The Belle and the Beard by Kate Canterbary (good book club books .txt) 📕

"But—"

"No," he interrupted with a firm squeeze to my ass. We were doing that now. Ass squeezing. "Come on. Over here. Look at this old oak tree."

"The one leaning against that other tree? Isn't it going to fall over? Shouldn't you do something about that?"

"That tree has been here for three hundred years, give or take a few. It was here before most of the others in this woodland too. The settlers chopped down trees like they were getting high on sap. Deforested most of the South Shore and Cape, but that's not the point."

"Am I getting some Lord of the Rings wisdom here? Is that what this speech is about?"

"Be quiet and let me teach you something." Another ass squeeze since we were very much doing this now, and doing a substantial amount of it. "That tree grew up with the first colonies. It witnessed wars. It gave life to generations of other oaks in this wood and beyond." He pointed out trees at various stages of growth around us. "And for the past several years, it's been dying."

"Oh my god, are you comparing my career to this tree?"

"No but it's so fun to see you mad. Real mad, not that fake, forced shit where you're all eyebrows and painful smiles." He pointed to the tree in question, which seemed to be standing only because the branches of another tree gave it a sturdy spot to lean. "For years, that oak has provided a home to nesting robins and chickadees in a hollowed-out knot in the upper trunk. It's hosted lichen, moss, and two species of fungi that live only on decaying trees. Would you say this tree has wasted those years?"

"Obviously not but the next step in my career cannot be collapsing onto the forest floor and turning into mulch. I need something in upper management."

"You're going to figure it out, Jas. There's no penalty for changing directions. You're free to start over at any time."

"Do you have any idea how long it takes to start over? I've spent half my life on this. I can't just—I don't know, how do people find careers? I've been doing this since I was seventeen. This is who I am. This is my plan."

"You know how people do it? They decide to fuck the plan. Seriously. Fuck the plan. Walk in the woods. Reject anyone's definition of success. Abandon expectations. Listen to your heartbeat. Take no one's shit." He brought his hand to my neck, sliding it around to cup my nape. "And steal every kiss you can."

He leaned in, captured my lips, and dropped his other hand to my hip. My spine connected with the bark of a tree as I knotted my hands in his shirt, desperate to steady myself. He pushed his thigh between my legs and there was no denying the solid ridge of him behind his zipper. There was no way to miss that.

He groaned against my lips as he pressed into me. "Jasper."

The thing about these leggings was they hid nothing. Absolutely nothing. When he wedged himself up against me, that erection was right there. And we were in the middle of a forest, in the middle of the day, in the middle of my total life collapse.

And I arched against him because I didn't want to stop.

"Say something," he ordered as he moved his lips down my jaw, my neck.

That beard of his. My god. I didn't know how it could be soft and rough at the same time. Which was why I asked, "Do you use beard oil?"

He let out a quiet chuckle on my shoulder. "Jesus Christ, Jasper."

"I'm just wondering," I said as I looped my arms around his neck.

"You're wondering about beard oil," he murmured. "I must be doing this wrong if you can think about anything."

Linden hooked my leg around his waist and raked his hand up from my knee to my backside. It was profane, really, the way he touched me. Like he was making it clear how he'd touch me if we weren't out in the open where anyone could see us. Like he wanted to be extremely profane with me and he didn't mind me knowing that.

"You do, right? You have a whole beard oil system," I said.

He glanced down at our bodies, his brows pinched. He tipped his chin toward the place where the ridge in his jeans notched against my barely covered center. "If I ever come across this husband of yours, I'm going to have some words with him."

"Could you not talk about my ex while you're"—I cleared my throat—"you know, doing that?"

"I wasn't sure you'd noticed. With your concern about beard oil and all." He rubbed his hand along the small of my back, then under my shirt and beneath the waistband of my leggings. He didn't delve any deeper. "Let's not talk about your ex at all, okay?"

I bobbed my head in agreement. "That would be—"

Linden didn't let me finish. He stole my lips and rocked his hips against me and that was it. That was the end of the discussion and the start of the most aggressive kiss I'd ever experienced. To call it a kiss was an obscene understatement. It was closer to having sex while fully clothed and I knew that didn't make sense, it didn't make any sense in the least, but that was how it went. It was sex with mouths—but also hands and bodies and scary-big erections. It was everything and I couldn't remember the last time I'd felt everything.

I wasn't sure I ever had.

No one ever grabbed me because they were just so greedy to get their hands on me. They didn't nip my tongue and tighten their fist around my hair. No one sank into me like they'd been starved for my body, like they were relieved just to touch me. They never came at me with a rush of need so intense,