Free How Beauty Met the Beast by Jax Garren Page B

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    “Yup. But don’t worry. My guest room’s got a big TV.”
    The despair was gone from her eyes as she pulled keys from her pocket, and despite the small (but expected) rebuff, he smiled in relief. “No, I meant kidding about the covers. I’m a perfect gentleman in bed.”
    She lifted one eyebrow and gave him a mock glare. “I don’t doubt. It’s the least you can do after conking your date on the head and dragging her there.”
    He stopped, once again horrified. “I knocked you out?”
    “N Kizeth="1o! No. I was teasing. The guy who—” she hesitated, “—attacked my person dropped me pretty hard on the floor of the van. I passed out from that.”
    “Attacked your...” The way Jolie drew back at those words told Hauk the story, and a predatory protectiveness gripped him. He would track down every last one of the bastards who’d gotten away and make his destruction last night look gentle.
    Jolie lightly touched his shoulder, as if she was comforting him . “Don’t worry. I think you actually removed his balls before breaking his neck. He’s very dead. It was...primal. I’m sure I shouldn’t be happy to have seen such egregious violence, but—” she tapped a fist to her heart, “—I gotta admit that particular image gave me a warm fuzzy inside.”
    His dark thoughts lightened at her chipper tone. Damn, she was fearless. He tried to think of an appropriately flip response. Instead he noticed someone snooping around the only car in the lot. He put a hand up to halt Jolie and pointed.
    Her eyes bugged. “It’s okay. I know him.”
    “Get rid of him. I’ll be nearby.”
    “Okay. Just promise me you won’t solve this hitch in that brilliant plan you’re hopefully concocting with violence, okay?’
    “Yeah, yeah.” Hauk pulled his hoodie up to better hide his face and dropped into the shadows of the building, close enough where he could still see and hear.
    Jolie strolled casually to her car. “Paul? What are you doing here?”
    “Jolie!” The face that popped up from studying the lock on her car door was ridiculously handsome, with dark hair and perfect skin, exactly the kind of man a beautiful woman like Jolie should be dating. A hint of jealousy sparked through Hauk as he fought to hold still and let Jolie get rid of the boy.
    Then the boy kissed her. And not some peck-on-the-cheek kiss. No, Paulie laid a full frontal I-have-seen-you-naked-before-and-will-again-soon kiss on her as his hands groped her backside. Hauk hopped out of his shadows. He didn’t need violence. Usually the threat was enough to send pretty boys running.
    But Jolie was kissing him back.
    He froze for a moment in the sunshine, watching her lock lips with another man, and he knew it was the right thing for her to do. This Paul was obviously worried about her. He’d come to search her car because he cared. He had a normal life and wasn’t burned to a pink pulp. Two things Hauk could never be for Jolie.
    Or any other woman, for that matter. For five years he’d been okay with that, but for some reason the pretty dancer had made him hope he could have more than the solitary life he’d been living.
    Who the hell was he fooling?
    * * *
     
    Paul’s kiss turned Jolie’s insides into useless static. It always did. But there was something more this time than the usual expert liplock. His fingers curved possessively into her hips; his lips groped almost desperately at hers. Like he’d been worried.
    He pulled back and studied her face, his hazel eyes concerned. Jolie bit her lip where the feel of him still tingled and tried not to look like the drooling fangirl she still was around him. Not only was Paul pants-dropping gorgeous (and he did drop many pants), he was a musician. He wrote haunting music, played piano and guitar and had a voice that got inside a girl. His band, Spork, K bahe had a growing local fanbase, and Jolie knew it was only a matter of time before they landed something big. Paul Gellar was destined to