He gathered the front of her skirts then, pulled them high, bunched them wantonly at her hips, and let his hand drift deliciously downwards, but then dallied there, at the banding of her small clothes, toying with the ribbon which held them closed, tight to her.

  And toy was all he did.

  Cecille could not control the stuttering, frustrated whine that broke from her, unbidden. “Why must you tease so?”

  “You do not like to be teased?”

  “Oh, I like it,” Cecille said, shaking her head against his broad chest. “And I do not like it.”

  “So contrary, lass,” the Beast murmured. “Shall I tease you a little more, then?”

  He awaited no reply, for Cecille’s answer was plain. His hand slid under her small clothes, down through her curls.

  Cecille gasped, overcome.

  She had touched herself so, before, alone, under cover, past the time of firelight and candlewick. She had touched herself here, in the castle, when the fire had burned to embers, when she was bare atop soft furs, imagining the Beast’s eyes upon her, the golden glow as he watched her from the darkness.

  But here, in the gardens, where anyone might hear, or see, or happen upon them, to have another’s hands upon her — to have the Beast’s hands upon her — was a pleasure unknown.

  All her fever-hot imaginings could not have prepared her for this moment, for the touch of his clever fingers at the centre of her, at that point where pleasure grew, slick and hot and winding — so hot she wondered that she did not burn, so slick that she felt as the ocean.

  He drifted another fleeting touch across the point where all feeling seemed to boil. But a fleeting touch was all he offered. Cecille cried out, ragged, broken, but he would give her no relief.

  “Please,” she begged.

  The Beast withdrew his hand. “Please, lass?” he said, echoing in his mimicry, playing at misunderstanding, what seemed his favourite game.

  But Cecille was beyond shame. “Please. Please, touch me.” She took his hand in hers — his warm hand, his sure fingers — and urged him back to where she needed him most. “Here. Touch me here.”

  “Ah, since you ask so prettily.”

  He touched her. Again and again he touched her, slipping over her, firm, unforgiving circles, a determined, merciless rhythm.

  And the skilful, sinful work of mere moments found Cecille her release, a hoarse cry rending from her as she clenched hard, then harder still, around nothing, and felt that absence as she had never felt absence before.

  The Beast’s teasing fingertips had slowed upon the peaking of her pleasure, though never stopped, and now they began their maddening slide and circling with vigour renewed.

  The Beast brought her to release again before she had yet recovered from her first, and Cecille was thankful of his strong arms holding her up — a band of iron around her middle as she hiccuped little gasping breaths at the sparks of sensation still flitting through her.

  “More?” the Beast asked.

  “More,” Cecille gasped, all but senseless with her pleasure. For what more could there be?

  The answer? His fingers were broad, blunt, and his fingers were within her, his thumb upon her, ruthless in his hot attentions.

  The feel of him inside of her, the noise of it as he stroked her from within, obscenely loud in the little garden, where the only other sound was the faintest of breezes through the briars.

  And the thought of it all, of the picture they made, the feel of it, so hot and wet and wanton, spun Cecille to another wild release.

  She clenched around him — around him, this time — a wild, fluttering rhythm. She had not breath enough to whimper. She could only quiver against the arm that held her close, the broad chest that gave her warm support.

  The Beast slipped his fingers from her with one last lingering touch. He gathered her to him while she was still quivering and weak from her release, sat down upon the stone bench at the garden’s heart, and held her in his lap, secure in his arms. He pressed his thumb to her lips — lips she knew were bitten red and reddened with rouge.

  And he kissed her then, for the first time, lush, wet, a sharp nip of teeth.

  The Beast's Lair

  The night was late, dark and cool with the coming of autumn. And yet, Cecille could not sleep.

  The Beast’s hands upon her had not quenched her fire. They had kindled it, made it flame anew, hotter and fiercer. She could give herself no relief, no matter how she touched herself, no matter how often or how prettily.

