He broke the kiss after several moments, leaving her breathless and struggling to calm her heart.
"Need to pace ourselves," he breathed into the side of her neck. Yet, his pelvis never stopped grinding into hers, dry humping against the thin fabric of her underwear.
"You're so strong," she panted, her head thrown back. She reveled in the feel of his arms around her, holding her up as if she weighed no more than a sack of flour. "I feel like I'm vibrating all over."
She looked into his eyes, which reflected white again in the gloom. He ground himself against her core, holding her in such a way that it wasn't possible for her to grind back at him. Somehow, the fact that she couldn't move made the sensation even more exciting.
Diana knew about shifters. She worked with them every damn day, and while they were a small portion of the general population, they were disproportionately represented among her client base. She knew how they could be extremely seductive, sometimes without even trying.
She didn't know what species Mac was, other than he was some kind of ruminant, which all tended to have a lighter spectrum of eyeshine. Mac's had been almost pure white.
Mac worked his fingers into her hair, worrying at the pins that held her auburn mane in place. She let out a shaky giggle.
"Didn't anyone ever tell you never to touch a black woman's hair?"
Mac gave her a mock serious expression. "Stop making jokes. I'm trying to seduce you."
She giggled again when he walked her backward and nudged open her bedroom door. He looked around the room, and she remembered her unmade bed and basket of half-finished laundry and froze.
"Uh, sorry, I would have picked up had I known I was going to have company..."
He looked at her as if she were crazy, his bushy brows coming together in a frown.
"You think I care about an unmade bed?"
She was about to respond when he tossed her on the bed. She bounced and almost rolled over the side. As she righted herself on her hands and knees, she felt his huge hand grab one of her ankles, yanking her down the mattress, while the other grabbed her around the waist again. Before she could react, he had her hips up in the air and her shoulders on the bed. She expected he was positioning to take her from behind, but then she felt the bed dip under his weight, and the next thing she knew, her panties were ripped away, and his lips covered her entire sex, his tongue like wet sandpaper over her pussy.
"Ungh!" She groaned and shrieked in shock and pleasure.
"Mmmm..." He teased her with his mouth, making appreciative grunts as he did so. She felt his rough tongue sliding over her clit.
Diana felt dizzy with the sensation of his mouth on her, and she ground herself into his face unabashedly.
"Hold still," he barked. She willed herself to go absolutely still, waiting.
He slid a finger inside her without preamble, and she clenched around the digit.
"Shit, you are so wet. And so tight."
He slid his thumb over her clit and began to run circles over it. She sucked in a breath, then turned her ass up to give him better access. She went up on her elbows and started moving her hips to seek more pressure, more friction, and he pushed her shoulders down again. He grabbed her thighs firmly, and she felt him on her again, sucking her into his mouth. She could feel his breath fanning over her.
She whimpered and bucked against him. It was so intense...so overwhelming that she tried to squirm away from him. One hand slid up, grabbed an ass cheek kneaded it roughly, then slapped it. She just about lost her mind. Her orgasm washed over her so suddenly, so unexpectedly that she could only open her mouth and scream for what seemed like forever but was probably only thirty seconds or so. Afterward, she lay there boneless, ass still propped up in the air and completely open to him. She had never had an orgasm from a man sucking on her, and the sensation had been like lightning followed by the boom of thunder.
Then she felt him grabbing her ass cheeks and sliding the head of his cock over her pussy lips. A moment before, she didn't think she had anything left to give, but the feel of the head of his dick had her hips moving again, trying to get him to sink into her.
But he didn't. He held her hips still and slid his head over her sex, up and down the puckered hole of her ass, then down again. He pumped into her with shallow, teasing thrusts, which frankly were starting to annoy her. It felt so good, but she needed more of him. She grunted and tried like hell to catch his elusive member in her pussy.
Please please, she thought, straining to chase the member she could only feel teasing her.
"Please what?" he said, and while his voice was husky and deep, he sounded way too calm to be almost fucking her. And had she said that out loud. Jesus, she was pathetic.
She clamped her mouth shut and said nothing.
"Please what, sugar?" His tone was soft and seductive. Coaxing. He teased her with the head of his cock, sliding in with shallow thrusts, then retreating. She could feel how thick he was. Thick and big, maybe too big for her, but she wanted him anyway. She felt a primal need to be filled by this man, to be utterly possessed and wanted. She wanted him to fuck her until she couldn't think anymore.
"Please...fuck me." She panted, without a shred of shame, her hips gusting like a sheet in the wind. "I need you. Inside me."
"You ready?" he said but did not wait for a reply before plunging into her with a hard surge of his hips, so deep that his balls brushed against her clit.
They hissed in unison at the contact.
Her eyes fluttered shut, and her mouth formed an O. Her lips moved with soundless words. She had never been so full. Full to the point of pain. So full she couldn't move, but desperately needing friction. He held himself inside her for a few moments, before he started to move. It felt so good that all she could do was moan, "fuck me" into the mattress over and over.
There was no more teasing. No more coaxing. Just his brutal thrusts inside her, the sound of the headboard making contact with the wall. Her moans. His grunts and the occasional slap as his hand made contact with her ass.
