He huffed out a breath at me. “Cock-sucking motherfucker with an ass-eating piece of shit for a mother.”
I dropped the cream and it clattered noisily onto the tray.
“Jesus, Belle,” Beast snapped. “Be fucking careful, will you?”
“Sorry, sorry, oh my god though, have you actually said that to someone?”
Beast stared at me, his expression shifting from thoughtful to confused and finally to amused. He shook his head and smirked. “You’re something else, you know that.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” I said, pushing the cart back across the room.
“Take it as whatever you want,” he grumbled. “Now shut the fuck up and let me watch my movie in peace.”
I handed him his pills and a glass of water and he took them, swallowing them down and waving me away.
“I’ll be back later,” I said, heading across the room.
“Belle?”
“What?” I turned back to him.
“You can stay and watch the movie if you want.” His expression hadn’t changed, but I could see from his sad, gray eye that he wanted me to. That he was lonely.
“Why don’t you get Joey in here? I’m sure he’d like the company too if you’re lonely.”
His gaze narrowed on me, his expression turning dark. “You think I’m lonely?”
I realized as soon as he said it back to me that I’d said the wrong thing, but it was too late to backtrack.
“I’m not fucking lonely, bitch! Now get the fuck out of here!” he yelled.
I scurried out of the room, slamming the door shut behind me. I glanced over at Joey, who lowered the book.
“Thought it was going a little too well,” he said before raising the book back up and continuing to read.
“I’ll be back later,” I sighed.
“I wouldn’t hurry back,” he replied as something in the room got thrown.
I headed back on my rounds, hoping that I could be done early enough to actually get some lunch that day. I’d barely had time to brush my teeth that morning, never mind get breakfast. The job wasn’t getting any easier, and it was being made all the more difficult by working for Beast, and the fact that Jenna had barely said a word to me once I told her that I was working for the Devil’s Highwaymen.
She hadn’t even let me explain that I hadn’t really had a choice, or that I was going to give her the money since it was her job I’d taken. Unintentionally, but I’d still taken it all the same.
I felt guilty for what I’d just said to Beast, because what I meant to say was that I got it—I was lonely too. And if my shift would have been over, I would have stayed and watched the movie with him.
Chapter Eight
~ Beast ~
“That fuckin’ hurts!” I roared in anger as Belle’s clumsy swipes of the cream across my sensitive skin set every nerve on edge. I wanted to dive up and tear the room apart, smash the windows, tip the bed over, tear this goddamn uncomfortable mattress in half with my bare hands and then put Belle across my knee and spank her ass until she cried.
She looked up at me surprise. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled, and then looked back down to my arm, continuing to apply the fiery cream. She rubbed a little too roughly again, like she hadn’t heard the threat in my tone the first time, and a growl rose in my chest like I was an animal ready to attack. I guess I was.
“Goddamn it, what are you rubbing that shit on with? Sandpaper?” I snapped at her.
She’d been working for me for three weeks now.
Her fingers fumbled again but she didn’t stop. She continued moving her hands down and over my left thigh, where the worst of the burns were. My teeth were on edge, my muscles taut, the tendons in my neck were pulled tight as I struggled to restrain myself and not backhand her across the room. I breathed heavily, gritting my teeth as she finally finished her torturous job. Pulling the cool white sheet back up, she began to neaten her little cart while I glared at her like I had lasers in my eyeballs and could burn a hole in her head with just one look. Not that she seemed to notice though. Woman was lost in her own thoughts, thinking of something other than me and the hell she’d just put me through, and it was pissing me the fuck off.