  No matter how many nights she spent alone in her chamber, waiting, wondering, caught between the equal pull of anticipation and trepidation, the Beast would not come to her.

  So she must go to him.

  Cecille had never yet returned to the warm and shadowed chamber where the Beast slept, not since her first, fateful night in the castle. She could not even have traced the route in her mind. But yet, as she walked barefoot along the flagstones, every corner turned seemed to bring her closer, every hall familiar, every torch in its sconce flaring into life to guide her steps. The castle knew her intent, as it watched with unseen eyes, and it guided her onwards.

  The door to the Beast’s chamber was as heavy as she remembered, the iron bar across it heavier still, but it opened as the door did, with no protest, nor groan or creak.

  As that first time, a fire burned high in the hearth, the room’s only light. The Beast stood before it, watching the flames, and the amber light played upon him, drawing her eyes to the breadth of his chest, to the sharp cut of muscle at his hips, the thumbprint of a dimple there, the taut, shapely strength of his buttocks, and — as he turned towards her, already stirring at the sight of her, thickening, strengthening — his powerful girth.

  Made hard with his vigour, it seemed untenable. He might very well cleave her in two.

  But how she wanted it. How she wanted him.

  “Sweet lass,” he said, his rumble of a voice like a firm hand across her skin. “You wander into a Beast’s lair so carelessly. Do you not fear a ravishing?”

  Cecille shook her head. “Not from you. Not unless I wanted to be.”

  The Beast cocked his head in turn, a familiar movement. “You come to be ravished, then?”

  “If I am to be a fallen woman,” Cecille said, lifting her chin, “then I wish to truly fall.”

  He stalked towards her then, power in his every movement. When he came near enough, from his pointing finger sprung a claw, needle-sharp. With it, he traced a line down her chemise, from collar to navel, and the point sliced through the fine, thin cloth with barely a whisper.

  Cecille gasped as the linen slid from her shoulders and puddled to the flagstones at her feet. She stood before him bare. Utterly. The room was ablaze, yet her nipples pebbled, so hard suddenly that they ached with pleasure denied.

  The claw glimmered out of being, and the Beast shifted her hair so that he might see her more clearly, so that he might drink in the sight of her, his eyes a steady ripple of gold. Then he reached for her with one strong hand, to span her ribs, to brush that sparking pleasure across her nipple with his thumb.

  “What a pretty sight,” he said, his voice a shivering wash upon her skin.

  But Cecille did not feel simply pretty; she felt desired.

  And she had felt so before. But never like this, never desiring in turn, never while her body thrummed, so aware of the Beast’s every touch, so anticipatory of the next.

  “Where would you have me?” the Beast asked as his thumb sketched a maddening caress across her breast.

  Cecille shook her head, all confusion. She felt barely able to form a coherent thought, so thick was her wanting. “Hmm?”

  “A fallen woman should orchestrate her own fall, should she not?”

  She blinked at him a moment longer, not comprehending. But then, with a shaking breath, she took his meaning, and all her fevered imaginings crowded in her mind: of the Beast pushing her down, mounting her; or lifting her, pressing her tight to the wall, and taking her standing.

  But the image that stayed longest and burned brightest in her mind…

  “I would have you atop the furs.”

  A grin. Sly. Knowing. And to the bed he went.

  He lay, one leg outstretched, the other cocked; one arm crooked behind his head, the other reaching downwards. Cecille traced that reach, her eyes drawn to the swell of muscle there, to the casual strength of him, to the pull and flex of his forearm as he worked his long, thick length.

  She bit her lip at the sight, could hear, distantly, her own breathing gone uneven. No mere pretty sight, no mere handsome one — but utterly irresistible.

  “You watch so intently, lass,” the Beast said, amusement clear. “Should you not like to touch?”

  Touch she did, down through her curls, to her slipping heat, where the slide of her fingers against her hot centre matched the languid speed of his stroking hand.

  The Beast let out a puff of air, a huffing, rumbling breath of a laugh. “That is not what I meant.”

