Beauty Dates the Beast (17 page)

Swell.

I gave him a wary thumbs-up. Ramsey nodded at me and quickly exited, as if he couldn’t wait to get away. Not a chatter, that Ramsey. I heard the chopping stop, heard the two men converse, their voices low. I yearned for supernatural hearing so I could hear what they were saying. But then the chopping began again, and I peeked out the window to see Ramsey strolling away into the cold woods, his hands tucked in his jacket.

I stayed in the kitchen, making eggs, hash browns, and toast. I cooked an enormous amount of food—Beau ate a lot, thanks to his shifter metabolism. He eventually came inside, his body gleaming with sweat, his shirt stuck to his chest, his hair a damp, curling mess on his forehead.

We ate a silent, awkward meal. The heat stood between us. I remained silent, not wanting to antagonize the already touchy Beau, and he seemed content to slap his cutlery around as he ate. He thanked me for cooking, but other than that, we said little. I ate fast so I wouldn’t have to linger at the table, and Beau seemed determined to do the same.

So much for romance.

After breakfast, he disappeared back outside and I showered, then dressed in the clothes that Ramsey had brought for me. Jeans and long-sleeved shirts, sweaters, and the like. Cute bras and underwear. I suspected that Sara had had something to do with that, because everything fit.

I picked the laciest, sexiest bra and underwear and put them on under my jeans and sweater. Lingerie was ammunition in the war of the sexes, and I planned on loading my guns.

B
eau slinked into the living room a short while later, clothing changed. “Get your coat on. We’re going out.”

I looked up from my book and blinked from my corner of the couch. Then I looked out the window. The unusual snow continued, coming down outside in big, fat flakes. Like any Texan face-to-face with snow, my instinct was to burrow indoors. “We’re going out? Why?”

“We’re going to do something romantic. To make today special. I told you I’d make this special for you, and I plan on keeping my word.” He sounded irritated. Well, gee, this was an auspicious beginning.

“Sure,” I said, tucking the book aside and slipping on my new sneakers. “We can go out.”

He was there in moments, handing me a brandnew jacket and jamming a knit cap over my head.
I’d fixed my hair in two pigtailed braids to keep it off my neck, and I probably looked thirteen under the cap. But I allowed him to help me dress—in his mood it probably wasn’t wise to stop him—and followed him as he headed into the front of the house.

A picnic basket was parked by the door. I glanced out the window again. Still snowing, quite heavily.

I looked back at the picnic basket and frowned. Did Beau really expect to have a picnic outside? But I jerked on my gloves and followed him out as he picked up the basket.

Beau wasn’t wearing a jacket—I guess the cold didn’t affect him like it did me. He wore a light flannel shirt and raked his hand through his hair, staring at his surroundings.

I paused behind him. “What are you looking for?”

“Nothing,” he said tersely and began to plow through the fresh snow, heading to the woods.

This was going to be
so
much fun. I shut the door behind me and followed after him, zipping up my jacket.

We trudged through the snow in silence. If it hadn’t been so windy, it might have actually been quite pretty outside. The snow was falling and the woods were blanketed in white, mixed with the evergreens
in the distance. I was also cheered to see that we were sticking to the clear, open areas.

If my companion hadn’t been so tightly wound, it might have been a bit of an adventure. If you ignored the blood and the finger from last night, of course. I couldn’t help but be a bit nervous today, even in broad daylight.

“Just ahead,” Beau barked at me, and I trotted after him. My sneakers didn’t exactly keep out the snow, and my socks were getting wet. More fun by the minute.

I nearly ran into Beau’s broad back when he slammed to a halt, and I placed my hands on his waist to steady myself.

He jumped away as if burned. “I’ll get set up.”

I eyed him with frustration, then gave up. We’d stopped at the banks of a creek that cut through the trees. Frost and snow lined the muddy banks, and the icy water trickled delicately over rocks. It was very pretty.

I turned to look at Beau, who had thrown a red blanket onto the snow. A red, heart-shaped blanket, and now he was unloading the rest of the picnic basket.

What. The. Heck.

“Come sit down,” he said. He must have realized how grumpy that sounded, because a grudging “Please” followed it.

