“This is where I die. In a cottage straight out of Hansel and Gretel,” I mutter quietly.
Unfortunately, sound must carry in this remote stand of woods, and as soon as the words leave my mouth, Beast stops a few feet away, turning around to look at me with a blank expression on his face.
“Let’s go.”
He nods his head towards the cottage with a jerk and starts to turn away.
“Wait!” I shout, my voice echoing through the woods, hoping there are neighbors out here somewhere who might possibly hear me if I scream a little louder.
He lets out another sigh, and I begin to wonder if growling and sighing are the only noises he knows how to make. I wonder if he barks like a dog when the mailman comes. Or purrs like a cat when someone scratches behind his ear.
An image of the huge, muscled man standing a few feet away from me getting down on all fours and purring like a kitten forces a hysterical giggle out of my mouth.
“Did you know Hansel and Gretel were brother and sister, kidnapped by a cannibalistic witch living deep in the forest in a house made out of cake and confectionery? The witch lures them by letting them eat her house and they think she’s being nice but really she just wants to fatten them up so she can shove them into her oven and eat them,” I ramble nervously. “I’m not saying you’re a cannibal or anything, but the stones on this place look an awful lot like pieces of sheet cake covered in fondant and spray painted with edible food coloring, and I haven’t eaten since lunch, and I’m starving, and Ariel is always saying I need more meat on my bones, so I’m just wondering if you want to fatten me up—considering you keep bringing me food every night—and shove me in your oven and eat me?”
Beast does nothing but blink at my ridiculous, long-winded way of asking him if he brought me out here to kill me.
After a few tense minutes of silence, he shakes his head at me.
“You talk a lot.”
“And you don’t talk enough! I’m a twenty-five-year-old single woman who has never lived anywhere but with her father, and all my friends were fictional until recently. You come to my library for an entire week, pretty much let me do all the talking, and then all of a sudden tonight, you’re ordering me to come with you. You know more about what’s going on in my life than my best friends. You drive me out to a charming yet creepy cottage out in the middle of nowhere and expect me to just do what you say without an explanation. I mean, I don’t even know your real name!”
He closes his eyes for a few seconds and brings one hand up to his face to pinch the bridge of his nose. Even though he’s overbearing and rude, I still feel a little bad that I might have offended him. Especially if Beast really is his name. Which means his parents must have hated him, and now I kind of just want to give him a hug.
This is all so confusing.
His hand drops from his face and he silently stalks towards me, the predatory look in his eyes making me gulp and quickly step backwards until my back hits the side of the truck and I have nowhere else to go.
He stops when we’re toe to toe, and I can feel the heat from his body warming my skin even though it’s covered in goosebumps from how close he is and how nervous he makes me.
“I told you, you’re not spending another night on the floor of that fucking library. I’m not much of a talker, but I was raised to be a goddamn gentleman. And my name is Vincent.”
All of his cursing kind of negates the whole gentleman thing, but there’s a surprising softness to his raspy voice that makes me want to believe what he’s saying.
“Vincent?” I question in shock. “That’s so . . . normal.”
He reaches out and grabs my overflowing duffle bag from my arms and begins walking back towards the house. Unless I want to stay outside all night and never see my things again, I have no choice but to follow him.
“Yes, Vincent. Contrary to what you might think, I’m not really an animal,” he mumbles, sounding a little hurt by my statement.
He walks up the stone steps to a wraparound porch spanning the front of the cottage, past four Adirondack chairs, and pauses in front of a huge, mahogany door. Shifting my belongings under one arm, he reaches into the front pocket of his jeans and pulls out a set of keys.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound so surprised. Vincent is a very nice name. I just took you for something more fitting to the way you look. Like Hulk. Or Thor. Or Hercules. You know, because you’re all big and muscly. Can I call you Vinny?”