15. The Prince and the Beast

THE PRINCE AND THE BEAST

I t feels dangerous. The rush of adrenaline heats my entire being. This time, the beast does not go back to his resting state. Not with her so close, so obedient, and so fucking beautiful. The beast stretches himself out, his power filling my chest and making my lust more palpable by far. The light caresses her cheek and I find myself obsessed with this moment. For years I have wanted nothing as much as I want her right now.

The sight of the moon spurs me to action. Its pull is as undeniable as it was when I took Elle from her father's house.

With clear sight of the moon and with everything I have done with Elle, from watching her take in the ballroom by moonlight to feeling the vibration of her moans around my fingers as I fed her, the beast has far more demands and I find myself more and more willing to allow the primal needs power over me.

And the scent of her is even stronger. Telling her I would require her obedience has made her heart thud and the slightest sheen of sweat appear on her skin. I did not know that one woman could be both salty and sweet and desirous and nervous all at the same time.

There are many things that affect how I feel about the woman who sits close enough for me to grasp her throat in my hand without leaning in to reach it. The moon has just begun to wane from the full, so its influence is still incredibly strong. The castle has been a magical place for many years, and the magic of the curse interacts with it. Include the moon, which tugs at my spirit, and all make the beast powerful and hungry.

But maybe it is just Elle.

Maybe it is just her that gives me this swelling sense of need and possession. Maybe I would have felt the same about her if I'd come across her at a ball with all the townspeople in attendance. Maybe I'd have felt the same if I rode through the village and met her eyes outside the bakery where she worked.

I reach for my goblet of wine and bring it to my lips. I serve Elle nothing but the finest wine and feed her nothing but the finest foods, and so the wine has a deep, rich flavor that bursts with sweetness and tannins on my tongue. The taste reminds me of long-ago glasses of wine in crowded dining rooms, the high energy of couples whirling across the dance floor saturating the space, and the air thick with laughter and flirtatious murmurs and greetings between friends. It warms me as it goes down.

The longing is nothing compared to my longing for her.

I take her chin in my hand the way I fantasized about only minutes ago and stroke her cheek with the pad of my thumb.

Elle opens her mouth with a sudden gasp, her lips and tongue glistening in the firelight. It may be my imagination, but a beam of moonlight falls across her mouth as well, bending my attention toward it. The same beam of moonlight winks on the goblet in my hand.

I raise it to her lips with meticulous care. Elle breathes shallowly as the goblet nears her lips as if she can sense it. Perhaps the scent or even the faintest of sound warns her.

I guide the goblet to her bottom lip. She closes her mouth over the rim, lifting her chin slightly but waiting for a word from me. My cock strains achingly against my breeches.

"Drink," I order her in a low voice.

Elle drinks with tentative sips, but a droplet of wine slips out from between her lips and dribbles down her chin. She pulls back slightly from the goblet, offering me a view of her face. The drop of wine drips off the elegant point of her chin and lands on her chest, trailing into her cleavage.

With a roar that I manage to subdue into a growl when it tears through my throat, the beast lunges, pushing me out of his way in a frenzy of lust.

Eager to lick the wine from her chin and continue to devour her bit by bit.

To my surprise, a small moan escapes Elle. She leans closer to me, and I wrestle for space with the beast, both of us reaching for her.

She's as turned on as I am. My beauty is in need. The lust and desire are thick between us, and I cave like the mere mortal I am.

I pull her out of her chair and between my legs, sitting up straight so I can lick the wine from between her breasts. I hardly notice the dishes from the meal and the platters of food flying from the room in an orderly row, granting us space to consume one another.

It is only one drop of wine, but it tastes as heavenly as the longer sip I drank before, made better by the sweetness of her skin. I follow the trail up to Elle's chin and lick the evidence there, too, finally capturing her mouth. She whimpers into the kiss, but it is not a plea to stop. On the contrary, she presses herself between my legs with more force.

Fuck. She makes it both harder for me to fight the beast and harder to discern between the two of us.

