Scarlett
If I were a better person, I’d have stopped teasing him after the first time I made him blush.
But I’m not a better person, so I keep orbiting him, waiting to see if he’ll blow his load in his pants or snatch me up and rut into me.
Both scenarios would be quite enjoyable.
I’m like a shark that’s discovered it enjoys circling one very specific, extremely nervous boat.
Listen. I am no chaste maiden. I’m the type of woman who takes what she wants, and quite often that thing I want is someone else’s body pressed against mine—sometimes multiple bodies pressed against mine.
But something about this minotaur is lighting my body up like I’ve hit a second puberty or something.
I saw him fingering that teapot for that old lady through the window, and I knew in that very instance I needed those fingers inside me. Something in my chest just…unlocked.
‘Mine,’ some feral little voice said.
And, as much as he’s trying to hide his massive erection—bless his heart, an impossible feat—I know he feels the same way about me.
But I’m not the type to chase. I like to be chased.
So I’m doing everything in my power to get this socially awkward, porcelain dork to come at me—charge me, if you will.
But nothing I do is working. He just keeps talking about fucking teapots! It’s adorable, but fuck! Fuck me, dude!
He keeps a careful two steps behind, like he’s escorting me and also trying not to startle me, which is hilarious considering everything I do seems to startle him. That little moo he does! Holy fuck. It’s so cute!
It’s not just his moo that’s cute. He’s cute.
Like super cute. Painfully cute. His blond hair falls into his eyes, making him look both brooding and adorable.
And those slutty little glasses!? Jesus Christ. Be still, my slutty beating little heart.
They slide down his nose every time he looks at the floor—which is often, because he absolutely refuses to look directly at my face or my heavily exposed chest, even though I know for a fact he’s memorized it in peripheral vision by now.
I want to push those glasses up his muzzle while he’s inside me just to watch him lose his mind.
Maybe push it up while I swipe his muzzle with my cunt.
He’s enormous, all shoulders and torso, with forearms as big as my thighs and hands that look like they could crush a golf ball to powder—except he wouldn’t. Or, if he did, he’d apologize to the golf ball.
He’s so earnestly sweet it makes my teeth hurt.
And his horns! They curve in these clean, mathematical arcs—perfect curves that sweep back from his temples like something sculpted instead of grown. Every time I look at them, I have the following intrusive thoughts:
1. Grab those horns, pull his face down, and ride his mouth like he were a mechanical bull.
2. Does getting dicked down by a minotaur so rough you forget your name count as a goring? At least metaphorically? Like, could I make that joke to my friends?
3. Do either of these thoughts make me kinda speciesist? Should I ask him? Would that be inappropriate? Like, would asking him be making him do the work of me dealing with my own human bullshit?
4. Is calling it bullshit speciest!?
Right now, he’s explaining glaze finishes like this is a totally normal, professional interaction, not the horniest retail experience of my entire life.
He’s just going off about it. I’m trying really hard to pay attention to this thing that is so obviously his special interest, but my special interest—fucking him—is fucking up my concentration.
I’ve brushed against him enough times to know exactly what he’s packing, and I’m trying to get him to use it on me.
But every “accidental” touch makes him go rigid and silent instead of cocky (pun not intended, but appreciated).
He doesn’t flirt back the way most people I flirt with would.
He doesn’t grab me. He doesn’t say something suave or even stupid.
He clams up with this tight, overwhelmed stillness, and twists the hems of his apron between his fingers.
The apron makes him look so damn domestic that I want to wrap my arms around him and cover him in kisses—take him home and make an honest minotaur out of him.
It’s the damnedest thing. I’m not the possessive type.
I’m not the domestic type. I’m not the settle-down type.
But this dork has me thinking about white picket fences and wondering how squeezing baby minotaurs out of my birth canal might work.
Would the horns get stuck on my cervix on the way out?
And, I know I tend to fall hard and fast, but I have fallen hard—fast—for this minotaur.
And I desperately want him to chase me.
The intrusive baby minotaur thoughts started when I watched him wrap that old lady’s tea set with the kind of care most reserve for newborns or black-market fireworks. Those careful fingers, steady and patient—Yeah. I imagined them on me. Obviously.
I can’t pretend to listen to him go on about glaze any more; I need to get things moving before I die of thirst.
I drift to the display beside him and run my fingers along the most phallic-looking thing I can find.
He flushes and fiddles with his glasses, averting his eyes, but still doesn’t flirt with me.
Instead, he turns to a different display and begins straightening it.
Apparently, a teapot is about one one-hundredth of a millimeter—a micrometer?
—too far to the left, so he taps it just slightly to the right.
He does the same with another. I’d make fun of him for being so anally retentive as he taps each thing just slightly into place, but the action highlights his forearms, roped with muscle under rolled sleeves, and this little tap he’s doing has me damn-near panting.
I squeeze my legs tight, worried all my dirty thoughts are gonna drip right down my thighs.
Oh, fuck…I’m a goner.
I can’t take the tapping. I grab his hand and resist the urge to shove his fingers up me.