He flipped her over and suddenly, they were face to face, pelvis to pelvis, as he hooked her knees over his elbows and surged into her again. His eyes glowed white, reflecting the scant moonlight.
"That's right," he panted. "Eyes on me baby. I want to watch your face while I fuck you."
She should feel self-conscious. Instead, she couldn't look away. She had never been taken like this, rough and raw and out of control. His cock slid over her g-spot with every stroke, unleashing primal sensations. Her eyes began to drift close with the searing sensation of pleasure.
"Look at me," he said. Her eyes popped open. His face held a beautiful intensity, his eyes flickering white with eyeshine, then black with passion, as he moved in and out of the moonlight.
His movements became more erratic, and she looked up at him with fascination. His cock swelled inside her, increasing the sensations of fullness, intensifying the friction.
"So beautiful," he grunted. "So beautiful...."
But he was the beautiful one. His face a mask of concentration, the intensity she'd felt from him all evening now totally focused on her. She teetered on the edge, her body chasing the explosion she knew instinctively could only be triggered by his own climax.
"Come," she cried out, her voice, thick and desperate. "Mac, come inside me." She reached out to slide her fingers around his waist as he pounded her.
Where the demanding voice had come from, she had no idea. But she needed it at that moment more than she should from this man that she had just met.
But then none of that mattered because he stilled his motions, buried deep inside, and roared. She felt the pulses of his climax against the walls of her pussy and that did it. He kept stroking through his own orgasm, as her pussy quivered and pulsed around his dick. She felt the continued aftershocks of her orgasm with wonder, and she knew somehow, he had emptied more than just his essence inside of her. He had given her the passionate expression, the cli
max that exploded and triggered an orgasm from deep within her.
As they caught their breath, he pulled her on top of him, where she nestled her nose into the thatch of curls on his chest. He threw a meaty arm around her, and she let him.
They had agreed to part ways after they'd had their fun, never to see one another again. But despite the fact that her bed was too small for both of them, she did not want him to leave...at least not right away. She wanted to sleep in this man's arms and feel his heart beating against her ear and stay connected to him. His breathing slowed and deepened, signaling Mac's drifting off to sleep.
She didn't even need to cover herself, as his shifter body heat threw off enough warmth for both of them. She could allow herself to drift off a bit--surely it couldn't do any harm? They would still go their separate ways in the morning, but for now, she enjoyed the experience of being cradled by this man. If she was going to be out of character and have a tryst with this man, she might as well go all in, and let him stay until morning, right?
And so, she did.
Chapter 4
Friday, September 8, 2079. Dawn.
Julie Wheeler swayed on her feet as the elevated Glide caused the world to streak by in a blur of suburban hinterlands. She had finished her shift at Woodland Creatures brothel and was grateful to be heading home. Early morning sunshine, clear and thin, gathered as the Glide sped up the highway.
It's going to be a beautiful day.
She would not be awake for it, since she would be asleep all morning and through the early afternoon. She'd get up and shower right before her daughter Amanda came home from school, when they planned to go shopping for her homecoming dress. Amanda would go to homecoming with a group of girlfriends, kids who, like her, were defiant outsiders. So different from when Julie was in high school on the reservation, back when discrimination against shifters had just been made illegal. Most shifter kids--even those not living on reservations--went to segregated schools.
Lulled by the motion of the Glide, Julie's head bobbed with exhaustion. She wished her usual commuting partner, Marjorie Banks, was with her, so she could nod off without worry. Both women worked at Woodland Creatures, although Marjorie was human, while Julie was a faun. By happenstance, they also both lived near the same Glide station, and so they often rode home together. But Marjorie was ill and hadn’t gone to work the previous evening. Julie was alone, and she could not nod off and make herself vulnerable.
The Glide had just passed Belt Line Road. She calculated it would take twenty minutes for her to get to her stop, walk to her house, take a shower, and hit the bed. She yawned, thinking of how she and her daughter would look at dresses and purchase craft supplies for the ridiculous fucking "mums" the kids in Texas wore for homecoming. Julie had never attended high school dances and assumed mums were small flowers worn as a wrist corsage. Instead, her daughter had informed her that the traditional mum would require a trip to the craft store for fake flowers, ribbons, stuffed animals, flashing lights, and so forth. The images of mums Amanda had shown Julie were almost large and elaborate enough to stand in for the dress itself.
Fucking ridiculous.
The train came to her stop, and the glass doors opened with a hiss. The concrete surface of the elevated platform grated under the soles of her new spike heels. She should have left the absurd shoes in her locker at the club, but the locks were easy to pick, and she didn't want to carry them home. She stepped down the stairs gingerly, wobbling as she navigated the hard steps, bundled in a khaki trench coat belted at the waist over her skimpy work costume. Had she left the stupid shoes at work, she could go tripping down the stairs on her hooves, the way the gods had intended.