I sat down on one side of the heart, trying to ignore how cold I was. A picnic on a heart-shaped blanket was very sweet. Judging from the jagged edges of the fabric, he’d cut the blanket himself. Though, at the moment, I wished I could wrap it around me.

Beau pulled out chocolate-covered strawberries, champagne, and a pair of flutes. He popped the cork and began to pour the liquid with the grim, methodical look of a man on a mission.

Operation: Romance.

I gave him a bright smile when he handed me a glass, then I took a small sip. It tasted lovely, but it was really cold. My teeth chattered against the lip of the glass, so I opted to just hold the drink instead.

He picked up one of the strawberries with a determined look. “Shall I feed this to you?”

Was he serious? But resolute Beau was far more palatable than sulky Beau, so I ignored my discomfort. “Sure. Why are we doing this again?”

“I’m romancing you,” he half-snarled. “Don’t you want to be romanced?”

“No, this is fine,” I hastily agreed.

He moved to my side and leaned over me. His body was radiating heat, and I immediately wanted to crawl under his shirt. My body was starting to feel like it had stopped giving off heat about ten
minutes earlier. Still, he was trying hard to give me the “romance” he thought I wanted, so I smiled gamely and opened my mouth.

The strawberries were a mistake. They were like blocks of ice. Tasty blocks, but I had no desire for more. After one bite I declined the rest. “I must not be that hungry.”

He lifted my champagne glass. “More to drink?”

The bitter wind seemed to bite right through my clothing. I could see little flakes of ice forming in the glass, and my jaw began to chatter again. “No thanks.”

He put the glasses aside, leaning them in the snow, and moved toward me. His hands slid over my coat and I recognized the hot look in his eyes. “Your mouth is so red,” he said, leaning in for a kiss.

Not blue yet? Impressive. I tilted my face toward his and his lips captured mine. Hot, warm, wet—delicious. He tasted like I wanted the champagne to be. Beau made a low noise of satisfaction in his throat, and the kiss became demanding, devouring. I loved the feeling of his mouth on mine, and I sank into the sensation. My gloves wrapped around his shoulders and I leaned into the embrace, not protesting when he pushed me backward.

Until the snow hit my lower back. I jerked and the champagne glasses flipped over, splashing onto the backside of my jeans. “Cold,” I shrieked against his mouth.

He jerked away from me in surprise, glancing at the champagne flutes as I scrambled away from the wetness seeping onto my end of the blanket. My entire backside was wet, and so was the blanket—the part that wasn’t covered with the drifting snow.

“Are you okay, Bathsheba?” His brow furrowed.

My teeth clattered.

“Your mouth is turning purple. Why didn’t you tell me you were cold?”

“Because y-you didn’t seem l-like you were open t-to f-feedback—”

He swore. “Bathsheba, don’t be stupid. I have a different body temperature than you. You’re going to have to tell me when you’re cold.”

“Fine,” I gritted. “I’m cold. It’s very sweet, but I think it’s the wrong time of year for this.”

His mouth tightened. “I’ll take you back to the house.”

His tone didn’t make that sound like something we’d be doing together. “Are you going to stay with me?”

He shook his head. “I think I need some time away. I’m losing control and this just isn’t working.”
He ran a hand down his face roughly. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure you’re home safe first.”

Frustrated and too cold to argue, I stood up and flexed my fingers as he packed up the food. As he stood up with the basket, the blanket lifted off the ground with the wind and slid past me, heading for the creek bank.

I was closer to it. “I’ll grab that.” I moved toward the bank, my shoes sinking into the mud.

Beau was at my side within moments, trying to move past me. “You’re cold and weak. Let me.”

I shoved at him, irritated. “I’m human, you jerk not crippled.” The blanket was just out of reach, so I took another step forward into the mud, angling my body on the steep bank to keep my balance.

I grabbed at the blanket at the same time as Beau did, and the stubborn ass jerked it out of my hands.

I lost my footing and slid down the steep bank toward the icy creek. Mud slid up my pant leg and sucked at my shoes, and I had a moment to cringe before my legs slid into the icy water.

I yelped.

Beau called my name just before my shoulder smacked against a branch, stopping my fall when I was three-quarters submerged.

Strong hands were on me before my brain could process anything besides coldcoldcoldcold. Beau
lifted me out of the water, ripping off my sodden coat. “This is why you need to let
me
do things, Bathsheba,” he said in a frustrated voice.

