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.

offered Linden the most practiced smile in my arsenal. This smile never failed me. It'd charmed crusty old politicians and bulldog-belligerent donors. It'd greased the wheels with incessant reporters, errant mistresses, and more than a few strict security details.

"I didn't know she had a guard dog for a neighbor."

One of my worst habits was my tendency to ignore things I didn't want to deal with.

I avoided my banking app when I knew I was running low on cash. If I didn't look, I wouldn't panic over money.

I pulled back from relationships that didn't work anymore. If I didn't participate, I wouldn't have to acknowledge the problems.

She wasn't wearing a dress today but a bright yellow skirt with lots of little pleats. It made me think of an accordion, and I wanted to touch it. I wanted to touch it very much.

"A muffin is always preferrable to mansplaining."

Sometimes it's not that complicated. It's helping someone out, even if they have a hard time asking for that help."

"It seems like a lot to you because you've determined people are too risky, too much work."

right? I'm asking you to expect more.

He passed his knuckles over me again, catching that nipple between the joints of his middle and index fingers when he reversed course. He clamped down—and didn't release.

There I was, fixer extraordinaire, negotiating with the man pinching my nipple so hard I could feel my pulse throbbing in my core.

"Lock up, all right? I'll wait." "Have a good night." I closed the door and leaned back against it, my cheek flat on the panel. I didn't need to glance through the peephole to know Linden was still there. True to his word, that one. I was willing to bet he'd stay until he heard the deadbolt slide into place and it wouldn't matter whether it took me two minutes or two hours. He'd wait and I didn't know why that sent another bolt of unease through my chest, into my belly.

"But you know how I feel about people doing things for me. I'll have to fire up the crockpot." I was aiming for some self-deprecating humor but it was clear I'd missed the mark when Linden said, "I know you won't let anyone help you. I know you see it as a liability, a weakness."

"Men get weird about being misrepresented?" I threw my hands up. "Please don't goad me into a 'not all men' moment." "No, that's not what I'm getting at," he replied, impatience thick in his voice. "What I mean is, if someone can't handle being logically and reasonably mistaken for a significant other in a low-stakes situation, that person is probably forcing a lot of their own insecurities onto you. So no, not all men. Just the ones too fragile to deal with the idea of significance."

"Nothing blooms in every season," I said. "You shouldn't expect that of yourself when it doesn't occur in nature."

"That's a charming sentiment but I've been figuring out how to bloom nonstop since primary school. Not going to kick back now just because my life went to hell in a handbasket overnight."

"Sometimes," she continued, "people look at me and…they think I'm not intelligent or I can't do anything—" "First time I saw you, I was positive you could crack open the earth to discard the bodies of those who got in your way."

I'd always wanted to be scooped up and carried to bed,

"I should probably apologize for that ambush and tell you that you don't have to go to any of these things." He jerked me closer. "I should but I won't." "Why not?" He dipped his head to my neck, his beard rasping against my skin and drawing a slight squeak from me. "Because I want you there. I shouldn't. It's not fair to you because my mother will obviously get carried away. But I want you. There."

"And if anyone has a problem with you, they'll have to go through me first. It's not going to be any other way, Jasper."

I probably would've invited Jasper along on Sunday if my mother hadn't beaten me to the chase.

I wasn't getting attached. I was just looking out for her.

I wasn't irrationally angry about her fixing up Midge's house anymore, even if I did completely lose it when I saw her marching toward the half-dead rhododendron in the backyard with an axe the other day.

We only yelled at each other for ten minutes because I grabbed the axe out of her hands, tossed it into my yard, and kissed her while she flailed those bony little fists at me, but it was still progress.

I wasn't getting attached. This wasn't attachment. It was something else. Something that made me want to physically shake sense into her at least once a day while also making me want to fuck her clear through my mattress at least five times an hour.

I was all about casual sex but there was nothing casual where it came to Jasper. Taking her to bed would mean something.

"I don't fuck girls who haven't slept in a month,"

"I'm going to rip this dress off like it's on fire and I'm going to taste every sweet inch of you. I'm going to fuck you until you can't take it anymore and then I'm going to fall asleep right beside you. And I think it's pretty cute how you make me spell it out for you when that was your job."

"Do you know what that means, Jasper? Do you know how to trust someone to show up for you? Or do you play the part while knowing you're the only one who could ever give you what you want?" "I know what it means," I said defiantly. "I just don't have much experience with anyone making good on those promises." He rubbed his thumb over my lips again before tracing the shape of my birthmark. "I won't be one of those people."

"I don't want to think."

"Let me be honest with you now. I'm gonna be real impolite tonight,"

"Do you have a list about your orgasms?"

"Because that shit is over. Because I want the wild, screeching girl who can come on my cock twice without quitting. The one who doesn't think, doesn't plan a fucking thing. The one who wants it rowdy and messy and dirty. I want to be rowdy and messy and dirty with her."

Everything they said about wolves? It was true. They could see you better. They could hear you better. And they could eat you better.

The only thing I knew was I wanted this every weekend. Every fucking one of them. And that was a really dangerous thing to want.

I had a complicated relationship with my body.

When I was twelve and my body was changing in sudden and unpleasant ways, they still pointed and stared. They said it would be any minute until the teenage boys got their hands on me, that they'd know what I was about, that I'd ruin families looking the way I did. I didn't understand that either but it terrified me. I was afraid all the time, looked over my shoulder constantly. I avoided my male cousins and their friends at all costs and refused to ride alone with any of my uncles. When I was fifteen and in possession of what could only be referred to as tits—for they were not breasts, they were not boobs, they weren't even jugs, they were big, bouncing tits that seemed to develop overnight—those women replaced "the beautiful one" with "the slut," "the whore," "the trash."

I hated myself. I didn't want to be a slut, a problem, a girl who had something bad coming to her because she lived in a womanly body. I hated everything about myself and I wanted it all to go away. I wanted to go away. So I learned to disappear.

At eighteen, I didn't know the expression damned if you do, damned if you don't. The gossipers still criticized and called me names and I didn't understand how my existence could be wrong all the time, regardless of how I showed up in this body. But I started sensing they were wrong, and after a decade of hardening myself to their cruelty, I taught myself to stop caring.

I figured out I could exist in this body without hiding it. I could be as much of a woman as I wanted and I'd take no shit about it. Tits, curves, birthmarks—they belonged to me, no one else. Skirts, dresses, pantsuits—it didn't matter. The only issue on the table was my competence, and on that, I delivered every time. People still told me I was beautiful. I still felt the need to shrink and apologize.

"Do you think that's just what happens as you grow up?" I asked. "Do you gradually reshape your ideals as time passes?"

people weren't supposed to be one stationary, static thing their entire lives. People were supposed to live a lot of lives in their time on this planet. They were supposed to reinvent themselves and reevaluate their beliefs. They were supposed to look back and shake their head at the things they did before they knew better. They were supposed to get all the second chances.

"Does that make you jealous?" "Of your toys? Not in the least. They're my coconspirators, Peach. Not my competitors."

"I wish you were mine to keep."