothing marked his trail like breadcrumbs. He followed them until he was back at the path with Rex.

 Rex stared at Samson, concern softening his already urbane eyes into almost human weakness. “Be careful, brother.”

 Samson gave a booming laugh and wiped a string of blood from his mouth onto his forearm. “Don’t worry. I’ll make sure to wash before she sees me.”

 Rex shook his head and stuck his hands into the pockets of his long designer trench coat. “I’m sure you will, but that’s not what I’m worried about.”

 Samson smiled at him, too exhilarated by the kill to be annoyed at his brother’s worrying nature. “What is it?”

 His brother frowned. “You’re losing control.”

 “Rex,” Samson growled warningly. His brother, with his perfect control, had never really understood the thrill of the hunt. At least not when the hunt didn’t involve money. Samson raised his eyebrows and gave Rex one of his alpha glares. Usually that shut him up.

 “If you don’t focus, you may not be able to shift back next time.” Rex didn’t look down. “It’s hard enough hunting Luther, Samson. I’d rather not hunt you too.”

 Samson sucked in a sharp breath. His wolf didn’t have enough energy left to comment. Then he narrowed his eyes, turned from his brother, and made the rest of the walk to the farmhouse in silence and solitude.

 By the time he got home, he had cooled enough to see Rex’s point. He had to find control, or Isabella would end up like the deer. Devoured by his need.

A change of strategy was needed.

B
el stared
at the dusty mirror next to the dining room door. The woman who stared back was wearing dusty, too-tight jeans and had a few more chins then Bel remembered. Where the best-selling writer who only wore flowing black dresses down to her ankles and took shit from no one had gone, Bel didn’t know.

That certainly wasn’t her anymore.

But it had to be again.

Bel shook her head and decided then and there that she wouldn’t continue this arrangement any longer. What kind of rose was worth a million and a half dollars, anyway? There was no way that valuation would hold up in court.

She wouldn’t be the pawn in Mr. West’s revenge against her father. Partly because the longer she spent with him, the more she became convinced that it wasn’t her father he wanted revenge against.

Squaring her shoulders, she pushed open the elegant double doors to the dining room.

“Hello,” Mr. West growled.

As he had the first two times they’d had dinner, Mr. West was sitting at the head of the table, which was miles away from Bel’s position at the foot. However, that was the only usual thing about the situation.

Mr. West had showered and shaved, leaving his dark hair damp and his strong jaw line naked. Also, instead of his usual frontier fashion, he was wearing a starched white shirt and crisp slacks. Jesus, was that a bowtie around his neck? No man should’ve been able to make a bowtie look so hot.

His green eyes narrowed as he took her in. “You didn’t wear any of the dresses in the wardrobe.”

Bel was about to reply that the yellow things in the closet were too short to be anything other than lingerie, but he went on before she could get a word in.

“Sit down. We’re having deer.” he said.

Bel’s eyes widened farther. At the center of the table was an entire side of venison, lying in a bed of bacon bits and roasted potatoes. It was simmering like it had been taken right off the spit.

Mr. West’s chair made not even a squeak as he pushed it back, then walked over to her. Bel froze when he got close enough to smell. There was a hint of minty aftershave in his woodsy scent. He pulled out her chair, and Bel looked at him quizzically.

“Please join me for dinner, Isabella.”

Bel closed her mouth, all of her plans evaporating in the face of this new and improved Mr. West. “I didn’t even know you knew that word.”

Annoyance cracked his pleasant façade, but only for a second. “Of course I know your name.” There was no ignoring the sensual lilt with which he inflected her name.

“No,” Bel said, trying to keep up her sour annoyance. “I mean ‘please’.”

“I’m not used to begging. Most people obey the first time I ask them to do something.” His eyes flashed.

Bel put her hands on her hips and jutted out her chin. “If you’re calling me by my first name, then I think I should be able to call you by yours.” She tensed, waiting for him to explode again.

To her surprise, he gave her a smile with too many teeth and glimmering hungry eyes. “It’s Samson. Now sit down. Unless you’d like to eat standing up.”

“Samson?” Bel sat. “Were your parents pioneers on the Oregon Trail?” She meant her reply to be insulting, but it ended up sounding more like a joke. Her palms felt damp with nervous sweat.

Samson pushed her chair in, the edges of his knuckles grazing the back of her neck, right below her hairline. She hadn’t taken her hair out of its ponytail, and for a second, she swore his fingers were flirting with her hair tie as if to remove it. But when she twisted to look over her shoulder, he was gone.

