Free Bargain With the Beast by April Andrews Page B

on
a large table, waiting for him, Tobias couldn’t help but take a
seat and fill his plate. The Beast watched him with hooded eyes, a
sort of approving look there.
    Tobias ate quickly, his appetite
coming out of nowhere. And it was odd because physically, he was a
weird combination of satisfaction and nervousness, but the physical
was one thing, the emotional something else entirely. Tobias had no
idea what he was feeling. As he ate what the Beast had provided for
him he couldn’t even begin to work through his emotions. Everything
had happened so quickly, it almost seemed to him like many days had
passed rather than the small amount of time he’d actually
experienced. Tobias didn’t know how long he’d actually been below
ground, but he didn’t think it could have been more than
twenty-four hours. And yet…
    He looked across the table, locked
eyes with the Beast, and swallowed.
    “ Is everything okay?” the
Beast asked. “I wasn’t sure what you would like.”
    “ It’s all fine,” Tobias
said. “Though I have no idea where you got it all from. I mean, you
can hardly raise chickens down here.”
    The Beast smiled slightly. “You’d be
surprised.”
    Silence settled between them for a
moment. Tobias forked the food around on his plate. As he did so he
couldn’t help thinking again about this strange society and what it
all meant. How was it no one knew about them? How was it that they
could stay so hidden? He wanted to ask but part of him wasn’t
entirely sure he wanted to know the answers.
    “ How are you feeling,
Tobias?” the Beast eventually asked.
    Tobias had no idea what to
say to that question, and again there was that nagging thought that
the Beast knew what he was thinking. There was also a feeling that there was
more to the Beast’s question than a simple query about his
emotional state.
    “ I’m fine,” Tobias
said.
    “ You’re not fine,” the
Beast said. “Much has happened in these past hours, and none of it
expected.”
    “ No,” Tobias agreed. “It
wasn’t.”
    The Beast nodded slowly.
Tobias watched him, thinking, this man has
been inside me . It was the oddest thought,
and not one he’d ever had to experience in this way before, and it
made him feel things he hadn’t experienced before either. The Beast
was so attractive—his hair, his body, those eyes. Tobias was
ridiculously attracted to him, and in the context of their
relationship he knew that made no sense. Once again, he found
himself wondering if there was something here, in this place, that
was making him act in a way that he never would have had he been
above ground. And yet, even as he did, he knew that he was probably
lying to himself. He had reacted to the Beast simply because the
Beast was the most attractive male Tobias had ever met. The
connection between them had been instant.
    Desire .
    There was no denying it. Not
now.
    “ I feel a little…odd,”
Tobias admitted.
    “ I understand,” the Beast
said. “What happened between us…” He paused. “It was
intense.”
    “ Yes.”
    “ In truth, even I did not expect it to
be that intense.”
    Tobias frowned at that statement, and
at the look now in the Beast’s eyes. He thought it was surprise,
maybe even a little bit of worry, and had no idea what to make of
that. The fragments of conversation between the Beast and his
brother flittered through Tobias’ mind. He wished he knew what they
were talking about. He wished he knew what to make of it all. Only,
he didn’t. And like with the stained glass window in his building
he hated not knowing. Curiosity was his worst enemy right now, and
Tobias knew he had to subdue it.
    “ I don’t know what to
say,” Tobias whispered after a moment.
    “ You do not need to say
anything,” the Beast said. “It may even be better if you don’t.
Perhaps we both need time to think about what has happened between
us.”
    “ Time?” Tobias
asked.
    The Beast nodded. “And I will keep my
promise.”
    Promise ? Tobias