Beloved Beast

Chapter Twelve

Don brushed a hand over his face and discovered that the wind had pushed his hood to his shoulders. It mattered not, he thought, surveying the deserted seaside. There was no one present to gape in horror at his hideous face, but he righted it all the same and turned searing eyes on Elle.

As he regarded her in the gray light of day, gauging her expression, he was shocked to find a fluctuating look of bewilderment. With bated breath, he watched as she touched her lips, still reddened and swollen from his kiss. Her eyes, so large and unguarded were a gateway to the innocence and fear within and perceiving the latter brought him no gratification. In truth, it left him all the more perplexed.

His heart pitched against his chest, every discordant breath drawing the scent of jasmine deeper into his lungs, intensifying the desire that beset him.

A scorned witch deemed him unworthy of affection, and perhaps in this shape and form he was. When had he become the very darkness he had sheathed as armor? Where do the darkness end and the light begin?

With her, a voice answered from within.

She had touched a part of him that he refused to give and having kissed her twice, having tasted the forbidden sweetness of her surrender, though small and unsure it had been there was no coming back from it. He wanted the light. He wanted her.

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Elle stood reeling amidst a rising wind, heedless of its gust, aware of nothing but the profound mark of Rossetti's kiss. She recalled the feel of him beneath her hands: the well-defined muscle beneath his cloak, rippling with every ministration and the strength in his firm, yet surprisingly gentle grip.

She recalled the feel of his lips, chiseled with imperfection, taking avid possession of her mouth. He had tasted strongly of spirits; the hint of ale lingering on the heat of his breath as it whispered across her lips. The moment his mouth had captured hers her world had shifted with the turn of her heart. His kiss had been anything but chaste or gentle and the intensity and shock of it had elicited a throbbing of fear - and something more. As he deepened the kiss, rolling his tongue against hers, nipping her lower lip with his teeth, claiming her whereas no other had done, she felt something within her stir to life.

Fear lingered at the base of her spine but it fell secondary to the eagerness that surged in her veins. It wasn't so much his virility that alarmed her most, but rather this slow-rising, smokeless burn of a hunger unlike anything she'd ever experienced.

It was not like her to behave so brazenly and she was shocked by her own wanton response. Her sisters had often described such intimacies but none of which she truly fathomed. She was inexperienced in the ways of men. She was just eighteen summers and had never even kissed a boy - until now.

Nay, not a boy, but a man, came a small voice. You don't know what he's capable of, it stated. And though true that may be, Elle seemed powerless against the feelings bombarding her to heed it.

Rossetti sought to push her away in hopes of quelling her curiosity, when in fact, it all but magnified it, as did it rouse her to a staggering awareness of sensuality she knew not existed.

A deafening crack of thunder startled Elle from her thoughts and suddenly she found herself at Rossetti's side.

The currents turned turbulent against her ears, compelled by a strong gale that swept over the shoreline, spewing sand to sting her face.