The Virgin and the Beast (Stud Ranch 1)

Chapter 8

I wake to the heavenly smell of frying bacon. I’m famished, I suddenly realize as I sit up in bed and clutch the covers to my chest. I barely ate a thing yesterday and God, that smells good.

In spite of my hunger, I linger in bed a moment. All the memories of yesterday run on an unforgiving reel in my brain. My body’s absolute lack of self-control.

I can’t believe I... that I was like that.

My hand drops down between my legs and I wince slightly at the soreness there. I squeeze my eyes shut and force all my confused thoughts away.

Thinking about all of it won’t help anything. There’s just today to face. One foot in front of another, one day at a time.

I take a fortifying breath and then get out of bed and head for the dresser. I know from my exploration on the previous days that all I’ll find inside are lacy underthings that are nothing like the no-nonsense supportive undergarments I usually don.

I hold up a see-through red lace demi-bra with dismay. But then my nose catches the scent of bacon again and I shake my head and put the damn thing on. It’s better than nothing. I slip on the matching underwear and head to the closet.

Here is another crime against Melanie Van Bauer’s personal aesthetic: Dresses line the rack from one end to the other. And not just any sort of dresses—flowy, pastel, floral print dresses. Did you hear me? I said floral print.

I’m a woman who wears power suits. Black is the only color in my palette, I’ve often joked. It makes up most of m

y wardrobe, interspersed with the occasional gray.

When you’re a woman striving to be taken seriously in a man’s world, you have to go to certain lengths to make them forget about the fact that you’re actually female. Not that it ever actually works. It still always felt like a boy’s club. But I was used to chopping my brown locks short and maybe it felt good to continue being the opposite of everything my mother had been. I abandoned any color even remotely feminine—aka, all color.

This closet, though? It positively drips with color. And the dresses are the most ridiculous little frilly things. My first day here, I slammed the closet shut with a gasp after one glimpse.

Now that my Gucci suit is shredded, though, there’s no choice but to don one of these—I pull out the least offensive dress—things.

It’s a dark-blue A-line dress that reminds me a bit of every dress Maria ever wore in the Sound of Music. A lot of the dresses in the closet have a similar shape. So maybe Xavier has a thing for the 50s?

Awesome. ‘Cause that was notoriously a great time for women’s lib.

Well, Mel, he did spank you.

I stare at the dress for another second, debating with myself. The only other option is to go out with no clothes on at all. And what message would showing up for breakfast in nothing but red lacy lingerie send? Or I could just skip breakfast altogether and stay up here in my room under the covers?

My stomach rumbles with hunger.

I swear the bacon is calling my name. Mellllllll, it calls. I’m deliciousssssss.

I slip the dress over my head. I catch the briefest glimpse of myself in the mirror but turn away before I can see my girly reflection full on. There’s just no need to see the complete effect.

Let’s go get stuffed with some over-salted, fatty meat.

Bacon makes everything better.

I exit my room and hurry down the stairs.

The kitchen is large and must have once served the whole resort. It’s dim with light only filtering in through the heavy drapes. I briefly explored it during my initial wanderings. It feels much more intimate than some of the industrial kitchens I’ve glimpsed when my friends waitressed throughout college.

The floor is a warm, brown, Spanish-type glazed tile, and the grill, stove, and oven take up one wall. Xavier’s set up a small six-person wooden dining room table off to the side that, like his bed, looks handcrafted.

At the moment, however, my attention is stalled out by the man himself. The dim light is still plenty to see Xavier standing in front of the counter, flipping golden pancakes from a griddle onto two plates already loaded with eggs and bacon.

He’s shirtless, wearing nothing except some loose-slung jeans while he does this—not even any socks. It brings back vivid memories of all the things he did to my body yesterday and heat burns my cheeks. I cross my arms over my chest as I enter the kitchen.

The good side of his face is turned to me as he flips the last pancakes on the griddle, and with a shock, I realize that Xavier is actually extremely good looking.

When I first met him, all I could focus on was the ruined half of his face. But from this angle I can see him as he once must have been.