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These are the beast’s senses, not mine, although I do not remember now what it was like to be without his enhancements to my human senses. So many times over the years we have battled for dominance, the beast taking control and making it clear I could not defeat him, or me shoving him aside through only the greatest effort. There have been times when I wished to be free of him, unraveling our separate ways of being so that I knew where he ended and I began.
If Elle didn’t smell so sweet, I might be angry at the closeness of the two of us. It wasn’t always this way, for it can’t have been, but with my nose pressed to her hair I am accepting of the beast’s embedded nature within me. I still know his presence as a curse, but I cannot help enjoying the benefit. There is so much purity, yet intense longing, in Elle’s scent. The sweet-salt scent of her arousal blends in equal measure with yesterday’s breeze in her hair and the bed sheets we slept in and even the way I put my mouth and fingers to her skin and made her come.
I breathe her in again.
Then again.
I realize I’m cautious because I expect the beast to lunge forward, seizing control and having his way with her. He abandons himself to his urges without understanding the human world. He only wants what he wants. I take such deep breaths because the opportunity is rare when I am in full control and not at the mercy of the beast’s animal desires. I want to remember this about her every time I am the one at the forefront. Every time I have control over my hands and my body.
Not all of my body, however. There are some things I can’t control even when the beast is sated.
And the beast is sated inside me. I inhale Elle again, almost trying to tempt him, but he is restful. He does not try to push me away so he can follow his urges. This is a shocking proposition given how wild he was to claim her and have her. He could barely be controlled in those moments when his blood ran hot and the world turned red. He was considerably more animal when Elle’s father spoke of giving her away to another man.
Now, he relishes her closeness and seems sure of it, though there is the idea within him that we should drag her to the baths and wash off all the evidence that Elle was ever somewhere else, sleeping under someone else’s roof.
I expect the beast to rise at that thought, too, since he has been with me all these years, fighting for space and dominance, but he does not. That could be because he is satisfied with having her here. We are both satisfied with having her here.
But I am more satisfied, I think.
We have battled so many times that when he does not fight, uneasiness fills me. I try to sense more about him, but it is difficult to separate us with Elle so near. It is as if he has laid his senses over mine and they have melded together.
Again, I wait to see if the beast will try to wrest control from me, but he does not.
Elle’s heartbeat slows down, but when I focus, I can tell that it is my own perception of time. It’s almost as if it’s stretching out so I can dwell on the feeling of her so close to me. We are at a threshold, the two of us. She has found the doorway to the staircase with her hand and hesitates as if staying here with me will get her what she wants.
What do you want, my beauty? I would give her everything for her to stay just like this. Allowing me to have her as I wish, obeying my commands. And giving me peace that I have not had since the curse was laid upon me.
Even with Elle’s small frame in my grasp, the beast does not take over. I begin to relax into the idea that he will not, at least for the time being. He will allow my hands the freedom to explore her without the surge of animal lust.
Because of this, the lust I feel is entirely human. It is not altogether different from the way the beast wants and takes. There is an element to it that reminds me of the beast at his most dangerous, but I do not want to dwell on those thoughts when the way Elle said please echoes in the air around us.
My cock grows harder with her body against mine. For a few seconds I consider what it might be like to let the madness take me again.
She takes a shuddering breath, adjusting her body minutely. Such a small change, but Elle feels entirely new against me. It must be the beast’s senses that allow me to see her movements with such clarity. It was the smallest shift of her shoulders and her hips, the most subtle repositioning, and yet it has also changed how the blood runs through her veins and how she fills her lungs with air.
I want to breathe with her. I want our two bodies to be connected by more than possession. I want them to be connected in every possible way.
“Please,” Elle whispers again. Her hands remain at her sides, forearms over where I am holding her hips. It is far too much to bear without letting the beast claim her, but again, he does not.
Why is this happening? Is it because I want her in the same way the beast does? Am I cursed to want her so ferally, so dangerously, for all time? If that is the outcome of the curse, then it has done its job. If it has made me and the beast one and the same, there may be no way to divide the two of us.
I know there is no imminent danger that she will escape. The magic soothes her enough that she is more curious than frightened. Still, I’m torn between the old ways of wooing a woman with gifts and gentle words and the beast’s way of claiming her. It is true that I stole her from her bed and brought her, sleeping, to the castle. It is true that she asked me to let her go and I refused. It is true that there is little pretty words will do when she knows she is not free to leave.
But there must be some balance. The more I breathe her scent, the more clearly I understand that the beast’s urges are more similar to my own than I want to admit. I wanted to think I was fighting a monster, an animal, for control of my body, and that still remains true.
There are parts of me that are more beast than man.
And yet I will never know how I might have responded to Elle without this curse. Would the man I was before have walked through the enchanted forest and waited outside her window to carry her away? Would he have sought out the bakery where she sold goods and offered her a position in the castle or even suggested marriage?
There is no sense in thinking how things might have gone, because the curse is within me and has been for so long that I despair of ever getting it out.
But I do think of it. I do think of all the many ways I might have found her and wooed her and perhaps even spirited her away. And what I find when I let my mind linger on them is a very similar ending to this one.
It may be that I was always the sort of man who would take a woman this way.
I push that thought out of my mind. With the beast under control, I’m too eager to soak in Elle’s presence at this moment, which has grown longer in spite of how time ticks endlessly on. Every year has seemed like a century since I was cursed, and for the first time since that day, I do not mind the way this pause in the hallway seems to stretch out.
I want to slide one hand from her hip to the front of her body, but I force myself to wait until I’m sure I am steady and the beast is quiet before I inch my hand forward to the front of her hip. She is delicate here, too, and sensitive. She gasps, her gorgeous lips part, but she does not object.
