Beauty's Beast Read online

  She doubted he appreciated the nicety. No doubt, all the women he dated – and according to TMZ and other gossip sites, he was quite the ladies' man – did that automatically.

  Taren watched him round the hood of her tiny car then made no effort to hide how interested she was in watching him try to wedge his tall, broad self into the tight confines of the front seat area that she was already taking up at least fifty percent of.

  Although she was already armed with a quip about him needing a shoehorn to get in, he did the smart thing. He first leaned down to adjust the seat itself as far back as it would go, as well as the setting the seat back the same way, so that when he did slid in, he did it with an elegance that made her want to smack him.

  His midnight black hair, which was long and straight from the top, although it got wavier further down, brushed the ceiling with every move, but other than the fact that every time he raised his right arm he managed to elbow her in the boob, he was doing much better than she'd given him credit for.

  But, damn, it was cramped in there, and he was nothing if not intimidating – if just in deference to his size – so blasted up close and personal. Taren felt as if she might as well have been sitting in his lap. Their thighs touched every time either of them moved, and that just pointed out to her – which she definitely didn't need to know – that his were least twice as long and muscular as hers.

  In order to prevent what she knew would be an awkward silence any way you sliced it, she reached over and turned on a mix station that played a lot of songs she knew.

  But, once he'd pulled onto the highway, he reached out and turned it down.

  "You didn't dance with anyone tonight."

  Her eyebrow rose at his choice of conversational gambit, but she kept her tone carefully neutral. "No."

  "I saw several men ask you, but you turned them down."

  He did? So he was keeping tabs on her the same way she was on him. That was certainly an interesting tidbit of information. "Yes."

  He gave her a thoughtful look. "If I had brought you, would you have danced with me?"

  She refused to look at him, staring out her window and answering softly, "You wouldn't have brought me."

  That seemed to have given him pause for thought.

  "You would have turned me down?"

  "In a heartbeat," she returned, almost before he'd finished the question.

  That got a soft chuckle from him. "Why? Am I that ugly?"

  Very little he could have said would have gotten her attention quicker than that, causing her heart to squeeze painfully in her chest. Her eyes flared as she glared at him, willing them not to fill with tears that were already nearly overflowing, and her voice betrayed her emotions quicker than the tears that ran down her cheeks. "Don't be ridiculous. I'm the one that's ugly in this equation. Men like you don't go out with women who – women who look like me."

  There. She'd said it.

  Bruce reached over the scant few inches that separated them occasionally, placing his big hand over hers. "Women with glorious wavy red hair that I want to run my fingers through? Women who are taller than usual so that I don't have to bend down as far to kiss them? Women who have beautiful green eyes that a man could lose himself in?"

  Entirely unable to hear his romantic notions, Taren snatched her hand out from under his as if it was a live spider, not that she had a good place to put it once she'd done so, and she ended up just dropping it lamely into her lap. "Don't be deliberately obtuse."

  "I'm not, lass."

  "And you can cut it with the Outlander-slash-Highlander speak, too. I dinna find it charming in the least," she lied harshly through her teeth.

  She could feel him stiffen in his seat, and he cleared his throat thoroughly, in a manner that left her no doubt that he was peeved with her.

  Which, as far as she was concerned, was just too damned bad.

  The rest of the ride home was conducted in just the manner she hoped, a terribly awkward silence, although she hardly felt triumphant about it. When he finally brought the car to a halt in front of the garage, she didn't wait for him to come around and help her out but practically bolted from the car before it had come to a full stop.

  But a few paces away from it, she succumbed to an urge she'd been fighting since he'd arrived, reaching as she walked more slowly away than she'd intended, too intent on what she was doing to pay much attention to her surroundings.

  Finally, she'd found the half empty pack of cigarettes and the tiny lighter she'd hidden in the clutch she'd been holding onto for dear life all night, knowing that if her brother found out her secret, there'd be hell to pay. Seconds later, she had one between her lips and lit the end, taking a big, deep breath of that which she knew would likely kill her.

  But damn, nothing could beat a cigarette when she was upset.

  Abso-fucking-lutely nothing.

  That was when he'd gone all Neanderthal on her ass – much, much more so than Sam would ever thought of.

  "What on God's green Earth do you think you're doing, la – woman?" Bruce roared, stalking towards her.

  She might have been a taller than average woman, but he was at least half again her size, and she was smart enough to start backing up as soon as he began eating up the short distance between them.

  But it was too little too late, she quickly realized as he easily gained on, then overtook her, manacling his enormous fingers around the hand that held the cigarette.

  His command to, "Drop it," was surprisingly calm and deadly quiet, while his eyes held hers and fairly dared her to challenge him, as if he knew she wasn't going to be able to resist the urge and was thoroughly looking forward to it.

  Instead, she issued a hearty, "Fuck. You." Then she did her best to lean her mouth down to where the cigarette was still between her fingers.

  But as soon as he realized what it was that she was trying to do, he used his other hand to knock it to the ground, stomping on it vigorously as if he was taking out his frustrations at her on the poor, defenseless cigarette.

