The Virgin and the Beast (Stud Ranch 1)

“Bite down,” he instructs.

The slices are a mouthful and when I comply, juice spurts out and down my lips. I duck my face and lift a hand to wipe at the juice, but Xavier’s swats me lightly. He grabs my hair and exposes my throat in that way he’s so fond of doing. I chew and swallow some of the tangerine pulp, but juice continues dripping down over my chin.

I startle when I feel Xavier’s tongue on my neck, licking upward to catch the trail of juice. He must be down on the floor with me. Up and up his tongue traces, all the way to my bottom lip.

My breath hitches as he licks the last of the juice from the corner of my mouth. Then he nuzzles his cheek against mine. “That’s right. Shhh, you’re doing so, so well.”

When he sticks another piece of egg in my mouth and his finger lingers after I finish the bite, I suck without him even asking.

By the end of breakfast when my formerly empty stomach feels full to bursting, I’m near to crying with the confusion of needs he’s stirring up in me.

He hauls me up from the floor. I stumble unsteadily on my feet, unused to sitting in a position like that for half an hour. His strong arms set me aright. I think that he’ll take off my blindfold and let me go up to bed.

Of course nothing ever goes like I expect with this man. The blindfold stays on and when he hefts me into his arms again and takes me upstairs, we don’t stop at my bedroom on the second floor. My head falls against his shoulder as I feel him carry me up to the third floor.

Oh God, what now? I’m finally full but no less tired. If I could just sleep for a week, that’d be awesome right about now.

He pushes open the door to his large suite and I brace to be dropped unceremoniously onto his giant bed again. I squee

ze my eyes shut underneath the mask.

It only makes sense, though. I’m here for a reason and we haven’t been up to any baby-making activities for almost three days now.

But he keeps walking once we’re inside the room. Then I hear his boots on tile. His room is carpeted. We must be in the bathroom.

He sets me down on my feet and I stumble a little, disoriented.

“Lean against the wall for balance,” he says, and then I hear the sound of a faucet being turned on and the echo of rushing water.

A bath. He’s running me a bath.

My body sinks against the wall he indicated beside me. Oh God, a bath does sound divine. I don’t even want to think about the layer of dirt and grime and God knows what else that’s coating me. Ugh, I shudder just thinking about it.

Even when Xavier was stroking my hair earlier, his fingers kept getting caught in tangles. My hair is barely four or five inches long—there’s not that much to get snarled. Still, personal hygiene hasn’t been at the top of my list of priorities the past couple of days.

The bathwater turns off a few minutes later and Xavier’s hands return. From behind, he starts low at my knees and his fingers skate up my outer thighs, higher and higher until he lifts my dress up over my head. Without him asking, I lift my arms to help him get it off. He murmurs approving noises—not even words, just positive vocalizations.

My bra comes off next. Then his warm hands are on my body again, starting on my hips and caressing down as he slides my panties off.

He leads me with an arm around my waist like he did earlier.

“Step,” he says. “Careful.” He holds my hand as I step blindly over the rim of what I’m guessing is a bathtub. My foot sinks into warm water. It’s deeper than I expect and I have to clutch Xavier for balance. God, is that the point of the blindfold? So I have to depend on him for absolutely everything? My food? Every single step I take? I mean, is that some sort of deeper lesson I’m supposed to be getting from all this?

Or am I making too much of it and he just gets off on having chicks blindfolded?

“Steady,” he says, holding me up.

More splashes. He’s getting in with me. Just how big is this bath? And when did he take off his clothes? I guess he could have taken them off when the bathwater was running and I might not have heard him.

With slight pressure on my shoulder, he urges me to sit down, keeping me stable while I go down on a knee, then settle into the warm water.

He drops with me, sitting as well. Which is when I realize it must be a specialty bath or jacuzzi because both of us fit easily with room to spare. A second later, jets turn on, confirming my thought. Churning water immediately starts to relax my aching muscles.

Xavier settles himself behind me, legs spread on either side of my body. In the second it takes me to wonder if us being naked in such a confined space is affecting him, I feel his hard length pressing against the small of my back. Yep, he’s affected all right.

He must feel me tense because his hands immediately come to my shoulders. He begins massaging, up to my neck and all down my arms. “Shh, relax,” he murmurs.

Said the spider to the fly.