“My parents were traditional,” he said, somehow already at the other side of the table. His expression was as unreadable as an ancient rune.

Bel tapped her glasses, and they slid back up her nose. “Or you’re part of a secret Amish cult. Hiding away in the woods. Breeding expensive plants as part of your mission to take over the world.”

Samson began to chuckle.

The low, resonant sound filled Bel’s chest with warmth and made her smile. She relaxed back into her chair. “You know, I used to be a counselor around here. At Camp Kikanoo. An investor brought it before you moved here, so you never saw it. But it used to be awesome. Did you ever go to camp?”

“I don’t like group activities,” he said. The final echo of his laughter faded, and now his expression was curiously intent. Bel had to battle down a blush. Just as she was about to broach the subject of her employment, he asked, almost too smoothly, “You must have seen this house while you were here. What did you think?”

“You have no idea.” There was no fighting the blush now. Her whole face felt as crimson as the tablecloth covering the cherry-wood table.

“Tell me.” A writhing darkness underscored Samson’s words.

Bel stopped breathing.

He rolled his shoulders. Smiled. No; he formed that expression that was supposed to be a smile but wasn’t quite. “Please.”

“We were terrified of this house,” Bel admitted finally, staring at the fringe of the tablecloth, resisting the urge to fidget.

“We?”

She breathed a sigh of relief. It was easier to talk about her experience at the house in the context of a group. Anything to make it less personal. “Cynthia, Red, and I. Cynthia, that was the girl who’s a professional organizer now. I don’t know what Red’s doing.”

Bel closed her eyes, remembering how in their second-to-last year, Red had stolen a crossbow from the archery range. She’d shot arrows into the trees, bearing messages like, ‘If you don’t clean your cabin, you’re next.‘. Thinking of Red gave her the courage to continue.

“In our final year, we decided we’d check out the house, but they chickened out, and the owner caught me after I lost my glasses. He sort of came on to me, too, but I was only eighteen, so I think most of it went over my head. Thankfully, Red and Cynthia rescued me before it got too weird. Red even shot an arrow through one of the panes of the greenhouse. I felt bad about that later…”

She trailed off, realizing that she had been dominating the conversation, spilling her guts to an asshole. She didn’t even have the excuse of alcohol. After the silence had dragged on for another ten seconds, she wondered if she had put him to sleep. “Sorry. I’m a lot better at writing stories then telling them,” she said.

Mr. West’s smile was gone, which made Bel’s stomach drop, but he didn’t look angry. His finger was resting on his lips, and his head was cocked so that a strand of his dark hair was brushing his straight white collar. He looked…thoughtful.

“It’s interesting to hear your perspective on the house,” he said.

Bel let out a breathy chuckle, relief making her smile goofily. At least that confirmed that he wasn’t the old owner. He would’ve said something if he was.

“Oh? And what’s your perspective?” she asked.

Samson ignored her question and began to pour a golden liquid that looked like scotch into a tumbler. “Did you think he was a werebeast, too? The owner?”

Bel’s mouth went dry. “What?”

He tilted the glass, ending the flow of the liquor, not so much as glancing at her. “Your book.
Mates of Darkness
. I read it.”

Bel buried her face in her hands. “Oh, God. When?”

“This afternoon, after I caught the deer.” He swilled the drink, his eyes predatory as they peered over the top of the glass. “I thought, if I’ve got a
New York Times
best-selling author breaking all my dishes, I might as well read her books.”

“Ugh.” Bel tried to smother herself further.
Mates of Darkness
was a YA book, and for every tween girl who shipped her characters, there was a male critic deriding it as the herald of the literary apocalypse.

“It wasn’t bad,” Samson said.

Bel perked up from her prison of fingers. “Really?”

He took a sip of his scotch slowly, savoring it. “You did take more than a few liberties with werelore.”

Bel fanned her fingers against her cheeks and rested her elbow against the table, sighing. “Yeah. That’s what happens when most of your research comes from fictional interpretations. I guess when something has only been extinct for two hundred years, it still qualifies as ‘not a myth.’ Man, you wouldn’t believe the shit people gave me about the ending of the series.”

“The ending?”

Bel waved loosely. “Oh I had her abandon her weremate and kill her other love interest, the werehunter, and then run off into the sunset alone. My readers who read for romance were pissed that I didn’t have a happy ending and my readers who read for the werebeasts were pissed that I ignored the one universal truth we know about weremates—that once they find their mate. they never part.”

“Would you do it differently now?” Samson asked.

Bel’s breath caught.