  Which was perfectly fine with her, because she was busy lighting another.

  And what he did about that hadn't really occurred to her as an option, until she found he was already doing it. Her wrist still manacled, butt knocked out of it and stomped on by one foot, that firm hold used to tug her over the knee he'd raised to just about the perfect height by putting his other ghillie up on the bumper of her car.

  She came to rue the fact that she hadn't chosen a more form-fitting dress, considering the ridiculous ease with which the one she was wearing was raised to her waist, her boy briefs lowered to skirt her knees in an alarmingly efficient manner. Firm, hard flesh smacked down onto much softer, more yielding flesh within seconds of her having lit that fateful second cigarette.

  Chapter Two

  It all happened so blasted fast that she could barely believe what he was doing to her! Was the man out of his mind? She didn't know how women were treated in Scotland, but she had to think that they weren't spanked, as a rule.

  Were they?

  That was neither here nor there. This was now, and she was doing her very best to end this abuse, but he was at least as strong as he looked and all of her attempts to find ways to escape proved depressingly futile. Nothing she tried even so much as slowed or gave a second's pause to the relentless rise and fall of his palm on her naked behind.

  He'd easily covered every bit of her virgin skin in a frighteningly few smacks, and now she found herself on the receiving end of swats that grew much worse, much more rapidly, because there wasn't an inch of her that he hadn't already reddened multiple times.

  Bruce didn't say a word as he allowed himself to work out some of the pent-up frustration he'd had about Taren that had been building since the moment he'd met her. But this – this was the last straw.

  This was her last cigarette, he vowed to himself. Whether or not anything ever developed between him – although he was certainly going to do his best to see that it d
id – he was going to make it his goal to ensure that she never picked up one of those cancer sticks again without remembering how he'd punished her for doing just that.

  Even if he was never able to get close to her, even if he was never able to show her just how gorgeous he thought she was – inside and out – at least, perhaps, he could help her in another way, keep her on this Earth longer.

  Keep her safe.

  It was a much longer, much more thorough spanking than he might have intended to give her at first, but the more he spanked, the angrier he got. Instead of relieving his frustrations, he found that the more he thought about what she'd done, the harder his hand landed, until he looked down and saw just how fiercely red she was, and when she tried at the end – much less enthusiastically than she had at the beginning – to slip off his knee, he let her.

  Finally.

  She scooted several paces from him, facing away, and he turned towards her, hearing her hurling invectives against him and watching her try to preserve her modesty from him as best she could, although that barn door was definitely wide open. He'd felt that lovely behind of hers – if only briefly with each smack – and he'd seen it, all flawlessly, milky white and generously rounded. And every atom of maleness he possessed reacted to her very potent femininity, not to mention the fact that she was draped over the erection he'd been unsuccessfully trying to subdue since the moment he'd seen her in the airport.

  Bruce took one step towards her, then spotted something on the ground, her purse. She made a lunge for it, but it was much closer to him, and she had to stand and watch him do exactly what she thought he'd do, which was just exactly what her brother would do in the same situation. He dug his big fingers into its depths and came up with the remainder of the pack as well as her small pink lighter. The cigarettes were ground into the dirt beneath his feet, and the lighter was tucked into the inner pocket of his impressive looking black Barathea jacket as he completely and unapologetically ignored the hand she'd optimistically put out for him to give them back to her.

  "No, lass," he said deliberately, with a distinct edge to his tone as he advanced towards her. "You'll not be getting' these back, and if I ever see or smell that you've had a cigarette again while I'm here, I'll make what I just gave you seem like a Swedish massage."

  His accent became much more pronounced when he was angry, part of her mind noted with great interest, only to be squelched immediately by the highly outraged rest of her.

  She surprised him greatly by not waiting for him to get to her, but coming at him. "You keep your big Scottish paws off me – and off my property!" She snatched her clutch back with one hand, but Taren's other arm was raised to smack him across the face, not that she wouldn't have been perfectly fine if she'd hit his arm or his chest, although she would definitely have preferred his much more vulnerable cheek.

  His training as an actor had him learning many new and different skills, such as how to be a rancher. But since he was a big guy, and a lot of the early films he'd been in were action movies, he'd also learned a reasonable amount of various forms of martial arts, more than enough to easily defend himself from the harridan that was descending on him, out for blood, not that he could really blame her.

  Bruce's arm came up automatically to block her well-broadcasted blow, and then he used her own momentum against her and turned it behind her, carefully, not wanting to hurt her accidentally, but using his hold to bring her flat up against him, which he accomplished quickly and efficiently.

  Taren couldn't prevent the surprised, sharp, "Oof!" that came out of her parted lips when her chest connected with his. It was not unlike being slammed up against a boulder, she imagined, and just as immoveable, apparently. She was no hundred-pound lightweight, and she had a bit of velocity behind her, and yet he absorbed her slamming into him without so much as a peep or a movement of any kind.

