Page 83 of Beau and the Beast

Wolfram shudderedand his arms went slack around Beau.

Beau was struck with the same feeling he’d had days before, wondering if in this contact he had crossed an unknown line. As they embraced, his body had begun to respond not just to the safety and security he felt but to the unexpected flush of arousal that followed it. Beau felt ashamed.

When he stepped away and looked up, Wolfram’s expression was inscrutable, his jaw tight.

Beau was about to apologize when Wolfram reached out, about to cup his face.

It’s happening,he thought, the metronome of his heartbeat changing abruptly.

He tilted his chin, lips parted, shame replaced by joy at the unlikely thought that Wolfram wanted to kiss him.

But no—again he had misjudged. Wolfram gently wiped away the track of a tear from his cheek before dropping his hand.

“I’m glad you came to get me,” he said.

Beau nodded. “Can I stay with you tonight?”

Wolfram’s breath caught, and again Beau wondered if he’d crossed the line that loomed in his imagination. Whatever bothered him, Wolfram recovered himself after a moment.

“Certainly. You’ll take my bed and I’ll sleep in the study.”

Beau dropped his eyes. “I’d feel safer if you stayed with me.”

He didn’t dare look at Wolfram’s face as he admitted it.

“Of course.”

He laid his hand softly on Beau’s back and they crossed the study toward the door at the back. When they stepped through the doorway, Wolfram moved forward, flicking on a light, and Beau found himself in Wolfram’s bedroom.

The room was smaller than the spacious guest room where Beau was staying and it was dominated by the biggest mattress he’d ever seen sitting atop a low slat bed. It was sparsely decorated: floor lamps on either side of the bed and a small table with books, a half-finished cup of tea, and the gold watch Wolfram wore. There was a large wooden wardrobe and more shadowboxes like the ones in the study—a huge grouping of them on the wall behind the bed. Instead of butterflies, the boxes were filled with pressed flowers and ferns.

Wolfram stepped forward, pulling at the sheets on the bed and the comforter, trying to put things in order. It looked so much more welcoming than the guest bed, the woven blanket soft and fuzzed with wear.

* * *

“If you’ll just waita moment, I’ll get a fresh sheet,” Wolfram said.

He can’t sleep on this,he thought, panicked. Wolfram hadshedon these sheets like a dog. The bed probably stank of him.

“Jesus, quit it,” Beau said affectionately, stepping up and stilling his hand. “This is fine.”

“Really, just allow me to—“

“Wolf, it’s the middle of the night. You don’t have to change your sheets.”

“I’ve shed on these,” he said, hating the words.

“I absolutely couldn’t care less.”

Wolfram looked at him seriously and Beau just lofted his eyebrows.

“Seriously,” Beau said. “Let’s just get back to sleep.”

Wolfram sighed and smoothed the sheet. Beau moved to the other side of the bed, the side that Wolfram hadn’t slept on that night, and he slipped under the blanket. He was small and perfect and impossible there in the corner of the enormous bed, laying on his side and regarding Wolfram as if he’d always belonged there.

“Thank you,” he said.

Wolfram nodded and clicked off the light. Then he moved back to the door.

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