AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Closing my eyes only serves to heighten my other senses. Lying on my back, I grab fistfuls of bedsheets as the sound and scent of her climax—the third one—fill my head. A cold shower won’t help, but I’ll take one anyway. The pounding water may drown out the sound of things I crave to experience up close.
Light tapping on the door stops me in my tracks as I’m crossing to the en suite bathroom. I glance at my raging erection, then at the door. There’s no way to hide my physical state. I could pretend I didn’t hear the knock, but I did tell her I’d be available if she needs something.
I pull on a bathrobe and cinch the belt tight, restraining my cock in an upward position against my body, then open the door.
“I watched the video,” she says before I can ask what she needs.
My gaze drops from her glassy eyes and flushed cheeks. The baggy sweats from earlier are gone, replaced by a pale-pink bathrobe that ends above her knees and molds to her body. The hard points of her nipples strain against the thin material, proof that she’s not wearing a bra underneath.
Like a glutton for punishment, I inhale deeply, unable to prevent the animalistic huff of breath from rumbling out of me when her scent fills my nose. I should apologize, but I can’t. Holding back from touching her takes every resource I possess.
“I—” Her gaze trails down from my face, following the front edge of my robe to the V where my furry chest is exposed, then lower, to the bulge of my cock behind the ties. “I don’t think I’ll be able to have sex with you.” Her eyes flick back to mine. “Not if your… equipment is the same size as the Minotaur in that video.”
It’s bigger. But I’m not about to tell her that and send her running. “I’ll never pressure you to do something you’re not interested in.”
“But I am interested.” The tip of her pink tongue darts out to moisten her lips. “I’m very interested. In you. Like, uncontrollably interested. Going-out-of-my-mind interested. Is there something about this town that causes that reaction in human women? Because, obviously, my cousin is experiencing the same thing, after I watched her practically going at it with Dak, right in front of us.”
“It’s not the town, it’s the mate bond.”
“Theirs?” she asks, and I nod. “And… ours?”
“Yes. And ours.”
“The mate bond is why I’m standing at your bedroom door when I know I should have stayed in my room? Why I feel like we’ve known each other forever, even though we’ve just barely met?”
“That’s how it is with mates, yes.”
“So… there’s nothing I can do to stop what’s happening, to control these feelings and urges I’m having for you? Fate decided we’re supposed to get together, so it’s inevitable?”
Getting everything I want might be as simple as telling one small lie she’d never have to know about. But she would never be truly mine that way. “There is a way for you to be rid of the feelings you’re experiencing.” Tightness twists in my chest, in my gut, making it difficult to say what needs to be said. “You can reject me.”
“It’s that simple? Just say I’m not interested, and it all goes away?”
“A little more formally than that, but yes, it’d be that simple for you.”
“What about you?”
I shake my head. “If you reject me as your mate, the bond is broken for you, not for me.”
Her delicate eyebrows draw together. “But you could reject me, too, right? Then we’d both be free to fall in love with whoever we choose.”
“I assume you, as a human, would have that option. If our bond is broken, I could have sex with others, but I would never find another mate. I’d never love someone. Fate gives each Minotaur one person for that.”
“You’re saying if I reject you as my mate, you lose any chance at love?” The air goes out of her in a whoosh when I nod. “If I don’t want to commit to a fated mate bond I didn’t know existed until today, I’m robbing you of your only opportunity at a happily ever after? That’s a huge amount of pressure.”
“Don’t let my feelings or future affect your decision.” I tuck a strand of hair that’s worked free of her braid behind her ear, the trail my fingers along her cheek. “I want your happiness more than my own.”
“Let me guess,” she scrunches her nose, “that’s because of the mate thing.”
Even with everything hanging in the balance, and her obvious frustration, I feel light enough to smile. “Yes, but also because I’m a pretty decent man.”
“You are pretty,” she says, laughing softly. “And from what I’ve heard and seen so far, decent, too.”
“Nobody’s ever called me pretty before.” I tilt my head. “Well, aside from your cousin, but she only said it to piss me off.”
Once again, she pinches her eyebrows together. “I meant it as a compliment.”
“And that’s how I took it.” Touching her after the heavy conversation might be pushing it, but I do it anyway, capturing one of her hands and weaving her fingers between mine.