  He was just there, and she now found herself imprisoned against him, her breast flattened except for her perpetually peaked nipples, arm trapped no matter how she tugged and tried to twist it out of his hold. He contracted the hand that held hers just slightly, and she couldn't even move it any longer. How he could hold her completely immobile and yet not hurt her was a testament to just how aware he was of his own strength and how well he had learned to control it.

  His brought his free hand up to cup her face, alarmed to feel how desperately she craned her head away from it, trying to avoid his touch. But he wasn't about to allow her to do that. That big hand cupped her damaged cheek deliberately, brushing the side of his thumb over the unsightly landscape, his fingers delving into the hair she'd left loose, some of it pulled back into a very pretty gold filigreed barrette to reveal the pretty, crystal star earrings she was wearing.

  The ease with which he held her – not shying away from touching that part of her that she most loathed but instead making it a point to touch her there – had Taren absolutely speechless at his audacity, but that feeling was quickly replaced by one she was even more horrified by.

  Desire.

  It pooled in her breasts, swelling them with each ragged breath and rapidly descending to points much lower, making her shift her feet uneasily. Wanting to squeeze her thighs together against the onslaught of moisture that was inevitably going to make its way to her panties, her bottom seeming to throb and sting and tingle even more than it had been, almost as a reminder that they had already been quite intimate, in one way, anyway.

  He held her head in exactly the position he wanted, tipping her face up so that he could bring his mouth down onto hers.

  And she melted.

  Or rather, she wanted to. If she were whole and perfect, if he was just another rancher who lived nearby…

  If. If. If.

  Things might have been different between them.

  But the bare fact was that he was an international film star – and a fucking gorgeous one at that, known for his amazingly handsome good looks – and she was, at best, damaged goods.

  Still, if she allowed herself to admit it – and she wasn't about to, even to herself – it felt so good to be held in those undeniably strong arms, even to be manhandled as he had done and was doing to her the he could almost make her forget why it would be impossible for them to be together. The arm he'd looped around her was deliciously tight around her waist, holding her so that she knew bone deep that there was no way she could escape. His mouth was making her forget to want to, full, warm lips slanting across hers, nibbling her bottom lip when she staunchly denied him access to the warm inner recesses of her mouth. Tongue probing insistently until he moved the hand that had been on her cheek to the back of her head, yanking just slightly on her hair and causing her to open her mouth to issue a groan of protest, which was just what he'd intended.

  She was lost entirely from there, his tongue plundering at first then gentling, coaxing hers to join him, learning what she liked, what she tasted of – peppermint and coffee – and only very reluctantly drawing the kiss to a close. Although he didn't release her, in fact, the hand that had been in her hair simply drifted down her lower back to press her even closer to him.

  His mouth drifted across her cheek so quickly, and she was so far gone, that she didn't even react to the fact that he was kissing her scars before he stopped at his goal. Her shell of an ear as he began to rock them almost imperceptibly together, that aural sex voice of his reaching down through her – lighting fires as it went – to curl around a clit that had long since been at attention – craving his attentions.

  "I know you may not have wanted me to know, but Sam told me about what happened."

  Bruce felt her stiffen within his arms and set to rubbing her back gently to try to soothe away her embarrassment or humiliation or whatever other entirely unnecessary negative reaction she was having to what he was saying. And he didn't let it stop him.

  "I think what you did was one of the bravest things I've ever heard about in my life."

  For some reason, that made her stiffen even more
, but he ignored that, too.

  "Rescuing your baby brother from a fire that destroyed your house – at great risk to your own life – well, if I had been your Da, I don't know whether I'd have hugged you till you popped or blistered your behind when you came out."

  She could hear the truth in his tone and would have sworn she could practically hear tears, too.

  She did hear – and feel because of just how closely they were melded together – him swallow hard before he continued. "He also told me that you lost a lung because of what you did, that the smoke nearly killed you both as you were crawling to safety with him in your arms."

  Taren was obviously uncomfortable with the subject and was doing her best to try to get away from him, but instead, she found herself part of a bear hug that nearly robbed her of her breath – much more so than the cigarettes.

  And despite the fact, or perhaps more accurately because of it – if she was honest with herself, which she wasn't much interested in being at that moment – that he was rumble growling a threat to the safety and sanctity of her behind. She very nearly came right then and there, as he pressed his fervent words into her defenseless ear and past that to her very soul, "You know that I'm not having you on about the fact that I will personally make certain that you very thoroughly regret if you even so much as just pass through a cloud of smoke while I'm here?"

  He felt her rebel again at his edict – or attempting to, anyway – but he simply held her and waited until she tired herself out. And he knew she had exhausted herself by the fact that she couldn't seem to resist the opportunity to lay her head on his chest with a tired – if still agitated – sigh.

  "Answer me, Taren love," he murmured, his lips against the top of her head, the scent of her shampoo or her perfume or a combination of the two nearly driving him as crazy as the fact that he could feel the warmth of the lovely of tummy of hers that his hardness was doing its best to bury itself into.