Page 125 of Beau and the Beast

“I want to kiss you anyway, Wolf,” Beau said, not even attempting to keep the begging edge out of his voice. “I want to make you come.”

Wolfram closed his eyes and breathed deeply, as if it was painful just to hear Beau say the words. Maybe itwas, Beau realized. Wolfram had been alone for so long.

He swallowed hard around nothing and let his eyes drift down to the floor between them. “I wish you could feel what it’s like. It’s hard for me to want to do anything else, now that I’ve felt it—touched you.”

Beau blushed. He didn’t want to diminish what Wolfram was going through—but it had been the same for him, even without enhanced senses or a decade-long dry spell.

“Will you tell me more about what it’s like?” Beau asked. “Maybe I can understand.”

Wolfram considered that.

“We’ve talked about my senses,” Wolfram said, his eyes catching Beau’s in the dim light. Beau nodded. “Before the curse, kissing was just jumbled sensations. Mostly lips—lips sliding on lips. That’s nice. Wasn’t my favorite thing in the world or my favorite thing about sex, but it’s nice.

“With you—likethis—kissing you is… Better than a conversation. It’sinformation.Everything I taste and smell and hear from you is… How can I describe it? I know whatmoodyou’re in—what mood you woke up in this morning. I’m so close that I can smell who you spoke to before you came to my study. I know if you talked to Violet and Geoffrey and where in the penthouse and for how long. It’s like looking at jumbled signatures on a page.

“When you kiss me, I can feel your heartbeat change. Of course, I’m aware of it normally. Right now I’m aware of it.”

Beau’s heart sped up just at the mention of it. He didn’t know Wolfram had always been able to tell how fast it was beating.

“But I goddamned think Ifeelit when you kiss me. It pounds away until it falls into a rhythm with mine. And then it changes… when I know you’re getting hard.”

He trailed a little, serious eyes drifting almost bashful down to the floor again.

“When your blood starts moving different like that, it’s like feeling the current of a hot river reversing direction around my body. I feel it all over myself.”

Wolfram worried his bottom lip with one enormous canine, shaking his head slightly.

“I shouldn’t keep talking about this.”

“What’s wrong?” Beau asked. He’d been hanging on every word—thelastthing he wanted Wolfram to do was stop.

Wolfram frowned. “Because it’s turning me on,” he admitted, puffing an ironic laugh through his nose.

“I know,” Beau said. “Me too but… could you—I won’t make youdoanything you don’t want to but. Just give me this. Just keep going?”

Wolfram massaged the wide bridge of his nose, thinking it over.

“I won’t touch you,” Beau said. “And if it’s too much, you can stop. But maybe… think of it as a trial run.”

“What, the two of us being equally turned on in the same room?” Wolfram said, chuckling and hitching an eyebrow at Beau. “I think we accomplished that particular brand of dress rehearsal the other night. And the next morning.”

Beau hitched his shoulder. He didn’t have a rejoinder for that. He’d never been so turned on in his entire life, and he had a feeling that it had been mutual. All he could do was beg with his eyes and hope that Wolfram decided to keep talking.

He let them sit in silence for a moment before he gave in.

“Well. Where was I?”

Beau couldn’t keep his face from lighting up. “You were talking about my blood,” he said cheerfully.

“Christ,” Wolfram said, puffing a laugh through his nose and shaking his head. “Right.”

He looked at Beau as if he could see right through him.

“It’s happening now—I know you can’t help it. I don’t have to kiss you to know, but it’s better when I do,” Wolfram said. “When I kissed you before and your blood started moving differently, it was like every part of you wanted me, down to a cellular level. Your body abandoned everything to divert all of its resources to prepare. Forme.”

A pleasant shudder rolled through Beau’s body.

“I know that you’re helpless against it—and even though I don’t pretend to understand how you could, I love that you’re helpless against how much you want me.

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