The Belle and the Beard (The Santillian Triplets, #3)

by Kate Canterbary

There was honey in her voice, something warm and southern and completely at odds with the rest of her unhinge the jaw, drag you into the ocean, and crush your bones and destroy you like a kraken vibe.

She reminded me of summer—screen doors banging in the breeze, ripe strawberries, and the kind of oppressive heat that sent sweat rolling down your back.

In truth, it was rude. It was downright disrespectful for all those brutish good looks to be wasted on this know-it-all, mansplain-my-life-to-me, uninvited knight in ripped denim.

"You thought you were interrupting the commission of a crime." "You had a fucking crowbar, Jasper." I folded my arms over my chest. "What was I supposed to do? Hand you a muffin basket?" The gold in her eyes flashed. "A muffin is always preferrable to mansplaining."

But this man right here, he was all wolf. Everything about him was large and dark, like a new moon in human form.

"The last time I went over there, you insulted my baking." "Your baking insulted me," I replied, filling her glass.

"I'm not comfortable with you being right," she replied. "It's like writing with the wrong hand."

Yeah, she could crack the earth open. She could snap me in half. She could do anything she wanted and I'd let her. I'd fucking let her.

Jasper was serious like dynamite. Every moment with her was explosive and there was a very good chance one of us would die.

My heart didn't choose anyone because it didn't want anyone. My heart loved solitude with some fun thrown in when the mood was right. My heart craved the predictable cadence of the earth moving through seasons. My heart wanted to beat free of entanglements.

"Nice." I chuckled. "Spite is an undervalued motivation."

I was surprised to find I enjoyed those growls of his. If someone had told me Linden was a growler, I would've looked at him and said, "Yeah, that tracks" and I would've considered it highly concerning behavior. Why would any adult human growl? Seriously, why? There were no conditions in which growling was appropriate, let alone sexy. But this…this was something I wanted in my life. It was a predatory hum, a groan that got twisted up in desire and turned into a snarl, a primal warning of what was to come. Those growls made me smile. They filled me with feminine triumph and I wasn't sure I'd ever experienced triumph that I could call specifically feminine. He was reacting to me, not threatening me. And I liked that.

He stared at me the way parents stared at children who were covered in chocolate sauce but swore they had no idea where it came from.

Jasper buried her face in my chest. "Don't be nice to me. It's confusing."

"Look, mushrooms are wild. They exist in their own kingdom, neither plant nor animal even though they possess many qualities of both. And they hate being classified. Every time it seems like we have it all worked out, someone finds a new mushroom somewhere and the whole thing gets fucked up again.

"Babe, you should hear our middle names. Magnolia got off easy with Lynn but Ash's middle name is Indigo." "That's precious. Bless him and his bespoke-suited heart."

That was how Linden operated. Careful and precise and…fuck me, those shoulders were glorious. It was no surprise to me that my guy was next-level hot but this—this—was a lesson in lumberbears.