In Bed with the Beast (Naughty Princess Club 2)

“Did you know that word was popularized by the 2011 song “The Motto” by Drake, the rapper? It’s an acronym for ‘you only live once,’ and it implies that one should enjoy life, even if that entails taking risks, as if there would not be another chance for it,” I ramble.

Yes, I ramble random useless facts when I’m nervous. And right now, I’m not only nervous about telling Mrs. Potter, a woman I respect and admire, about the Naughty Princess Club, I’m also worried about what I would do if she did, in fact, decide to send us her resume. And a video. I’m not sure I’d ever be able to look her in the eyes again if I had to see something like that.

“Anyway,” I continue with a nervous laugh. “I’m one of the owners of the Naughty Princess Club. I started it with the two friends I’ve told you about, Cindy and Ariel.”

“YOLO!” Mrs. Potter shouts, throwing her fists up in the air just as the bell chimes above the front door, indicating a patron has just walked in.

I bring my finger up to my lips to shush her. My hand pauses in midair when I see who has come into the library this late in the evening. Butterflies flap around in my stomach, and the hand that still hangs suspended in front of my face starts to shake.

Mrs. Potter drops her arms and looks back over her shoulder, a wide smile spreading across her face.

“Well, well, well, did someone order a Mr. Tall, Dark and Handsome?” she mutters.

Both of us blatantly stare at the man as the door closes behind him. With his head down and his hands in the front pockets of his jeans, he stalks over to the small biography section to the right of the front door. Then he grabs a book from the shelf without even looking to see what he’s chosen, flops down into a chair at one of the reading tables in front of the shelf, and opens the book to a random page somewhere in the middle.

The chair he sits in creaks from the weight of his tall, muscled body as he kicks his legs out in front of him under the table and crosses his ankles, bringing the book up in front of him and obscuring most of his face from sight. After a few minutes, he glances up from the pages and his dark brown eyes meet mine from across the room. A shiver races down my spine even though he only looks at me for no more than ten seconds before dropping his head back down. Those ten seconds feel like an eternity and almost as if he were staring directly into my soul, uncovering all of my secret fantasies and desires. All of them starring him.

The man I met a few months ago and only know as Beast, the bouncer at Charming’s.

“Um, I know him. Kind of. What is he doing here?” I whisper to Mrs. Potter as we both continue staring at Beast.

“I believe what he’s doing is called reading. I’ve heard it’s all the rage in this building we call a library,” she whispers back.

“Ha ha, very funny. I meant I’ve never seen him here before. He doesn’t strike me as the type of man who lounges around, reading for pleasure. His name is Beast. I figured he spent his spare time scaring small children and hunting with his bare hands.”

“I don’t know,” Mrs. Potter shrugs, cocking her head to the side as she studies him. “He looks pretty good lounging around reading. Bet he could do all sorts of pleasurable things with those big, bare hands of his. And since he knows you, I bet he came in here just to see you.”

I nudge her with my elbow to make her stop staring at the man like she wants to eat him alive. But that just makes me a hypocrite, since now I can’t stop staring at his hands, her words filling my head with all sorts of dirty images. And I also can’t stop wondering if he really did come in here to see me. I mean, what are the odds that he suddenly shows up at my place of work not long after we met, when I’ve never seen him in here before?

I’ve only had two conversations with that man in the time I’ve known him, and nothing puzzles me more than the effect he has on me. And really, you can’t even call them conversations. He acted like an overgrown bully, trying to order me and my friends around, and for some strange reason, that made me act completely out of character and tell him off both times. He’s twice my size in height and weight and could squash my head like a nut with those biceps of his, but there’s just something about him that drives me crazy and makes me not want to cower or back down. I’m not exactly what you’d call outgoing when it comes to dealing with the opposite sex, but Beast brings out the worst in me. Or maybe it’s the best. I haven’t exactly decided. My first interaction with him was when the three of us went to Charming’s to get a stripping lesson from one of the dancers. Beast stood in the doorway, refusing to let us inside. Something about how terse and rude he was lit a fire inside of me, and I walked right up to him and told him off, my boldness shocking my friends and myself in the process. My second interaction with him was the result of entirely too much alcohol, when once again the three of us went to Charming’s one evening to watch a few performances. Beast was being rude, and I called him on his behavior. Considering that standing up to him both of those times was the catalyst to finally finding my voice and learning how to put my foot down when people try to order me around, I’m leaning towards it being somewhere in the middle of the best and worst in me. You know, since finding my voice also resulted in my becoming homeless.