The question itself was benign, and his tone even blander, but there was something unnerving about it. Maybe it was the fact that his glass was empty now, but he was still clutching it. Bel swore his gaze hadn’t moved from hers for the entire length of the conversation.

From the kitchen, she heard the ticking of the antique clock she had gotten back from the repair shop two days ago. “I-I don’t know,” she said.

Whatever answer he had been looking for, that satisfied him well enough, and he smiled at her gently.

She couldn’t say why it made her shiver.

He reached for the decanter of scotch and raised it toward her in offering. “Would you like some?”

Definitely.
“I should probably eat first.”

“Yes,” he said. Then, before she could stop him, he stood from his chair and grabbed the entire tray of venison with only one hand. In two steps, he was behind her, forking a potato and three ribs of venison onto her plate before she could protest.

Bel speared a potato and ate it. It was delicious, buttery and laden with the earthy taste of rosemary, but not enough to sate her. When she finished chewing, she noticed that Samson was still there.

She turned in her chair toward him and smiled earnestly. “It’s really great.”

“You should try the deer.” His voice was low; somehow without her noticing, he had gotten just near enough to impinge upon her personal space bubble without bursting it. This close, she was startled by how vividly green his eyes were; they looked like contacts.

“A-actually, I’m a vegetarian. Factory farming and all that,” Bel said.

“This wasn’t factory farmed.” He leaned in farther.

“I know, but if I start eating this now, I won’t be able to stop.” She gave him a watery smile before patting her belly. “And this is big enough as it is.”

He gritted his jaw, starting forward an inch before stopping himself. Bel pressed herself against the back of her chair, but there was nowhere to go, and Samson hadn’t actually done anything yet.

“You’re beautiful just the way you are.”

Well, so much for promises, Bel thought, inwardly both incredibly pleased by his compliment and a little ticked off. “Hey.” She swatted at his arm but was careful not to make contact. “I thought we said no hitting on each other.”

He didn’t move. “Try the deer.”

His commanding voice made Bel feel dizzy, and she was glad she was sitting down. The venison did look delicious, with a wedge of lemon next to it and a trail of lemon juice over its glazed skin. Her mouth watered.

Gingerly, Samson took her fork from her loose fingertips and the knife from the other side. Bel watched as he deftly cut and pierced a square of tender meat before bringing it up to her mouth. It was warm and wet.

He held it there for a minute, staring at her lips.

Bel couldn’t breathe. She wanted to taste it, more than anything. But this was inappropriate in so many ways.

“Open your mouth,” he said.

Her lips parted so quickly at his command that she almost closed them again, but his unwavering attention stopped her.

Never breaking eye contact, he placed the end of the fork in her mouth. Anxiety and need hurricaned through her blood. He was close enough that if she reached out she could kiss him.

She was so caught up in the thought that she didn’t even close her mouth. Samson closed it for her with a gentle nudge of his knuckle under her chin. His hot breath scorched over her ear and down her neck. “Give the flavors a chance to meld.”

Bel stopped chewing, her eyes closing naturally as the rich, gamey flavors melted into her taste buds. A tiny moan built at the bottom of her throat, and when she repressed it, it came out as a whimper.

His fingers trailed up her neck, to her vocal cords, as if he wanted to feel the sound as well as hear it.

“You have no idea how much I want to take you right now,” he said.

Bel’s eyes flew open, and she swallowed, but before she could open her mouth to protest, his lips were suckling hers.

She gasped into his mouth, and he pressed his advantage. His tongue thrust forward, dominating hers in a single stroke. Damn, he tasted good. A little boozy, but even more delicious than the venison.

But this wasn’t right. He was her boss. And he had promised. How could she ever be intimate with a man who wouldn’t respect her enough to honor her wishes? Not to mention that he had basically blackmailed her into being his maid.

Bel’s body, however, didn’t care about any of that. She tugged at his shirt, wanting badly to make skin-to-skin contact.

He shuddered, and in an almost choreographed movement, pulled out her chair with his foot, spun it around, and pressed her to him so tightly that each of her curves was met with hard, unyielding muscle.

“We really shouldn’t—”

Again his mouth plundered hers, driving away all resistance with his tongue. His fingers found the hem of her t-shirt and tugged at it.

He switched his grip so that he was cradling the small of her back with one hand. With his other, he pushed her dish and the entire platter of venison off the table and onto the floor in a horrible crash.

Then, deft as a tango dancer, he maneuvered Bel so she lay back against the table, pressing coaxing kisses to her neck all the while. As they turned, Bel felt his hardness against her thigh.
He can’t really be that big, can he?
Bel wondered.

Instinctively, she brushed his pants with her hand to see for herself.