  “Do you object?”

  “How could I object to such a beautiful sight?” the Beast said softly, watching her just as softly.

  And his eyes upon her did not feel as an invasion, the way so many men’s eyes had felt before. She wished for him to look at her, wished to always see that look of burning appreciation in his golden eyes.

  She wished also to touch him, and so now she would.

  Gold flared anew as she crawled across the furs towards the Beast. He licked his lips, reached for her, but she would not have it. She straddled his hips, took hold of his wrists instead, and pushed them high above his head. Held them there. Her strength was nothing to his. He might have shrugged off her touch with ease. But he let her hold him, still, unmoving, no word of protest.

  “If I am to touch,” Cecille told him, “then you may not.”

  That sly, duplicitous smile. “I am yours to command, my lady.”

  Hers to command, and hers to touch — what a thought that was. A delicious, tempting, exhilarating thought.

  Cecille sat back against his hard thighs with a sharp look, but still the Beast moved not. So she looked down in turn to where he lay, hard against his stomach, blood-hot, and so very thick.

  At the sight of him, she wetted her lips, an unconscious gesture. She touched him, tentatively, with the very tip of her finger, traced a vein that ran his length. Her touch was featherlight. He twitched under her attentions.

  Cecille took him in hand, a testing hold.

  No protest from the Beast. A pleasured rumble instead, nearer a growl than not.

  So she let her grip grow firmer. Fingertip could not reach thumb around his girth, not by far, but two hands served her better. Her grip grew firmer still as she grew braver, striving to match the rhythm he had worked himself with, to draw another bitten-off growl from his clever mouth.

  It came soon enough, and Cecille smiled, entranced, luxuriating in the touch, in the feel of him, as she never would have reckoned it — such silken softness over such enticing hardness.

  The sight of him in hand was irresistible. He glistened with his pleasure, so she bent her head and suckled there, tasting salt and skin, her tongue wet, lapping against his warmth.

  Another growl, almost pained.

  Cecille looked up at him through her eyelashes. The Beast lay back amid the furs, his taut muscles growing tauter still with the denial of his pleasure, every glorious inch of him hewn as though by the admiring hand of some indulgent god.

  She moaned a little at the sight of him, around the head of him, teased at the slit there with the tip of her tongue. And that drew forth another answering groan from the Beast, far more ragged this time.

  He moved suddenly — reached down to cup her head, gentle, then to urge her gently away. “Enough, lass.”

  Cecille tried to pout in the inviting way she had seen other girls employ. “You touched me.”

  But her attempt at coy was only that — and a poor attempt. The Beast simply laughed at her. “So I did.”

  Her pout gave way to a glare that felt far more at home on Cecille’s face. “You disobeyed me,” she said.

  “Am I to be punished then?”

  “Perhaps.” Cecille shifted forward to straddle his hips more firmly. She did not intend it, but his hard length slipped across her folds as she moved, a teasing, fleeting touch. “Perhaps not,” she relented, voice gone a little unsteady with that unexpected spark of pleasure.

  Another pleased rumble of laughter from the Beast.

  Cecille pretended a sour look, pushed her palm against his shoulder, contrary, some strength in it, though not enough to move a man like he.

  But the Beast let himself be moved. He fell back again with a laugh and a glinting smile.

  His eyes glimmered golden in the firelight, the magic that dwelled in him stirring anew — at the sight of her, perhaps, at the thought of what more they might do together.

  And that was a thought most enticing. Straddling him thus put the Beast once more at her mercy. Cecille reached down and drew her fingers along his length, an idle, teasing motion, intended to vex and excite in equal measure.

  And it worked.

  With a huff, the Beast came up on his elbows then, grasped her hand in his to cease her idle exploration. “Is your curiosity sated?” he asked.

  “For the moment,” Cecille said.

  “Then what more does my lady wish of me?”

  No need to think on that for long. “I would have your touch upon me.”

  “Then my touch you shall have.”

