The Beast (Wicked Villains 4)

Beast moves to the side of the bed and carefully wedges a pillow under my head. I almost thank him, almost forget that they’re doing this to punish me. He’s gone before I make that slip.

He moves slowly toward the big man, his gaze intense. “How many strikes, Gaeton?”

Gaeton smirks. “How good is your stamina?”

“Good enough.” Beast moves out of sight. “Your safe word.”

Now Gaeton’s gaze drops to me for the briefest of moments. “Rose.”

Shock drowns out the sound of the first strike. I barely register the way Gaeton flinches, too busy repeating that word silently to myself. Rose, Rose, Rose. A nickname he’d jokingly called me because I love them so much. Roses of every color are my favorite thing. Beautiful and deceptively painful. My father went so far as to create a greenhouse just for roses as a gift for my eighteenth birthday.

I push the memory away. It hurts too much to think about now.

But all I’m left with is the sight of Gaeton stretched at my feet, the sound of the flogger making contact with his back. His eyes have gone a little hazy, and his flushed skin almost hides his freckles. It doesn’t take long before even his flinches have disappeared, leaving his body loose and relaxed. This is what pain can do to a person?

Beast appears again, holding the flogger with a contemplative look on his face. He transfers his attention to me, and I feel like I have nowhere to hide. This man sees everything. He raises his brows. “The princess wants to try out the flogger.”

“She’ll have to get in line,” Gaeton gives a rough laugh. “Fuck, I needed that.”

“I’d wager you need a whole lot more than that.” Beast sets the flogger on the nightstand. “But it’s a start.” He surveys us. “Gaeton, on the bed. Hands and knees.”

Gaeton slowly obeys. I can’t tell if he’s resistant to the position or if he’s floating on endorphins from the flogging. It’s been a year, but he’s a thousand times better at closing himself off to me than he was when we were together. Or maybe he simply never bothered to shut me out before. Neither option makes me happy.

He crawls onto the bed and kneels between my thighs with his hands on either side of my hips. His gaze drops to my breasts and his fingers dig into the comforter as if he has to fight himself not to touch me.

“Gaeton.”

We both look over as Beast strips. He does it like he does everything else—efficiently. I can’t help drinking him in the same way I drank in Gaeton. Beast is driven by demons he’s never named, and it’s reflected in his body. A variety of scars cover him from shoulders to ankles, physical marks of things he survived before coming to Carver City. A few of them are bullet wounds, but most are long lines from knives and similar slashing weapons. Each muscle is clearly defined as further evidence of just how hard he drives himself. When we were together, he spent significant time in the gym and gun range, preparing for a war that he wasn’t able to win in Sabine Valley, doing what he could to ensure one wasn’t on the horizon here.

It’s on the horizon now.

A glint of metal catches my eye and I lift my head higher. A gasp escapes my lips at the sight of the metal ring through the head of his penis. “You—You’re pierced.” That definitely wasn’t there the last time I saw him naked.

“A lot of things have changed, princess.” He gives me a cold look. “You don’t know me anymore. You don’t know either of us.”

Before tonight, I would have said that people don’t really change, and certainly not in the timeline of a single year. I still believe it. But there’s no escaping the truth that the last few hours have driven home.

I never really knew Beast and Gaeton to begin with.

Chapter 7

Gaeton

This is a mistake and I can’t stop. My shit is all tangled up inside. Anger and need and the one thing guaranteed to still the frantically circling thoughts in my head for a little while. If things were different, I’d have called Hook to do the deed, would have done anything but give my submission to a man who used to be my enemy. Maybe he still is. I don’t know anymore. Shit has gotten weird tonight, and it’s about to get a whole lot weirder.

Isabelle stares up at me with wide, furious eyes. As if she can will me to fuck her the way I’m aching to. I shake my head. “No.”

She blinks. “No, what?”

“No, I’m not going to forget myself tonight.” I say it as much to remind myself as to remind her. “A punishment isn’t for enjoyment, Isabelle.” Isabelle. Not Rose. No matter what comes of this, she’ll never be my Rose again.