Kandace and the Beast
Read Kandace and the Beast Online
Authors: Shay Savage
Kandace and the Beast
Shay Savage
Copyright © 2015 Shay Savage
All Rights Reserved
Cover Design by
Mayhem Cover Creations
Editing :
Chayasara
Amazon Kindle Edition
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems-except in the case of brief excerpts or quotations embodied in review or critical writings without the express permission of the author, Shay Savage.
The characters and events in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author
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This is for Kandace.
Sometimes a person enters your life, and you have no idea what kind of impact she will have on you. You don’t realize what she’s doing behind the scenes on your behalf. You don’t realize when you first speak with her that she’s going to be instrumental in changing your life.
Kandace, I am in awe of your strength and bravery. I’m impressed by your attitude and the way you continue to keep everyone else in your thoughts when you have every right to think only of yourself and your family. You are truly an amazing woman, and I will be forever in your debt. As you take on this battle, I am right there beside you.
You got this.
Fuck cancer.
I want to thank Dani, Kaylee, Elissa, and Bethany for all their help in getting this together while trying to keep it all under wraps at the same time. I couldn’t have managed it without your support.
I also want to thank my editor, Chayasara, for her record-setting editing speed, pushing my buttons, and subsequently making me a better writer. I don’t usually win arguments with her, but I always learn something!
Thanks to Mayhem Cover Creations for donating the cover art for this project.
So many people have gathered to support Kandace and her family. My newsfeed is constantly filled with messages of support and pictures of gifts people have sent. I suck at trying to come up with an inspirational quote or the perfect gift, but I knew I wanted to do something for her to show how much she means to me. This little tale is it.
Kandace has always gone on about Bastian Stark, up to and including replacing promo media with her own face. I figured it was time to let her fantasy come true.
Proceeds will be donated to Kandace’s medical expenses.
Waves from warm ocean water roll over my feet as I walk through the sand. It’s an ideal day. The weather is beautiful, and I don’t have a care in the world.
There’s the niggling feeling in the back of my head that tells me something isn’t right; something isn’t quite normal. What am I doing on a beach? The last thing I remember is a nurse affixing one of those medical wristbands on my arm. It had “Kandace” scribbled on it along with my birthdate and a code number of some sort.
The scene around me is incredibly idyllic. The ocean is the crystal-clear azure of the Caribbean, and the sky is a brilliant blue with just a few wisps of clouds scattered about. There are seabirds bobbing around on the waves. The sand is smooth and nearly white, and the temperature is perfectly warm and inviting but not too hot. The sun heats my skin, but I don’t feel the burning sensation that would tell me I need more sunscreen.
I glance down at my pedicured toenails as my feet make their way along the shoreline. I can’t remember going to a salon recently—there hasn’t been the time—but my toenails are a seashell pink and glitter with the sunlight. I pass sandpiper tracks and seashells, but the beach is otherwise spotless. I’m wearing a blue one-piece bathing suit with a pair of rolled-up men’s boxers over them.
Boxers?
I reach down and run my fingers over the hem. They are way too big for me, even rolled over at the top. The edges are frayed, and there are little bits of thread reaching out and poking the blue bathing suit.
Do I own a blue bathing suit?
The thought is gone from my head as quickly as it entered. I close my eyes and turn my head to face the warm breeze coming off the ocean. The seabirds on the waves suddenly take flight, calling out into the wind. The smell of salt and sea-life fills my nostrils, and I smile.
When I open my eyes, my perfect setting is marred by a group of four men farther up the beach near a rocky outcropping, dressed in blue jeans and T-shirts. They look unkempt and rough as they loiter at the edge of the water. There’s a small boat nearby with its bow pressed into the sand and a long rope presumably attached to an anchor off one side. The men are a long way off but still look in my direction, watching me approach. I slow my pace, suddenly nervous. Where did they come from, and why hadn’t I seen them before? I slow down a bit more, but my pace seems irrelevant because moments later, the men are right in front of me.
“Looks like someone could use a little help.” There is nothing sincere in the voice of the darkly tanned man with a long, black ponytail. He smiles at me, revealing a couple of missing teeth. “You need a little help, sweetheart?”
“No.” My voice sounds hoarse. “I’m fine.”
“You really aren’t.” A chunky guy with greasy hair leers at me, taking a step forward as a man with dreadlocks bunched up with a piece of twine at the back of his neck starts to laugh.
He’s right—I’m not fine. I am supposed to be in the hospital, undergoing treatment for the umpteenth time. I shouldn’t be here at all, and I definitely shouldn’t be here with these men.
