The BBW and the Beast: A Shifter Retelling of Beauty and the Beast (A BBW Shifter Fairy Tale Retelling Book 1) by Sylvia Frost Read Free Book Online Page A

male teenager. Mates of Darkness was written in a script with so many flourishes it was almost illegible.
    God, Bel hated that cover. “Please don’t tell me that you’re keeping my book in here,” she whined.
    He smiled and opened it.
    Bel’s eyes widened, and then she snatched it from his hands. “Nope.”
    He held out his now-empty hand innocently, although the look in his eyes was anything but. “I was going to share my favorite passage.”
    Bel blushed, embarrassed that he had read her YA novel, and strangely grateful to be embarrassed about something that didn’t involve vivid daydreams about him slamming her up against a wall and screwing her so hard that his collections flew off their shelves.
    Time to change the subject.
    Bel plucked an item at random from above. From the feel of it, she guessed it was a wooden carving, and when she opened her hand, she discovered she was right. It was a figurine of a deer mid-jump. She had meant to ask him about it to start a conversation, but instead, she found herself staring at the animal.
    “I carve them all by hand,” he said, with no small amount of satisfaction.
    “You carved this?” Bel repeated dumbly, turning over the figurine with wonder. Her fingers found so many little details, from the grooves etched in the creature’s hooves to the curves of it’s spindly legs, stretched out mid jump. As a visually impaired person it was startling to find someone with full eye-sight able to capture the world so well in a medium that could be felt. “Your strokes are so long. It’s as if you didn’t whittle the deer at all, but just scooped it out of a river of liquid pine. Do you sell these? Is that how you and your brother afford million-dollar roses?”
    “I see why you’re an author. You do have a way with words.” Samson gave a gruff chuckle. “My brother is an investment banker, like my father. And no, I don’t sell them…” He trailed off, and Bel could see the germination of an idea behind his normally unreadable eyes. Or maybe she was just finally becoming Samson-literate.
    “But what if I did?” he asked.
    “Did what?” Bel asked, still fascinated by the carving.
    “Sell the carvings. You could help me.”
    “Samson…”
    “I’d need a website and descriptions for my products. I’m sure that’s closer to your skill set than dusting.” He stroked his chin with the motion of a man who missed his beard. Why had he shaved, then? He hadn’t done it for her, had he?
    “I’d pay you, in addition to dropping the suit against your father immediately.”
    Bel closed her mouth, the taste of the dusty storage room lingering on her tongue. “It-it was a million dollars.” Only a day ago, she would’ve done anything to have him drop the charges, but now… somehow, his forgetting about all that money was scary. It meant their dining room adventure had been more than a few sips too many of scotch.
    “Honestly, I could give less than a damn about the money,” he said. “I value your…friendship.”
    Bel’s stomach lurched. Slowly, she placed the deer in his palm. She waited for his fingers to reach out and stroke her wrist, or for his gaze to meet hers and crackle with lust, but he took the deer with economical speed. Bel didn’t let herself admit how much she wished he had lingered.
    Once he had the deer back, he placed it on the highest shelf, far away from prying hands. “And you’ll make the website.”
    “I’ll get a room at Henderson’s Bed and Breakfast,” Bel said.
    “Henderson’s has closed,” Samson said in such a neutral tone that Bel swore she was imagining the downward slope of the corners of his lips. “But,” he continued, “I’m sure you can stay with your father.”
    Bel shifted from foot to foot. Her father thought that she had gone back to New York for a couple of weeks. If she returned so soon, he would know something was up. “My father only has an air mattress,” she lied.
    “My house is open to you,” he