Page 9 of Scr*wed By the Minotaur in Hallow's Cove
Only when she’d collapsed, boneless and glowing, did I let myself go. I pulled out, just enough for her to feel the stretch again, then slammed into her once, twice, three times, and came so hard it turned the world white around the edges. I emptied myself deep inside her, a roaring throb that left me shaking.
I fell into her, my full weight braced on my elbows, afraid of smothering her. But she only laughed, a breathless, delighted thing, and ran her hands up my arms, soothing every muscle like she’d known how much I’d worry.
We lay that way for a while, tangled and sticky and perfectly, silently attuned. Her head fit just under my chin, breath winding back to something even and slow. My own lungs steadied, my heart pounding with animal satisfaction of a male who’d found exactly what he didn’t know he’d been missing.
I could have stayed like that for hours, but eventually Lea stirred, shifting her hips and letting me slip out. There was a low, decadent wetness between her thighs, and some of it smeared against my own skin. I grinned, unable to help myself. She caught the look and poked my side.
“Don’t look so smug,” she teased, though her lips didn’t quite manage a straight line. “You’re the one who almost broke the hotel door.”
“I’ll fix it,” I promised.
Chapter four
Lea
Iwasn’tsurehowlong we lay tangled up in the hotel sheets, but I was very sure that I’d never had sex like that in my life. Maybe it was the new place. Maybe it was the way Rick’s body felt over and through and around me—massive, careful, and solid in a way that made me feel precious instead of breakable. Or maybe it was the simple, extravagant fact of being seen—really seen—by someone for the first time in what felt like forever.
His arm was warm and heavy across my chest, palm splayed and thumb absently tracing circles over my right breast. I stared up at the cracked plaster overhead, feeling the slow drip of sweat cooling between my shoulder blades, and realized there was no way I’d sleep. Not with every nerve ending still on high alert and the taste of him still sharp behind my teeth.
“Are you awake?” I whispered, though it was clear he was. His breathing had leveled out but his hand never stopped moving, like he thought I’d vanish if he let go. He rumbled a wordless reply, then nuzzled his lips into the crook of my neck. His hornsbumped the headboard lightly as he shifted, and the faintest smile played at the edge of his mouth.
“Still here,” he said.
“Good. I wasn’t sure if you went to sleep with your eyes open, or if that’s a monster thing, or…” I trailed off, realizing I might be in over my head. We’d just had possibly the hottest sex of my life, and I was already babbling about sleep habits.
“It’s not,” he said. “But I do have great hearing. You, though… you hum when you’re content. Like a cat with a song in its chest.”
I snorted out a laugh, shoulders shaking. The last person to tell me I purred was my mom, when she would set aside her Sunday to do my braids for the next few weeks.
I let the memory settle, warm and bittersweet, then reached over to snag the hotel water bottle from the nightstand. Rick made a low, appreciative sound at the stretch of my body and traced the curve of my waist with a possessive squeeze. My thighs ached but in a good way, like after a tough but fulfilling work out. My heart didn’t quite know what to do with itself.
I took a long, grateful gulp and offered him the bottle. His hand dwarfed it, but he drank, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, eyes never leaving me—as if he was memorizing every detail. Like I was the marvel here, and not the seven-foot minotaur lounging naked in my bed.
“So, Rick,” I said, snuggling deeper into his side, “is this the part where you tell me a dark secret about yourself?”
He snorted, a real, belly-deep sound. “Depends. You want the condensed version, or the full tragic saga?”
“I want all the dirt.” I grinned. “You go first. I’ll trade you one for one.”
He seemed to think about it, then rolled onto his side, propped up on an elbow. The movement made his muscles flex, horned silhouette cutting a shadow across the wall. He was quiet for a moment—like he was weighing how much to say, or maybe howmuch to risk. I recognized the look. It felt almost identical to the one I gave strangers when they asked about my family.
He started talking, voice gone soft beneath the monster’s boom. “My parents died when I was a kid. Car crash outside the city. I was, hell, six? Maybe seven. I barely remember them, just flashes. My grandpa would always say I got my stubborn streak from my dad, which… yeah, that tracks.” He managed a crooked smile. “My grandparents took me in. Didn’t really have a choice—no one else in the family wanted the responsibility, no one wanted a rambunctious kid that had a penchant for knocking things over.”
He watched his own hand, knuckles rippling as he flexed the bottle between two fingers. “Grandpa was an old-fashioned minotaur. He owned dozens of hardware shops where I grew up in upstate New York. He never talked about feelings, but every morning he’d make me lunch and put it in the same brown bag, with a dumb cartoon on the side. Even in high school.” Rick’s mouth twitched again.
I reached up, brushing one of the ridges of his horn where it merged with the dark stubble of his scalp. I meant it as a joke, or maybe a comfort, but the intimacy of the gesture startled us both. His eyes flicked to mine, and the emotion there made my throat tight.
“You’re a good storyteller,” I said, and I tried for a laugh, but it came out too gentle.
Rick shrugged, but something about the movement was less contained now. “My grandma died when I was sixteen. Grandpa held on until my second year of college. After that, it was just me.” His hand found my hip, thumb moving in slow circles. “I floated around from place to place for a long time. Hallow’s Cove is the first time I put down real roots. Opened my shop, started sponsoring the town softball team. Pretended it was enough.”
“Only, sometimes it isn’t,” I finished for him, and the words hit like a punch straight through my chest. I think it startled him. “It’s never enough.” I let my fingers follow the line of his jaw, the thick corded muscle there so different from any man I’d ever touched. “Not when you’ve lost people. That emptiness just… echoes, no matter how full your life gets.”
He made a sound, something raw and almost angry, but he didn’t pull away. “Yeah. That’s it.” His eyes flashed, then softened, all the bravado momentarily stripped away. “I keep thinking if I just do enough, work enough, stay busy enough, it’ll stop hurting.”
I’d lived by the logic since Mom’s diagnosis. Pack the days so tightly there’s no room for grief. Don’t slow down, don’t sit still, don’t let the dark in, but sometimes, even when you’re lying naked in a strange bed with a stranger who suddenly doesn’t feel strange at all, the dark catches up anyway. And instead of running from it, you just sit with it. Or, in this case, lie chest-to-chest with it, and let someone else see what’s left behind.
I blew out a long breath, feeling the words bubbling up in my throat.