“I think she needs some company,” he says, and they all begin to chime in.
“Yeah—I’ll keep her company for a while!”
“Me, too!”
“I’m definitely up for that!”
They all snicker as I take a step away from them. I know I should turn and run, but my body doesn’t comply with my wishes. My thoughts are garbled as my mind tries to make sense of where I am, how I got here, and what’s happening. The danger feels real enough, but I can’t seem to act on my fear. As I force myself to take a small step back, my arms are grabbed and pulled behind me.
I have no recollection of the man with the black ponytail moving into position at my back, but he now has me firmly in his grasp. I feel the touch of his breath on my neck as he holds me against him, still snickering. Finally finding my voice, I scream and struggle fruitlessly, and they all just laugh in response.
“None of that, now,” the man with dreads says. He covers my mouth with one hand as he rubs his scratchy face against my cheek. “We’re just gonna have a little fun.”
He grabs for the top of my bathing suit. I feel his cold, clammy fingers on my skin, and I want to hurl. The men begin to talk about what they want to do with me, and the bubble of panic inside my stomach inflates with their words. What happened to my perfect, peaceful setting? How had it turned into a nightmare so quickly?
I hear a loud cry in the distance.
I turn my head at the same time as my attackers and look toward the noise. A man is running in our direction from the top of a sand dune. He’s barefoot, and his strong legs pound the sand as he runs toward us. His face is a mask of rage, and there is a knife clutched in his hand.
He’s tall and incredibly well-built. He’s shirtless, and I can see the clear definition of the muscles in his arms and chest. His hair is dark, and there’s a couple days’ worth of growth on his face. He’s racing down the hill at incredible speed, the muscles in his legs flexing as he runs.
I know who this man is.
Sebastian Stark. He’s a champion at death-match tournament fighting. He’s deeply rooted in organized crime but has been hiding out near Puerto Rico, posing as the captain of a sailing vessel. No one has heard anything of him since his schooner was lost at sea during a storm months ago.
That’s not possible…
The knot in the pit of my stomach hardens. I look out over the sea—all the way to the horizon. It’s still a calm, beautiful day. There are seagulls amassing along the shore and pecking at mussels on the rocks. The whole scene is all too perfect—all too surreal. It doesn’t mesh with the arms gripping me from behind or the madman rushing toward us from the dunes.
And Bastian Stark isn’t a real person. He’s a character from a novel I read years ago.
As Bastian approaches the group, he speaks no words. Instead, he screams as he leaps into the air and collides with the man with dreadlocks. They crash to the sand, and with a single, swift motion, Bastian shoves his knife into the man’s neck. The sand is immediately covered in blood.
I open my mouth to scream, but nothing happens. I can’t move. I can’t make a sound. All I can do is watch.
There is a flurry of movement. My eyes can’t keep track of it all, and my feet feel as if they’ve sunk into the sand, leaving me immobile and helpless as I watch the violence in front of me. The man who was holding me is no longer there—he’s in the middle of the battle with the rest of them—but I can still feel the grip of his fingers around my arms.
One of the men grabs Bastian from behind, and another swings at him with a switchblade. Bastian leans back, using his captor as leverage to bring his legs up. His muscular limbs capture the man holding the knife, and Bastian squeezes him between his thighs. I hear a sharp crack before the man drops to the ground, lifeless. Bastian then flips his captor over his shoulders, throwing him into the waves. I watch the body bob up and down for a moment, struggling against the riptide before it sinks and doesn’t resurface.
Bastian has the last man—the one with the black ponytail—down on the ground. He hits him over and over again, alternating punching him in the face with one hand and using the knife to stab him in the neck with the other. I can’t breathe. I can only stand there and stare at the carnage as the sand turns red.
The man is motionless, and his face is a mess of blood and bone. He’s long dead—I’m sure of it—but Bastian keeps screaming and hitting him.
“Bastian, stop!” I yell.
Slowly, he pushes away from the mutilated body on the ground and stands. His eyes are wild. His chest rises and falls with deep, labored breaths. The knife in his hand drips blood onto the sand as he turns his feral gaze to me.
I feel my pulse throb between my legs as I gasp. I’ve never laid eyes on this man before, but my body’s reaction to his gaze is immediate and undeniable. Bastian’s tight muscles ripple as he moves closer, wiping the blade on his arm. I can’t take my eyes off his perfectly tanned and toned body.
He takes a step closer to me as he drops the bloodied knife into the sand. I know I should step away from this crazed killer, but I don’t move. I’m captivated by the look of unbridled lust in his eyes.
