Page 14 of Dancing for the Minotaur

“Well, you can stop now,” Terra said dryly.

“Oh, no—I’ve got more,” Candy promised. “Maybe you should stop bullshitting us and tell us if you⁠—”

“Enough with the bull jokes!” Terra exclaimed, though she couldn’t help laughing a little as she sat down in front of the mirror. “Lord, both of you need hobbies.”

“This is our hobby,” Crystal told her. She finally got the false eyelash attached and sat back to inspect her work. “Besides, you have to admit he was kind of hot in a weird way.”

“Kind of?” Candy put in. “Once I got over the horns and the ears, I thought he was actually really hot. I mean, did you see his body?”

“Oh, I saw it.” Crystal fanned herself dramatically. “If that man was any more built, he’d need a construction permit.”

“Okay, that doesn’t even make sense,” Terra remarked.

“It doesn’t have to,” Crystal said, laughing. “You know what I mean.”

Terra did know what she meant, unfortunately. She had been doing her best for the past two days not to think about Taurex’s enormous, muscular body or the deep rumble of his voice or the way his golden eyes had looked when he watched her pleasure herself. Most of all, she had tried not to think about the fact that she had actually come in the VIP lounge for the first time in her life.

She still didn’t know how she felt about that.

Part of her was embarrassed. She had always been able to keep Bunny Canyon separate from Terra. Bunny smiled and flirted and rubbed herself against strange men because that was how she paid the bills. Terra was the woman who went home afterward and washed off the glitter, checked Cody’s homework, kissed Lisa goodnight and sat at the kitchen table until one in the morning doing accounting assignments on her laptop. The two parts of her life weren’t supposed to touch.

But with Taurex, they had.

For the first time, she hadn’t just been pretending to enjoy herself. She had actually wanted him watching her. She had wanted to rub against him and feel the hard length of his cock beneath his trousers. She had wanted him to tell her what to do with the little vibrator and when he had increased the speed, she had come so hard she’d nearly collapsed in his lap.

That still bothered her.

Not because she hadn’t enjoyed it—she had enjoyed it more than any sexual experience she could remember—but because she didn’t understand why she had reacted to him that way.

Taurex had insisted that he hadn’t done anything to control her, but he had somehow been able to look inside her mind. What if he had done something else without realizing it? Or worse, what if he had known exactly what he was doing and simply lied?

Then why did he leave when you told him to? a little voice whispered in the back of her mind. If he’s such a problem, why hasn’t he been back? He left you alone when you asked him to, didn’t he? So what’s so bad about him?

Terra frowned at her reflection. She didn’t have an answer for that.

Taurex could easily have overpowered her. Hell, he could probably have carried her out of the club tucked under one arm and no one but Marty would have been big enough to even try to stop him. But when she had told the huge Monstrum to get out, he had gone. He hadn’t argued or threatened or tried to touch her again. He had simply apologized, left two thousand dollars on the chair and offered her a job.

The business card he’d left was still in her purse. Terra had nearly thrown it away three separate times but somehow…she hadn’t.

“So are you ever going to see him again?” Candy asked, breaking into her thoughts.

“No,” Terra said, a little too quickly.

Crystal gave her a skeptical look in the mirror.

“Uh-huh. Riiiight.”

“I’m serious,” Terra said, trying to make herself believe it. “He was a customer. I danced for him. That’s all.”

“You spent almost an hour with him,” Crystal pointed out.

“Because he paid for the time,” Terra countered.

“And then he gave you how much?” Candy asked.

Terra hadn’t meant to tell them, but Candy had seen the wad of cash when she came back to the dressing room and had eventually worn her down.

“Two thousand dollars,” she admitted reluctantly.