  The Beast urged her forwards as he lay back again. Cecille did not understand his intent, not at first, but as his hands wrapped around her thighs, under the heft of her buttocks, as he lifted her, set her down so that she hovered over his face — then she understood.

  Instantly, intimately, she understood. She could feel his steady breath upon her. Then not just his breath — his lips, his tongue.

  Her thighs shook with the unexpectedness of her rising pleasure, of the sensation, disconcerting and thrilling all at once.

  She grabbed at his head, at his dark hair, her grip fierce, pressure building in her, pleasure building in her, overcome by feeling, unable to decide whether she should push him away or pull him closer.

  In the end it did not matter. In the space of but a few ragged breaths, her release crashed over her, shook through her, sent her aquiver and shaking with her pleasure.

  The Beast held her through her sparking shivers. “More?” he asked.

  “More,” Cecille said. Always more.

  And so he lifted her by the waist as he got his knees under him, then set her down there so that she might straddle him. Again, she felt the press of his hard length sliding against the delicious wetness of her folds — until that length was nudging against her entrance, then pressing in but slightly.

  Cecille gasped at the feel of it, affected so. She gripped the Beast’s shoulders so tightly that her nails must have bit into his skin, but he did not flinch.

  He simply watched her, hands held firm to the swell of her hips. And that was all he did. Held her there, ready to sheath him. And what was clear — the next move to make was Cecille’s.

  Hesitantly, she relaxed the muscles of her thighs so that her weight began to bear down, so that she herself might slide down around him.

  A flash of distant pain flared as her body welcomed him, but in the next breath, that pain was lost to a wave of sensation as the Beast’s hotness touched something deep within her and her body welcomed him anew.

  Resistance washed away by warm sensation, she sank down suddenly, endlessly, until she was seated on him, his girth fully sheathed.

  Her eyes rolled back, unbidden. She wanted to moan, but the sound that left her was too broken by her pleasure to be called such. She felt hardly contained within her own body, so full her muscles could barely clench, so overcome by the feeling of it she could hardly think.

  The Beast moved, the smallest of hitches, and the jolt of desire that sparked through her left Cecille breathless for a moment.

  “Does this please you, lass?” the Beast asked, words hot against her mouth as he leaned down to kiss her, deep and lush. “My vigour within you?”

  “Oh, it pleases me,” Cecille gasped, breathlessly. She fisted her hands in his hair again. Pulled him close and held him there. “It pleases me so very much.”

  She began to ride him, slow at first as she took the astounding measure of his girth, then quicker as the Beast rose to meet her, a sly, harkening rhythm intended to undo her — then quicker still as she strived for yet another release, the feel of him slipping from her body’s hold and entering her again maddening in its wondrous torture.

  And too maddening to resist.

  Between one breath and the next she became undone, clenching hard around him; though, in truth, there was hardly room to clench. In that same moment, with Cecille’s inner heat all aflutter, the Beast’s gentle thrusts became less steady, less rhythmic — he approached his own completion.

  And even all but overcome with her cresting pleasure, Cecille found that she still had thought enough to think. “You must not spill in me, Beast,” she told him. “You must not.”

  “You need not fear,” the Beast said, his mouth hot against her throat. “My seed would not quicken in you, lass.” But he withdrew all the same, and with a guttural groan striped his release between them, across the quivering softness of her stomach, the lush lower curve of her breasts.

  Cecille put her finger to it, then the finger to her lips, and she lapped as a pleased cat might lap at spilled cream.

  And when she was done, the Beast placed his thumb to her lip again, to the bitten-red plushness there.

  “Have you fallen far enough, sweet lass?”

  She took the kisses he offered, and tasted herself as she tasted him. “I do not know,” she told him. “But I think I shall enjoy finding out.”

  The Stableboy

  Autumn had well begun. In the village, it was harvest time. By now the hayricks would be full, the orchards empty, and the grain in the stores piled high, as golden as the Beast’s eyes.

 

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