Beast: A Hate Story, The Beginning

“Francesca,” she mumbled, folding her arms. Still she wouldn’t look at him. She looked anywhere but him. Her deep cornflower eyes examined the stitching in the leather, the ice in the plane’s bar, anything but him.

“I didn’t catch that.”

“Francesca,” she repeated, raising her voice. She looked up, catching his stare for the first time since they’d left New Jersey. “Only my friends call me Frankie.” He clenched his jaw. Soon she would learn.

Beast pushed the door open, walking inside. Frankie sat up in the bed, covers pulled up to her chin, gasping when she saw him. He paused a moment, staring at the way she looked beneath his covers, the way her little fingers grasped his sheets, the way her bright eyes looked out at him. He wondered if she’d stayed in his bed all day. If the sheets now smelled like that light but somehow heady aroma that he’d gotten a taste of last night.

He’d never brought a woman into his bedroom, not even his penthouse. For security purposes, he used hotels.

But she was just a slave.

Shaking his head, he walked over to the bed and sat on the edge without saying a word

. Slowly he removed one black shoe from his foot, untying the laces with careful consideration. Then he turned to the other foot, doing the same thing with the same amount of consideration. He took his socks off next, folding them neatly.

Next he unbuttoned his black silk shirt.

When all was said and done, he was still on the edge of the bed, wearing only his trousers. The shadow of his profile in the sheen of the apple caught his eye. He took the knife and sliced the red skin. The knife cut beneath the waxy skin until juice slid down his thumb.

He turned to Frankie, offering her a slice. She pulled the covers up to her nose.

“You haven’t eaten.” The Beast turned back, placing the slice in his own mouth. He cut another slice, repeating the same motion with her. Each time she refused. He offered until the apple was at its core then stood up and held the core out to her.

When she refused, he said, “In time you’ll wish you’d taken this from my hand.”

Three

At first I didn’t know why they called him the Beast—he was that beautiful. With black hair that fell in waves down his neck and across his calculating bluegreen eyes, he didn’t look monstrous; he looked refined, like something out of an oil painting. His hard, square jaw was shadowed by stubble, but even that looked cultivated. The only beastly thing about him was his height; he must have been about seven feet tall and all lean muscle.

But then he’d taken me against the window, and slowly—not quickly, like in all the books and movies—I felt myself disappear. Inside, all the things that made me Frankie, all the things that differentiated me from the others of the world, were gone. It no longer mattered that I liked Gilmore Girls and Firefly. It didn’t matter that I could read a book in two hours. My favorite flavor of ice cream was tasteless.

Because I could still feel him inside me.

That was the only thing that mattered.

God, when he’d said to mourn my life on the plane, when he’d said to prepare, how could I? What type of thing could ever prepare a person for that?

I hadn’t moved an inch since he’d unceremoniously dropped me in bed afterward. Some time passed. I’d watched the moon rise high in the sky and fall beneath the sun. It was not the same room I’d been shown to when we’d arrived. It was the antithesis of the first room. Where that room was white and feminine, this was dark and utterly masculine, everything done in rich grays and blacks with only a hint of gold.

I remembered thinking how big the first room was—it had a freaking balcony, a walk-in closet, and adjoining bathroom—but this room was enormous. The size somehow made it that much more foreboding. The windows were massive, stretching taller in the shadows. I could see beyond to a sitting area and I was sure there was an en-suite bathroom that I couldn’t see.

The entire room felt like the living embodiment of chiaroscuro. Shadows clung in corners and to the floor. Light refracted from the windows, casting gaunt lines. The mood was dark and dangerous, and I was stuck in the middle of it. I lay in the bed, sheets up to my chin, since he’d carried my limp and fight-less body there after taking me against the window.

After the fact, I was shocked, totally distraught and unable to comprehend anything. Now I was still shocked, still distraught, but I could comprehend. I knew now what I had gotten myself into, and I wasn’t going to give myself over to degradation so easily.

I was glad it wasn’t the same room he’d shown me to when I’d arrived. I hated that room. I hated the closet with its pretty clothes. Hated the plush carpet and the beautiful accouterments. Hated that for a moment, I’d been hopeful. Hopeful that the tingling in my belly meant that maybe he was something special. Maybe he would be something more than a Beast. In the darkest corners of myself, where hate transforms into self-loathing, I thought maybe I’d asked for it. Because as I lied in bed, goose bumps whispered against the flesh of my soul that I loved every minute.

But that was over now.

That hope had been obliterated.

The asshole had ruined vintage Dior, too; there’s a special place in hell for people who do that. The dress was now getting wrinkled underneath the blankets, wrapped up around my legs and tangled in the sheets—sheets stained with tears, and probably with the blood from my thighs.

But I wasn’t thinking about that.

I was trying not to think about anything. I was embracing the warm numbness that coddled my brain like a deathly blanket. He’d said he wouldn’t kill me, but maybe if I never got out of bed again, I would waste away. Who knew death would be my salvation? In one-thousand-thread-count sheets up in a penthouse in Tribeca, it would be like dying a princess.

There was a faint knock and I pulled the sheets up to my chin, eyes darting to the door. He’d only left just a bit ago; I couldn’t believe he was back already. I needed more time to prepare…more time to fade away.