For me or for the blood?
He takes another step toward me, stopping only a foot away from where I stand. I watch him lick his lips, and the throb between my legs makes itself known again.
“Kandace…”
How does he know my name?
He starts to reach for me but stops suddenly as he looks at his blood-covered hand. He drags his tongue over his lips again, and I see his throat bob as he swallows.
“Your hands are bleeding,” I say softly.
“It’s not my blood.”
“Still…” I take a deep breath as I look from his hands to the edge of the water. “Come on. Let’s get you washed off.”
He follows me to the waves, and I carefully cup my hands to collect water to wash his hands and arms. The salt water mixes with the blood, diluting it as it washes the red streaks away. It only takes a moment before his skin is cleaned of blood. There was so much of it—how did it come off so quickly?
I take his large hands in mine and run my thumbs over his palms. They are rough and callused—the hands of a man who knows how to use them and use them well. I turn his hands over, carefully checking them for injury, but they look perfect. There’s no more blood, no bruising, no scratches on them at all.
None of this makes sense. I know it doesn’t, but my mind can’t seem to focus on the disbelief. All my attention is on the man next to me. My eyes are filled with the sight of the sun glistening on his back and the curve of his biceps. I can smell the musky scent of his skin and feel the heat from his body as he stands close to me. It’s more brilliant than the heat from the equatorial sun.
My heart beats quickly in my chest. I’m finding it difficult to control my breathing, and my thighs are clenching together against my will. I swallow hard against the lump in my throat, wondering what I am supposed to do or say now.
I’ve never wanted someone so badly in my life.
Bastian wraps his fingers around my hands, squeezes them briefly, and then traces his fingers up my arms. He rests his hands on my shoulders for a moment as he stares at me. The wild, uncontrolled look is back in his eyes.
I drop my gaze to his full lips. He moistens them with his tongue, and I know exactly what he’s about to do. My whole body seems to know. There’s a tingling sensation starting at the bottom of my feet and working its way up my legs. I feel sweat beginning to form between my shoulder blades.
He crashes his mouth to mine. This is no gentle first kiss. There is no build up, no pause before he touches his lips to mine. His kiss possesses me with no room for argument, no option but to surrender to his will. By the time he breaks away, I’m panting, and the stubble from his chin has left my skin raw.
The kiss feels amazing.
“I need you.” His tone is quiet and deep. It sends a shiver up and down my spine even before he reaches out and grasps me tightly around the waist. As our bodies press together, I feel his huge, hard cock pressed firmly against my pubic bone. “Now.”
I’m on my back in the sand. I don’t know what happened to my clothes or to his; I only know they’re gone. His skin is against mine, and his hard, throbbing, nine-inch-long cock is pressed up against my pussy. There’s no time to think or even breathe before he’s shoving it inside of me.
I cry out as he fills me. He’s so hard, his movements so fast, that it seems like it should be painful, but it’s not. It’s incredible. It’s overwhelming. I am completely and totally owned by this man, and all I can do is lie back in the sand and let him take me.
“Mine.” His low growl sounds rough against my ear. I feel the scrape of his stubble on my neck, and I close my eyes to let the sensation engulf me. His hand is between my legs, his thumb circling my clit as I push my hips up to meet the pounding movement of his body on top of mine.
I want to scream. I want to call out with complete and total confidence that yes—yes, I am his. There is nothing I want more than to be consumed by his passion, but I can’t seem to utter a single sound.
“Only I do this to you.” I feel his hot breath on my face as he holds my face between his hands and glares down at me. “Only me! Do you understand?”
I try to answer, but he covers my mouth with his. I give my answer with my body as I push up against him, desperate to feel more of his skin against mine even as he pounds into me. He breaks the kiss and grabs my hip, clenching it tightly with his fingers. He pulls my body into his as he arches his back, impaling me over and over again.
There is nothing romantic about what he’s doing to me. It’s hard, ferocious fucking. It’s rough and laced with an atmosphere of panic, as if there will never be another chance for this, and it’s exactly what I want from him.
He matches his thrusts with grunted words.
“You’re mine…mine…mine…no one else...ever…
ever
touches you…”
My head spins at his words, and I nod in agreement though the movement is masked by the motion of his thrusts. I run my hand up the back of his neck and into his hair, my fingers wrapping around the strands as his cock rams into me. I feel the distinctive buildup of tension between my legs, and I push my heels into the sand to press up against his body, trying to grasp that last little nudge that will bring me over the edge.