I wanted to punch him, but my entire body was quaking so hard that I couldn’t even glare. “Fuck. You,” I chattered. My feet were freezing, my socks icy weapons of torture. “If you had let me get it, I wouldn’t be a popsicle right now.”

He took off his shirt and wrapped me in it. It was warmer, but the rest of my wet clothing still clung to me like an icy skin, and my jaw chattered so hard that I thought it would fall off.

“I’m sorry, sweet thing,” he said, scooping me up in his arms and tucking me against his bare chest. I burrowed close, pressing my lips against the warmth of his neck.

I was sooo going to kill him when I warmed up.

The walk back to the house felt unbearably long, with the snow coming down and my legs numbing up and my teeth clacking as if they’d been trying to escape my mouth. Beau was a blazing hot furnace and I curled into his heat as much as possible, pushing my wet chest against his, wrapping my arms around his torso and basically trying to crawl into his skin. I heard a low growl in his throat, but I didn’t care. I simply wanted the bitter cold to go away.

Finally, Beau pulled his keys out of his pocket,
unlocked the front door, and then we were enveloped with warmth. I could have cried in relief, but I feared the tears would freeze on my face.

Beau set me down at the doorstep and turned to look me in the eye. His eyes gleamed greenish for a moment. “I’m going to check the house to make sure nothing is amiss, and then I’m going to come back here and build a fire. I want you to strip off your clothing and jump in the shower.”

As he raced off, I hesitated, my mind dull with cold. Strip off my clothing? In front of a man—a were-cougar—obsessed with having sex with me? Cold and modesty warred for a brief moment, and then I uncurled my slow, icy fingers and peeled off Beau’s borrowed shirt, worn over my wet clothing. It was now as damp as everything else.

He reappeared a few moments later, firewood stacked in his hands, and growled at the sight of me, still mostly dressed. “I’m not going to ravish you while you’re dying of hypothermia.”

“I know,” I said in a wobbly voice, but I still couldn’t seem to get moving.

Beau noticed this and picked me up in his arms, where I huddled against him as he moved to the bathroom and turned on the shower. Heat immediately blasted into the small room. “Get in there. Once you’ve warmed up enough to move, take your clothes off. Understand?”

I nodded, stepping inside the shower and letting the hot water run over my body, gasping at the burning warmth. It felt wonderful, and I closed my eyes and let the hot water cascade over me.

“I’m going to get the fire going,” he said. “Then I’ll be back to check on you.”

I wished I could sink into the hot water and never come out. It felt so good against my icy skin. When I unthawed a little, I began to grow irritated at the feeling of my wet jeans against my skin—I wanted all of me under the hot water. I glanced at the doorway where Beau had disappeared—still cracked open.

Screw modesty. It wasn’t like I didn’t want him to see me naked at some point, right? My fingers fumbled with the zipper and button of my jeans and I managed to get them undone. I slid them down my legs and stepped out, leaving the sodden lump on the floor on the far side of the shower.

I tried pulling my sweater over my head, but my arms were too drained of strength and the sweater was too soaked. I hauled it to my neck and then got stuck, unable to grasp it properly. “Beau,” I whimpered, my head trapped in the wet fabric. “Help here.”

A warm body was at my side in the shower in an instant. He pulled the rest of the heavy, water-soaked sweater over my head.

I stood there in the spray of the shower, wearing nothing but lacy panties and a bra that were so wet that they left less to the imagination than my imagination did.

Beau stiffened and suddenly I felt too exposed. His eyes began to gleam in that hungry, predatory way I recognized. “You want to take those off?” he growled.

I bit my lip, deciding. “You won’t look?”

“Bathsheba,” he said, his voice sounding strangled. “You can’t stand in front of me like that and ask me not to look.”

Fair enough. I turned slightly, presenting him with my back and letting the water pound against my front. My hands went to the long, wet ropes of my braids and I pulled them forward over my shoulders. “Can you undo my bra?”

His hands slid up my back in a hot, slippery motion, the gliding caress like liquid fire. The clasp on my bra popped and his hands stroked up and down my back. I pulled the bra off and let it fall to the tiled floor. Crossing my arms over my breasts protectively, I looked at him over my shoulder. “Thank you.” The words came out low, husky.