As she navigated the blind corner of the landing, she sensed...something. There was something there...someone there. Street smart Julie had worked the bars and brothels for fifteen years. Now fear lifted the short hairs on her skin, and she paused. She turned to dash up the stairs again, prepared to take them two at a time, when an appendage reached out and curled around her ankle, snatching her back down. Her chin bounced off the hard stairs, and as she scrambled to grip the railing and missed, her twisting motions caused her to cheek to graze the concrete steps. She ignored the pain and grabbed for the railing again, this time wrapping three fingers of her right hand around the cool metal. She grunted and flung her other arm up, trying to stabilize her grip on the railing.
Grab it. Grab it.
Whoever had her pulled her by the ankle. She watched her fingers slowly uncurl until she just couldn't hold on any longer. Another ruthless yank tossed her from one side of the staircase to the other. The back of her head crashed into the metal railing. She shook her head and took a panicky inventory of her injuries. She realized she had one uncompromised limb and fueled by fear and adrenaline, began a frantic kicking of her free leg. She knew that even if she managed to shift quickly enough to get away, she'd still have to get the ridiculous fucking shoe on her free leg off before her faun's hooves could do any damage.
Stupid fucking shoes.
She grimaced at a sharp prick in her ankle. In an instant, she realized she was about to lose this fight to whatever paralyzing agent she'd been injected with. Her body went limp, then numb. Within thirty seconds, she felt nothing at all.
"Marjorie Banks," the creature was saying, and that confused Julie because Marjorie wasn't there at all. Was it just saying her co-worker's name for the hell of it?
Her assailant began to turn her over to examine his prize, his victim, the street-smart bar girl who was only now thinking of the blade she kept on her person at all times, strapped to her thigh like a badass hooker garter belt. She had started to wear it years ago when she first prowled the streets of Hell's Half Acre.
Damn. Stupid shoes. Stupid girl.
Through the paralysis of her body, her mind remained active, skittering over random drug-induced memories: Zeus, the bouncer at her club, a giant black man, with smooth gleaming dark skin. Her boss Tom, whose East Texas accent she could barely understand and his dim-witted wife, a faun who, like her, had used her body to get off the reservation, and had traded up again to marry her pimp. Marjorie, who should have been here, watching her back.
Amanda, who would come home looking for her mother. She would be confused, then alarmed, then what? What would Amanda do without her?
Amanda. Oh, the gods, Amanda...
Her mind gave up these whirling thoughts as she was roughly set down on the hard steps. She could see him. It? Wearing a hoodie that zipped up the front. He picked up her shoes, which had fallen off during their confrontation. She was going under, and she couldn't stop it.
Her eyes stayed open as the numbing blackness closed over her like wet velvet. He came into view, looming over her and her mind pushed back at the impending blackout. His face...his face. It couldn't be real. She wanted to recoil in disgust, or scream, but she couldn't. She could do nothing more than produce a hissing sound from the back of her throat before the world went completely black.
Chapter 5
Later that morning...
"When did you get this?"
Mac slid a blunt finger down Diana's back, tracing the images etched along her spine. Ten tattoos, beginning at the base of her neck and ending at her tailbone depicted moon phases. He watched goosebumps rise on her skin, marveling as he had throughout the night at how responsive she was to his touch. He slid a large hand to cup an ass cheek, and she wriggled away from him. Rolling on her back, she drew the sheet up to cover herself and smiled at him. She looked beautiful in the early morning light, her skin smooth and brown, kinky red hair sticking out in all directions, body languid and loose.
"I was twenty-one. My sister and I turned twenty-one and went to get tattoos together."
"That's right. You did tell me there were more of you."
She laughed.
"She's a few minutes older."
"How old are you?"
"We'll be thirty in a few months. How about you?"
> He rolled his eyes ruefully. "Older than thirty." Actually, older than forty.
"What does that mean?" she asked.
He eyed her carefully. What difference did it make, anyway? She had been clear in her expectation that they would only be together for one night. He didn't bother to tell her that he almost never slept with a woman more than one night, but it turned out he didn't have to say anything at all.
"I turned forty-two in July."
"Huh. That's not so bad."
"Not so bad?" he bristled.
"Yeah. Not so bad. Just a little bit bad."
He cast her a grumpy look.
"Come on, I'm just teasing you. You know you're hot." She cocked an eyebrow at him and reached out to run her thumb over his lips. The action made the sheet slide down to expose one chocolate drop aureole. He rubbed his thick thumb over the tip of her breast, causing it to harden. Good lord, she was so responsive.
"What did your sister get?"
"I'm not sure she'd want me to say." She grinned.
She ran fingers lightly over the tattoo on his shoulder.
"When did you get this? And, um, what is it, exactly?"
It was, exactly, a bull’s head, surrounded by a heavy black circle.
"Believe it or not, it was Jacob's idea."
"Really?" He saw the genuine surprise in her expression. She paused, obviously to give him an opportunity to explain.
"It's a long story." A long story he didn't want to get into. The tattoo was meant to help him to embrace his heritage, but it hadn't been entirely successful.
Looking into her coal black eyes, he wondered what it would be like to tell someone about how it felt, as a boy, to have his human privilege stripped away when his Minotaur genes were triggered by his raging adolescent hormones.
The Minotaur's Kiss Page 2
