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

silence had dragged on for another ten seconds, she wondered if she had put him to sleep. “Sorry. I’m a lot better at writing stories then telling them,” she said.
    Mr. West’s smile was gone, which made Bel’s stomach drop, but he didn’t look angry. His finger was resting on his lips, and his head was cocked so that a strand of his dark hair was brushing his straight white collar. He looked…thoughtful.
    “It’s interesting to hear your perspective on the house,” he said.
    Bel let out a breathy chuckle, relief making her smile goofily. At least that confirmed that he wasn’t the old owner. He would’ve said something if he was.
    “Oh? And what’s your perspective?” she asked.
    Samson ignored her question and began to pour a golden liquid that looked like scotch into a tumbler. “Did you think he was a werebeast, too? The owner?”
    Bel’s mouth went dry. “What?”
    He tilted the glass, ending the flow of the liquor, not so much as glancing at her. “Your book. Mates of Darkness . I read it.”
    Bel buried her face in her hands. “Oh, God. When?”
    “This afternoon, after I caught the deer.” He swilled the drink, his eyes predatory as they peered over the top of the glass. “I thought, if I’ve got a New York Times best-selling author breaking all my dishes, I might as well read her books.”
    “Ugh.” Bel tried to smother herself further. Mates of Darkness was a YA book, and for every tween girl who shipped her characters, there was a male critic deriding it as the herald of the literary apocalypse.
    “It wasn’t bad,” Samson said.
    Bel perked up from her prison of fingers. “Really?”
    He took a sip of his scotch slowly, savoring it. “You did take more than a few liberties with werelore.”
    Bel fanned her fingers against her cheeks and rested her elbow against the table, sighing. “Yeah. That’s what happens when most of your research comes from fictional interpretations. I guess when something has only been extinct for two hundred years, it still qualifies as ‘not a myth.’ Man, you wouldn’t believe the shit people gave me about the ending of the series.”
    “The ending?”
    Bel waved loosely. “Oh I had her abandon her weremate and kill her other love interest, the werehunter, and then run off into the sunset alone. My readers who read for romance were pissed that I didn’t have a happy ending and my readers who read for the werebeasts were pissed that I ignored the one universal truth we know about weremates—that once they find their mate. they never part.”
    “Would you do it differently now?” Samson asked.
    Bel’s breath caught.
    The question itself was benign, and his tone even blander, but there was something unnerving about it. Maybe it was the fact that his glass was empty now, but he was still clutching it. Bel swore his gaze hadn’t moved from hers for the entire length of the conversation.
    From the kitchen, she heard the ticking of the antique clock she had gotten back from the repair shop two days ago. “I-I don’t know,” she said.
    Whatever answer he had been looking for, that satisfied him well enough, and he smiled at her gently.
    She couldn’t say why it made her shiver.
    He reached for the decanter of scotch and raised it toward her in offering. “Would you like some?”
    Definitely. “I should probably eat first.”
    “Yes,” he said. Then, before she could stop him, he stood from his chair and grabbed the entire tray of venison with only one hand. In two steps, he was behind her, forking a potato and three ribs of venison onto her plate before she could protest.
    Bel speared a potato and ate it. It was delicious, buttery and laden with the earthy taste of rosemary, but not enough to sate her. When she finished chewing, she noticed that Samson was still there.
    She turned in her chair toward him and smiled earnestly. “It’s really great.”
    “You should try the deer.” His voice was low; somehow without her noticing, he had