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Chapter 8
She’d not yet visited the Black Sheep Beanery when it wasn’t crowded with bodies, and was beginning to suspect the coffee house was packed with customers from the moment it opened at sunrise until the point they needed to physically evict the stragglers in the evenings.
It had become a game for her, listening to the conversations of the different species that crowded together as a community within the confines of the small shop and eavesdropping on their orders, learning which menu items were geared to the particular clients.
“A medium chlorophyll chiller, a kid’s size malted moss sweetsteam, and—Finny, what kind of lolly do you want?”
The tiefling behind the counter sighed as the small, amphibious child pressed his webbed hands to the glass to ogle the confections within the case, leaving behind twinned smudges behind. Violet grinned as the child announced his selection, his mother groaning, correcting him that one of the elaborate desserts hadn’t been an option. She wondered what sort of child a human and minotaur would have together, trying to imagine a baby with messy hair and velvety-soft ears, and a slender, swishing tail.Okay, literally what is even wrong with you. Your ovaries need to get a fucking grip. You don’t want kids for at least a decade, if ever.She was forced to concede that the voice in her head was right, as she watched the child smear his small, blue tongue over the glass in front of the cake he wanted, as though he might be able to taste it through the case, and the cashier sighed heavily once more.A decade at least.
There was a tantruming toddler somewhere near the door behind her, as well as what sounded like a cluster of adolescents off to the side of the line, giggling and squealing noisily, and she reflected that teens were teens, regardless of species.
“Tell them it doesn’t matter what their suppliers are saying. Their suppliers are lying. Are we really supposed to believe there’s not a single axle available to ship on the whole eastern seaboard? They need to figure it out and make the client happy, end of story. Mhm, that’s it. Check-in when your plane lands, alright?”
Her stomach flip-flopped at the familiar edge, the deep, demanding tone . . .see, look what you’ve gone and done. Start thinking about babies that you don’t actually want to have and now your ovaries are imagining they hear him everywhere.Her phone buzzed then, a text from Geillis.Just grabbed a table, near the windows.
“What can we get for you today?”The horned cashier was addressing her, she realized, only just noticing that the little frog-like boy and his mother had finally moved on. “The honeycomb latte, please. Medium.” Violet had no doubt that there were other delicious offerings on the menu, but she was a creature of habit and the decadent, honey-drenched latte was too good not to order.
“And name for the order?”
She could feel the heat from the patron in line behind her as she gave the cashier her name, suddenly stepping forward, close enough that if she were to step backward, she’d be trodding over their toes, a discomfiting closeness. The tiefling nodded, opening her mouth to speak when her eyes raised, her attention caught by something over Violet’s head, her lips quirking up in a half-smile, before nodding.
“A large red eye—cream, no sugar, and whatever floofy dessert drink she’s ordering . . . and maybe one of the caramel pecan twists.”
She stiffened when the unseen too-close patron spoke, realizing her ovaries hadn’t been imagining things, his deep, resonant voice just as decisive and firm as it was when it rang across the milking room floor. Violet felt her insides turn to jelly at the sound of it, the sound ofhim, her knees joining suit a moment later when a huge, warm hand landed on the center of her back, gently moving her aside to take her place before the register, swiping his card and completing the transaction for her coffee before she had the wherewithal to do anything more than gape up at him.
“Oh,maybeone of the twists,” the familiar ewe-faced woman laughed from her place behind the counter, shaking her head as she placed a gooey-looking pastry in a small paper bag, passing it to the big minotaur with the messy hair, the light overhead catching on the gold ring that spanned across his wide, pink nose. “You’re going to turn into one of these twists.”
He huffed—a familiar,delicioussound that went to that place between her thighs she’d dreamed of him licking, a fantasy that spurred suppositions over how rough his tongue was, if it would be velvety smooth or textured and coarse; if he’d press it into her and lick her clit until she came against its unknown texture, flooding his mouth with her own honey. In this particular daydream, the taste of her would drive him him crazy, his thick cock would already be drooling pre-come in anticipation, and he would flip her before the tremors of her orgasm would even be over, unable to control his ardor for another minute. He would enter her from behind and make her clench around his girth as he pumped into her with those slow, solid thrusts, his heavy balls slapping her still-trembling clit, making her come again around his cock.
Violet was certain she was about to swoon, the lights overhead suddenly too bright and the voices of the other patrons too loud, her thoughts too obscene for the polite company of the little coffee shop.
“Fancy meeting you here.” His voice was a rumble of thunder caught in the mountains, the deep and sonorous warning of a coming storm, and as her eyes darted around wildly—taking in his perfectly tailored dress pants ending in a neat tuck above his jutting hocks, his polished, ebony hooves with no scuff in sight and far larger than she’d anticipated—Violet wanted to be caught in his downpour, wanted to bedrenchedby him. “I suppose this means you can’t say minotaurs aren’t buying you drinks when you’re out and about.”