His ears go red, and he adjusts his glasses so fast he nearly pokes himself in the eye.
Shit. Now what?
“You know I saw you handle that teapot earlier.” I trace his fingers, and they tense under my grip, but he doesn’t pull away. “You’re really good with your hands.”
He actually chokes on air.
Progress. But still not enough to get him going.
He replies, as if the statement were an accusation, not a plea to be finger-banged, “I—uh—packing ceramics safely is mostly about support and pressure distribution.”
Come on, dude? How can you not tell I’m flirting with you?
I hum. “Mm. Support and pressure. Important qualities.”
He makes this strangled noise that might be a laugh trying to escape a panic attack, and pushes those little glasses up again.
God, I want him. Badly. Not just a little. Not casually. I want to climb this enormous, polite, catastrophically repressed minotaur like a tree and see what noise he makes when the control finally snaps.
I’ve thrown out all the fucking stops with this guy. Fuck, I even put my panties in my purse, then put my ass in the air so he’d come down the aisle and get an eyeful, but this bull won’t bite.
I run through a thousand more flirty things I can say and realize I’m doing a terrible job of paying attention to him. This guy is obviously not great with social cues, so I’m going to have to lay it on even thicker if I want him to flirt back.
He’s loosened up a little. He’s still nervous, still tight in the shoulders, but he’s starting to answer faster. Starting to glance at me instead of the floor. Starting—very tentatively—to smile first instead of apologizing first.
Maybe he’s got a mate at home, and that’s why he’s not flirting back.
I thought most mated minotaurs wore rings in their nose, but maybe he doesn’t subscribe to that tradition.
I should ask…not outright, I can’t come off too desperate…not yet anyway.
“So,” I say, stopping to peer at a little porcelain teacup that looks like it has extremely enthusiastic breasts, “Rory, do you ever get lonely in here all by yourself?”
“I’m not alone,” he says.
Now I’m the one freezing and standing tall, like I’ve got a porcelain rod shoved up my ass. Fuck. He is married. “Oh? You have coworkers?” I ask as nonchalantly as I can.
“…No,” he says quietly.
My heart hammers. “Oh…you have a mate then?” I look up at him, and I might actually cry. I don’t understand what’s gotten into me with this guy, but the thought of him having a mate and getting into anyone but me makes me want to throw myself out the window.
He gestures at all the teapots and stuff he has around the shop. “This is my herd. They keep me company.” And the big, beautiful dork looks like he might cry tears of pride.
Fuck, I need this guy. He’s so fucking cute and sweet, I can’t stand it.
“You didn’t answer that mate question.”
The blush comes back—but this time he doesn’t retreat. He ducks his head, smiling into it. He’s actually looking at me this time. “I do not have a mate,” he mutters.
Heat flashes low in my stomach.
Oh, thank God.
Fine. Fuck it. I’ll just ask him out.
“Would you be interested in going out with me sometime, Rory?” I ask, and now I’m averting my eyes. I have never asked anyone out in my life. This is mortifying. Now I know why I never do it.
My heart pounds as I wait.
He blinks. “Go out?”
“Drinks. Food. Walk. Movie. Whatever.” And by “whatever,” I mean peeling off my underwear with your teeth.
Silence.
I am dying.
Then, quietly, he asks, “Like a date?” and then clears his throat.
“Yeah,” I smile.
“I’m…um…not sure if I’d be good at it.”
“At what?”
“…Dating,” he replies as if the word is expired and he accidentally tasted it.
I almost melt. “That’s okay. I’m not really here for the dating.”
“What are you here for?” he asks.
To get absolutely wrecked by your massive cock. To hook my knees around your horns while you eat my ass.
I shrug. “Haunted pottery.”
He smiles, unguarded and devastatingly—unfairly—handsome. But he still doesn’t directly answer my request. I know he wants me, and I can’t figure out what is stopping him from just taking me.
Okay, time to lay it on thick. I just need to come right out with the overt sexual advances.
We round the corner.
He stops. Not dramatically. Just…stops.
Something drains out of him, so it’s like watching a rolling blackout, but the only thing blacking out is the warmth that was building between us.
His shoulders pull in. His hands curl slightly.
What happened? Did I say something? Did I come on too strong?
Maybe I need to go back to talking about pottery and stuff.
Where are those stupid Tiffany cups or that weird frog thing? I can talk about those all day.
I spot the nearest tea set and say, “These are gorgeous.”
“My mother made them,” he says. His voice is flat. Careful. Too careful.
I glance up at him. His eyes aren’t on me. They’re locked on the tea set like he’s bracing for them to give him a direct order.
I don’t understand what just happened, only that something definitely did. My stomach drops because my brain immediately goes to the worst possible conclusion: I pushed too far.
Shit. Of course I did. I always do. Too loud, too sexual, too much, too fast—
Abort. Fix it. Fix it now.
I pick up one of the cups, forcing bright energy back into my voice. “Well, your mom makes beautiful things, which I already knew given…” I say, gesturing at him.
He doesn’t laugh.
Oh no. I really fucked this up.