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

"Rotaries." He peered at me as I fluttered my lashes against the wand. "How old is that car of yours?"

"I bought it used when I finished college but it runs like new."

"Do you even know what new runs like?"

I capped the mascara and went for the eyebrow pencil next. "It runs like it did when it was new to me, which is good enough. I've never had any trouble."

"Why would you buy a used station wagon when you were just out of college?"

"Because they were fresh out of cute little BMWs and white Jettas at my price point, okay?"

He crossed his thick forearms over his chest. "I still don't like the idea of you driving into the city. I'll take you."

"Really not necessary."

I dropped the pencil into my makeup bag and reached for my perfume. I ran the rollerball behind my ears and down the line of my decolletage. Linden watched closely, momentarily distracted from this little disagreement of ours. In truth, I had some hesitation about driving into Boston for lunch-and-shopping event but I wasn't admitting that to him.

"Okay. That's it," he said, stepping forward. He flipped my skirt up over my waist and pushed my panties down to my knees as I fumbled to close the perfume pen. He pressed his hand to my back, between my shoulder blades, forcing me to bend forward. "Hands on the sink. I've had enough of this."

"Enough of what?"

The hiss of his zipper sounded and then I felt the heavy heat of his shaft as he dropped it on the curve of my ass. "Enough watching you. Enough of this dress. Enough arguing with you. Just…enough."

Watching Linden snatch a condom from the cabinet and quickly sheathing himself had my blood whomping in my veins and my core aching. At the same time— "I just spent ten minutes on my face."

"It's not your face I plan on fucking."

He ran his hand between my legs in a rough, demanding pass before fisting his cock and pushing inside me. Any words I might've had gusted out of me as my hands scrabbled to grip the edges of the vanity countertop.

"I told you to hold on," he growled, his hips thrusting in a slow, relentless rhythm.

"I-I'm—trying," I stammered.

With one hand on my waist, he twisted my hair around his palm. "Try harder."

"Do not ruin my hair," I warned.

"I couldn't if I tried," he rumbled. "Even when you're wrecked, you're perfect to me. You're always perfect the way you are."

I couldn't explain why those words hit me so hard but they knocked everything out of me. All I could do was watch Linden in the mirror, watch the wrinkle of concentration between his brows and the stiff set of his jaw as he drove into me.

"Get there, Peach. I'm not waiting for you."

He'd wait. He'd definitely wait. But it was fun to pretend he wouldn't. It was fun to hand over that power and let him demand something of me that we both knew he'd provide.

"Almost," I managed. I couldn't say anything else. I could barely breathe. He was always thick but in this position, he was impossibly, ridiculously thick. I was certain he was tearing me apart.

I felt him everywhere. That fullness, that pressure—it sent prickles racing across my shoulders, over my scalp, through my cheeks. I felt tiny electric vibrations down to the tips of my fingers and along the backs of my thighs. My entire body was wired to go off and all it really took to get me here was some coarse, selfish thrusting and a growled demand. I couldn't decide if that was a credit to me or Linden.

He shifted the hand stationed on my waist to my backside, saying, "I love your ass like this. It makes the sweetest heart shape."

He dug his fingers into my skin, holding me hard enough to sting, to leave marks. Honestly, it was rude how comfortable he was using my body in whichever way he wanted. Completely rude.

"I mean it. I'm not waiting for you. If you think I won't finish and then send you off to lunch all angry and needy and empty, you're wrong." He slammed into me, pinning my body tight to the vanity and holding me there as I writhed and wiggled to find some friction. "I'll do it, Jas. I'll leave you miserable."

"And what will that prove?"

He met my gaze in the mirror, his feral to my frantic. "I'm not proving anything. You are."

His hold on my hair tightened as he found an aggressive new pace. I knocked the hand soap from the countertop, the toothbrushes too. He twisted my nipples through the dress, pinched my clit, bit my shoulders, teased my asshole. There was no limit to the ways he used me. No limit to this rough, imperious treatment.

"Come on, Jasper. Stop making me wait for you."

I'd never thought of myself as the kind of person who required words or emotions to get off, not when I had a perfectly reliable clit to handle the job for me, but once again I was wrong because those words set me on fire. There was nothing special about them, not really, but they found a space inside me that desperately needed them and I was done. Just done.

"There you are," he murmured, his hold on my ass no less vicious than before the orgasm moved through me. "Just like that."

I dropped my head between my outstretched arms as Linden chased his release with fast, punishing thrusts that I felt too deeply to keep my eyes open. He made a gorgeous, growly sound as he came and slowly unclenched his fingers from my backside. What was left of it.

Still pulsing inside me, he reached up and smoothed my hair into place. His touch was absurdly gentle in comparison to the nearly cruel pounding he'd just given me. It was like he could dismantle me but then gather all my pieces and reassemble me with the greatest care. I didn't think that