I take her by the hips and guide her over my thigh. I do not know whether it is me or the beast who pushes her blue dress up to her hips. And I don't give a fuck so long as she's bared to me. She wears nothing underneath, and I press one of my hands into each of her thighs, my mind swallowed up by the heat of her pussy against me. Elle arches, rolling her hips, trying to get contact. I suckle at her neck, tasting her pulse and the magic and moonlight in a thick haze around us.

I had a mind to wait, to perhaps coax her into accepting me into her body, but a demanding growl vibrates through my chest. My memories crowd into my mind, both as I remember them and as the beast remembers them, which is tinged with strong scents and stronger feelings untainted by the rules and morals I was raised with. The beast is a creature of the wild, a dark, magical forest where the choice is between eating and being eaten, claiming or having the object of one's desires claimed by a stronger predator.

There is no stronger predator, and the beast has run out of patience.

Or perhaps it is me who has run out of patience, and the line between us is too blurred for me to feel who is to blame.

In one smooth movement, I push her off my thigh and turn her, bending her over the table. Her small hands slap the wood as she finds her position. I take her waist in one hand and again push her dress higher to her waist. A man in possession of himself would likely pull it over her head, protecting the fine fabric, but I do not care to protect such luxuries.

And the man I have become enjoys the sight of crumpled silk in uneven lines over her slim waist. Elle arches her back, her palms flat against the table, the blindfold falling down her skin in a line of black silk that stands out against the blue.

It takes a single touch at her gorgeous, shapely thighs for Elle to spread them. She rises on tiptoes, her feet slipping out of the slippers. The next time I readjust my stance I hit one with my foot, and it slides beneath the table. I do not care to see it again. I only care to get my hand between her thighs and stroke flesh I know will already be sodden.

She is as wet and ready as she was in the bed and lifts her hips into my touch, moaning softly. Elle moves, and I glance up to see that she has pillowed her arms on the table and leans her forehead in, seeming lost in the sensation of my touch, though I have given her only one stroke. I drag three fingers through her sweet arousal again, teasing at her opening and then searching out the swollen nub of her clit. Desire builds as I listen to her moans grow louder and her thighs begin to tremble with her impending orgasms.

My pulse beats in my ears, a feeling of deep shame surfacing and falling away. The terms I offered Elle were selfish, but the way I drag pleasure out of her is even more so. I want to sink in her and be enveloped by the evidence of her desire. I want her to work her hips back to take more of my cock, her hunger to be stoked higher than any fire in the castle.

Elle cries out, lifting her head, her back a beautiful arch amid the wrinkled silk of her dress. I release her hip and shove her dress higher until I can see the delicate curves of her shoulder blades working as she rides out an intense orgasm. I recognize the pitch of Elle's voice as she moans, beginning to come down.

She wants more pleasure.

"Yes," I say, half to her and half to myself, guilt at my selfishness mixing with the unavoidable sense of relief. She is enjoying it. She wants me. She needs me even. My body has ached for this, and the beast has snapped and growled for this since we came upon Elle sitting in that swing, the shawl around her shoulders. " Yes ."

I bend over her, my hand working once again over her clit. Elle throws her head back as I fold myself over her and lick the side of her neck. I find the place on her shoulder where I bit her before and press my teeth into the flesh, drawing a gasp from Elle that turns into a low moan. She begins to come again on my fingers, her pussy so hot and wet that moving my fingers at all causes them to enter her. Elle thrusts her hips back, taking two of my fingers inside her, and I push in, pressing and stretching into her to prepare her for what's to come.

She clenches sweetly around my knuckles, her channel tight and hot and responsive. Elle moves her hips with more urgency now and I put my hand on her hip again, holding her in place where I want her while still allowing her to rock on my fingers. Each gasp that slips from between her lips is answered with a soft whimper or moan. None of her sounds form words, but the plea is clear enough.

