Page 14 of Wrangled By the Minotaur
I pour myself a glass of Tom’s homemade mead—he always leaves me a bottle in exchange for the honey I give him—and I try to think rationally about this. Pro and con lists. Practical considerations. The smart thing to do.
But my mind keeps drifting to the way Raphael looked at me across his dining table. Like he could see straight through all my careful masks to the woman underneath. The woman who’s tired of being good, tired of playing it safe, tired of putting everyone else’s comfort before her own desires.
“You’ll belong to me.”
The words echo in my head as I wander through my small house, touching familiar objects that suddenly feel foreign. The silence that usually comforts me now feels hollow after the weight of hisattention. My carefully curated space, with its perfectly aligned book spines and quaint bee tchotchkes… It all seems suddenly sterile, a monument to a life lived in careful, predictable lines rather than the bold strokes Raphael promises.
What would it feel like to surrender to that? To let someone that strong, that commanding, take control?
I finish my mead and head upstairs, my mind made up.
In my bedroom, I pull out my old duffel bag and start packing. Not everything. I’m not moving out permanently. But enough clothes for a few days at least.
My hands shake as I fold my favorite sundress, the one that makes my eyes look more green than brown. I add jeans, t-shirts, and then pause at my underwear drawer. The practical cotton briefs feel wrong somehow, too safe for what I’m about to do. Instead, I reach for the lace set I bought on impulse months ago and never wore, black with delicate floral patterns that make me feel dangerous and feminine.
I add the silk nightgown Sage gave me last Christmas, the one she got because she thinks I should “feel sexy every once in a while.” The deep emerald fabric feels like liquid against my fingers, and I wonder what Raphael’s reaction would be to seeing me in it.
The thought sends heat racing through my veins. Because that’s part of this arrangement, isn’t it? Sharing his space. Sharing his bedroom.
What would that actually mean? Would he expect me in his bed immediately, or would we work up to it? Am I getting aheadof myself, thinking this is some intimate arrangement? Did he really just mean I’d sleep in his bed, and that’d be the extent of it?
And is there a part of me that would be let down if that was all there was to it?
My romance novels have filled my head with ideas about what a man like Raphael might desire, but seeing it firsthand—his imposing frame, the untamed strength radiating from him, the way his nostrils flare when he picks up my scent—leaves me throbbing with a want that I can’t even pretend to be ashamed of.
I can easily imagine those massive hands gripping my hips, holding me still while he devours me with his mouth, his tongue exploring places no one has ever touched. Would he make me beg for his cock? The thought of him splitting me open, forcing me to take every thick inch while I cling to his steady horns…
From the heat I saw in his eyes last night, it’s easy to picture how he could rut into me with primal desperation, claiming my body so thoroughly that I’ll never forget who I belong to. Would he be rough enough to leave bruises, gentle enough to worship every curve, or would he alternate between both until I’m a trembling mess beneath him, completely at his mercy?
The questions make me ache in ways I’ve only read about, and I have to sit down on my bed, breathing hard.
This is insane. I’m seriously considering moving in with a man I’ve just met. A minotaur who could break me in half without trying. A stranger who’s offering to solve all my problems in exchange for three months of my life.
But he’s not really a stranger, is he? I saw something in his eyes last night, something lonely and hungry and carefully hidden.
I saw the way he handled my bees, the gentleness that contradicted his fearsome appearance.
I saw the vulnerability when he talked about his grandmother, the isolation he’s been living with.
And I felt the way he looked at me. Not like Rose Baker’s granddaughter or Sunnybrook’s sweetheart, but like a woman he wanted to possess completely, a woman he wanted to explore every intimate inch of.
When’s the last time someone looked at me like that? When’s the last time someone wanted the real me instead of the image I project?
I zip up the duffel bag and carry it downstairs, setting it by the front door. Tomorrow morning, I’ll either have the courage to follow through, or I’ll unpack it and pretend this was all a momentary lapse in judgment.
But as I climb underneath the covers, I already know what my answer will be.
I’m tired of being safe. I’m tired of being good.
Where has that gotten me, anyway?
I close my eyes, knowing that tomorrow I’m going to find out exactly what it means to belong to a monster.
Chapter 5
By the Horns
Raphael