“No, I suppose I can’t,” she murmured, face heating. She felt the weight of his eyes moving over her, slowly and deliberately, completely unlike her own frenzied observance, realizing this was the first time he was seeing her out of the farm’s uniform scrubs. She wished she had taken a bit longer on her hair that morning, that she’d managed more than just a swipe of mascara before she’d raced out the door.At least you’re wearing decent clothes today and not just leggings and a crop top.She had decided weeks earlier that one of her favorite things about working at the farm was the provided uniform, leaving her free to dress as comfortably as she wanted for her drive. In truth, the clothes she had on that day were 100% nicer than what she normally wore to work, on account of having avoided laundry for the last two weeks. She watched his eyes travel the short distance up her unremarkable frame before they finally made their way to hers, and she was unable to read the charged expression in them.He probably doesn’t even like humans.“You-you didn’t need to do that, you know.”
He’d not removed his hand until the bag had been passed across the counter, and she still felt the phantom weight of it, heavy and warm on the small of her back, exactly the way it was in all of her fantasies. “Of course I didn’t,” he agreed in that low, firm voice, eyes still locked on hers, “but I wanted to.”
“Rourke, are you and Lurielle coming to my Irus Day cookout?”
The moment was broken when his head raised in response to the sheep-woman’s voice, and Violet realized with a jolt that the question had been directed at him.Rourke. The initials on his file had been the most intriguing question mark of all,R Mfollowed by the eight-digit identification number. She had poured over non-human baby-naming websites, looking up the most common minotaur names of the last several decades, trying to decide if he seemed like a Rhugar or a Ravis.Rourke. It was simple and crisp, and suited him perfectly. Violet couldn’t wait until she was alone, to say his name aloud and learn its shape, tasting it on her tongue, feeling enormously grateful to the caprine barista for the windfall of information.Wait . . . what did she say? Who’s Lurielle?
“As long as I’m in town, I’ll pop in. You know I can’t make any promises with my schedule.”
She tsked, shaking her head at his non-committal response. “We haven’t seen the two of you in months. I’m not taking no for an answer.”
“Well, if I’m traveling, you can put a picture of my head on a popsicle stick and pretend I’m there. I’m not making plans for Lurielle, don’t try to get me in trouble like that.”
Violet’s warm feelings for the ewe-faced woman shriveled as she continued to good-naturedly carp over Rourke and the mysterious Lurielle having missed the last several parties she’d thrown. Of course he wasn’t single. Of course there was a girlfriend in the picture, maybe even a wife, she realized with a sinking stomach. Somehow, in all of her daydreams, she’d never imagined him being coupled, even though she should have suspected he would be. Handsome, successful, a voice that sent a shiver up the listener’s back and a cock that would leave his partner seeing stars . . . expecting that he’d be single to boot was a fanciful bit of wishful thinking on her part. It was foolish and naive to assume that visiting the farm meant he was single, to assume he hadn’t been including himself in the description of family men with a mortgage and kids at home, with a fashionable, svelte businesswoman for a wife. It was patently idiotic to assume he’d ever be interested in someone like her: an unremarkable human, no career, drowning in debt, nothing to bring to the table with someone like him.
Suddenly, there was nowhere she wanted to be less than standing at his side, listening to him make fun weekend plans with the barista and his apparent wife or girlfriend. Geillis was waiting for her, after all.This is what you get for taking your eye off the ball, this job is supposed to get you out of debt and help tide you over until you find something real.She could change her schedule, would pick up a weekend shift and ensure that she no longer worked on Fridays, would put him out of mind and forget her silly, one-sided crush. His hooves barely made a sound as he edged around the counter, and she realized for the first time that the dark wood was actually some sort of laminate, spongy enough to absorb the heavy tread of sharp hooves and thundering orcs alike.You’ll probably never be coming back here, so why does it matter.The voice in her head was right about that—this place would be forever tainted now.
“You’re not going home early, are you?”
As ever, his question had a ring of demand, trapping her in his pointed gaze. Violet swallowed down her emotion and squared her shoulders. She had been a fool, but she didn’t need to continue acting like one. “I had a cancellation,” she explained, using her overly sunny customer service voice. A small furrow appeared between his eyes, velvety soft and slightly vexed, and she had to clench the soft leather of her clutch to keep from stretching up on her toes to smooth it away.No more of that. You’re done being stupid over him.
“Chlorophyll chiller for Sleeva, honeycomb latte for Violet, and a red eye for Rourke.”
His big hand reached out, palming her latte before she could turn towards the pickup counter. “Violet.”