I need her higher. The angle of the table is not right for me to fuck her bent this way, so I take her hips in both my hands and lift her. Elle scrambles onto the table on all fours, her dress falling around her shoulders. When she regains her balance, she tips her head back again, her hair and the black silk of the blindfold spilling over her back.

Fucking gorgeous.

I fumble for the ties of my breeches, nearly snapping them in my haste. The laces come undone under fingers that feel more like the beast's than my own. I plunge my hand into my gaping breeches and take out my cock. It's hard and pulsing, already leaking precum at the tip, and I drag it through Elle's folds, trying to steady my breath.

She makes a low, pleading sound, pushing her hips back into my hand. Though she has come twice, her opening still feels tight, and I position the head of my cock at her center. The feeling of her hot, wet pussy against my skin is almost enough to bring me to orgasm before I've entered her. My vision darkens under a wave of pleasure I am granted only by touching her and feeling her slick warmth coat the head of my cock. I have been isolated for so long that even with wringing pleasure out of her earlier, I still crave it like nothing I've ever desired before.

Elle wriggles her bottom, arching lower so her opening begins to take in the head of my cock. I release a groan that turns into a growl, fighting for control. The animal in me wants to pin her roughly to the table and fuck into her deeply and mercilessly, showing her once and for all who has dominion over her body, but the prince in me, turned beastly by so many years of loneliness, desperately wants to be inside her, lost in the presence of a pure, innocent heart.

Of course I want to claim her, too. Of course I want to show her how she belongs to me.

I push forward, enveloping myself only an inch. Elle gasps and throws her head back again but this time her fists clench. Her first. Her only . I savor the moment. I bury my fist in the dress at her back, catching the blindfold, and hold tight, not pulling hard because I do not want any damage done to her delicate neck but adding tension to keep the intoxicating arch of her body where I want it. Elle trembles, her hands opening and closing on the table, and pants, her cunt fluttering around me with every breath she takes.

I place both my hands on her hips and push forward one more inch, drawing another gasp from her lips. Her whimper is delectable.

The feel of her is so tight and so hot, surrounding my cock in the sweetest flesh I could have imagined, and I manage to take her slowly one more inch before I can no longer hold the beast at bay. I do not know if I am even trying when he seizes control of my body and drives into Elle, sheathing my cock to the hilt.

Elle leans into it, bracing herself as much as she can against the table, her cries and moans echoing in the room as I fuck her ruthlessly. Her pussy ripples as she orgasms again.

Her skin is already reddened underneath my fingertips. There will be bruises when I am finished, but I cannot stop. I do not want to stop. I want her here with me, claimed, marked with my seed. The beast urges my body into Elle, his vision narrowed to her lithe frame on the table and the pool of silk around her.

My cock pulses as I near my release. Elle moans and cries but does not pull away. She moves her hips back, trying to take more of me, though I am already buried in her as deeply as I will go, and her body cannot accept more.

I would never have thought she would bend so easily and accept my girth with cries of pleasure. I can hardly see when she clenches down around me, so tight my cock is nearly strangled. I pulse inside her, my length growing thicker, and I cannot stop the feral growls that issue from between my teeth. There is no point in battling the beast now. He has taken over fully and will not be sated again until he has had his fill, and I am too caught up in Elle's pleasure to care.

My release erupts out of me with a cry that shakes the castle. Elle's cunt milks me until the last of my hot release has spilled deep inside her. I emerge slowly from the depths of pleasure.

I made bruises on her skin.

When I can see well enough, they stand out, stark on her hips. My vision continues to clear as the beast pulls back, content on claiming our beauty.

The mess of Elle on the table, my release dripping from between her legs tinged with blood from her virginity, is like a sword to the chest. As my selfish satisfaction grows, so does my guilt. The two sensations are like the prince and the beast, jostling for space and never having enough for the two of them. Because there is only one body. There is only one way to be righteous and moral and it is not to be a beast, yet I have no choice and cannot think of anything else when the scent of her is all over me and her pleasure is heavy in the room.

What have I done?