“I don’t know,” I admit. “I don’t know about any of this. Except, I am here…and I want to know you.”
“Then know me,” he murmurs. “Be the first to try.”
I hesitate, listening to the echo of his words, his pain. Something comes over me—the darkness, a cocoon—and within it I find myself a stranger, as strange as this man who calls himself Minotaur.
Magic, I think. Dreams and magic.
I touch him. The pulse of his throat is quick, his hands raw and hot. When he turns us on our sides the sand is gritty and soft, climbing into my clothes, rubbing my skin. I am blind in the oubliette, but my fingers are not, and I find again his jaw, his lips, and press close enough to taste his breath, to taste him.
I kiss the corner of his mouth. I capture his sigh with another kiss, this time on his bottom lip. The edge of the mask rubs against my cheek and brow; bone and hide protrude over the Minotaur’s nose. More wolf than bull, I imagine.
I stroke the hollow of his throat with my finger. “Who did this to you?”
His chest rumbles. “I am the child of a queen, but made out of wedlock and a bastard, still. To protect herself, my mother made a bargain with her lover to hide me away so that her husband, the king, would never know of her betrayal. It was done as she asked—the king was gone away to war. Though as such things happen, upon his return he discovered the truth. The king was a sorcerer, and my mother’s choice to deceive him…poorly conceived.”
I try to make sense of such a story. “So you were alone, then? No one cared for you?”
“I had a tutor, an old man who raised me. A nursemaid, too, though she was taken from me when I had no more practical use for her. A good woman. I learned not to miss her.”
“And this?” I tug gently on a horn.
“An act of power,” says the Minotaur grimly. “And fear.”
He rolls me on my back before I ask another question. His mouth hovers over mine, hands cradling my face. He kisses me. It is a deeper kiss than what I gave him, and I am taken off guard by the slow heat of it, the pleasure. I am unfamiliar with intimacy, but my body responds as though born to it. I rise up against the Minotaur, clutching his back.
He tugs on my nightshirt—we part long enough for him to drag it over my head—and then I have no time for fear or regret as he strokes my breasts, fingers sliding over my nipples, at first tentative, then with more confidence. I moan against his mouth, hooking my leg around his waist, rubbing against him. I am wet between my thighs, pleasure clenching in my gut like a delicious fist.
The Minotaur overwhelms. I could not fight him off even if I wanted, and I do not. I have been alone too long, and this—no matter how strange—is an opportunity not to be lost. I might hide from the world, but I am a survivor—I take what I need, what I want, what I desire. Only, I have never desired this. Not until now.
His loincloth strains hard between my thighs. I writhe, savoring the luscious friction of his erection stroking my own wet heat. I reach down to touch him. His skin is soft and hot, throbbing, and he breaks off his kiss to push hard and long in my hand. I squeeze, gentle; a pulsing rhythm. The Minotaur groans and slams his fist in the sand. He pulls out of my grasp.
“You will finish me,” he says, and then it is my turn to dig my hands into the sand as his fingers slide between my thighs, entering me deep. His mouth follows, tongue running swift as he sucks and licks, and a moan tears from my throat as I twist in his arms. He captures me. Hooks my legs over his shoulders.
And then, when I am almost on the brink, his mouth and hands disappear and I feel the heat of his body poise above me. He does not need to ask. I spread my legs wider. The Minotaur pushes inside, and though his size might have predicted discomfort, all I feel is delicious warmth so unexpected, so overwhelming, I am momentarily paralyzed with pleasure. Stiff with it, even as he is stiff, the both of us shaking. He is hard and hot; I feel mounted, pinned, like a puppet on the head of a spear, except this is flesh and blood and dream, and there are no strings attached to my body, no master controlling my actions.
One giant hand presses against my thighs, tugging them apart. The Minotaur slides deeper, but only just. And then his hands move again, but only to push my legs together, tight. Squeezing him inside me. Holding him like a vise, even as he begins to move, to draw out, just as slowly as he entered.
I shudder, a moan escaping from between my clenched teeth. The Minotaur’s own breathing is harsh, though he is gentle as he thrusts, his large hands holding me close in a careful embrace. I wish I could see his eyes, and press my lips against his throat, feeling in my pounding heart a wild ache that reminds me of my first time in the library labyrinth, held safe within the darkness of a new home. I do not want that feeling to end.