Her Mistletoe Minotaur: A BWWM Paranormal Holiday Romance (A Very Alpha Christmas Book 1)

by Erin St. Charles

  "Blueberries? Chocolate chips?" he asked her, trying to read her expression. She seemed to ponder the question.

  "Both," she said.

  He couldn't help but chuckle. This woman.

  "Anything I can do to help?" Her eyebrows went up in question.

  He had to give this some thought. Was there anything she could do? He thought carefully about what to say since he had no desire to hurt her again.

  "You can set the table." He tried again for a soft tone, but his voice seemed to want to come out rough. So, he added, "Please."

  She went about poking in the cupboards for plates and cups.

  Mitch opened a drawer next to the sink. "Here." She looked a little cautious as she approached the drawer he indicated. She grabbed forks and knives and returned to the kitchen table. She sat again, crossed one leg over the other, and watched him. Her expression had turned assessing. Curious. Her foot bobbed with her nervousness, and for once, she didn't have anything to say.

  Mitch watched the pancakes until they formed bubbles on the battered side. He flipped them over, keenly aware she was watching every movement, then he started a pot of coffee to brew.

  "What did that baby corn say to its mom?" Tu said.

  He thought about it for a minute, trying to think what the answer might be, and finally shrugged.

  "I have no idea," he admitted.

  "Where is Pop corn?" She grinned, making the apples of her cheeks pop. "Get it? Pop corn?"

  "Sadly, I do get it," he said. His lips twisted into a smirk, employing smiling muscles he did not often use.

  She gazed at him, brows furrowed, before she seemed to realize that he was joking with her, and she smiled again.

  "I've got a million of them," she told him.

  "I've noticed," he said.

  They sat across from each other at the breakfast table. He had plain pancakes, and he watched with fascination and horror as she dug into the chocolate chip blueberry pancakes. She rolled her eyes and moaned as if she were receiving cunnilingus.

  "Mmmm...these are good." She held up her fork, which had a bite of pancake on it. "I've never had these before. But these are really good."

  He put his fork down and looked at her, his expression serious. After doing her best impersonation of an "O" face, one that inspired another non-morning wood boner, she turned her attention back to her breakfast.

  "I didn't answer your question before," he said.

  "Hm? What question was that?" She took a sip of her coffee.

  "I'm forty-three years old," he told her. It came out grumpier than he intended. Her big, brown Manga eyes flew up to meet his. "Way too old for you."

  She put down her fork and leaned back in her chair.

  "You're sixteen years older than me." Her eyes held a challenge. "That's not such a big deal."

  "It's too old," he reiterated. "You should find a man closer to your own age." His voice cracked on the last few words. It made sense that she would be with someone younger than him, though saying the words made his stomach turn. The thought of another man touching her...

  MINE.

  His body insisted that he wanted this woman. His mind, and even his heart, wanted this woman. That didn't mean he shouldn't warn her off. If she said no, he would back off, but only if she said no.

  "I'm not much fun to be with," he pointed out, resuming his breakfast.

  "I don't think so," she said. He felt her eyes on him as he ate. When he looked up, she had her arms folded over her chest and an eyebrow cocked.

  "Really? I was under the impression you had spent time with me the past couple of days?" came his sarcastic reply.

  "Yeah, yeah." She waved a hand dismissively. "That's just because you won't let yourself have fun. With me."

  He was doubtful. "I'm a minotaur. I don't have fun."

  "That's nonsense," she said. "I've seen you try to avoid laughing at my jokes."

  "Maybe your jokes aren't funny," he pointed out.

  "They are so funny." She smiled as she defended her sense of humor. "You should see what happens when I tell my jokes to a room full of third-graders."

  She reached across the table to take his hand. Tu's slim brown hand seemed delicate, almost fragile, next to his. She stroked his knuckles, then gasped and took one of his hands in hers.

  "What happened?" She got to her feet and examined his hands. "It looks like your knuckles have been through a meat grinder."

  "It's nothing," he tried to wave her off. "They'll be okay in a couple of days." He had shifter DNA, after all.

  "Did you get this from getting the tree?"

  He nodded reluctantly. He wasn't used to being fussed over. "Yes," he said finally.

  "You didn't have to get it, you know," she said, examining his knuckles carefully. Her eyelashes fanned out on her cheeks, and he was mesmerized at how beautiful she was.

  "I did have to," he said. "I hurt your feelings, and there's no excuse for that."

  She put his hand down. "Why did you do that?"

  "Do what? Get the tree or hurt your feelings?"

  "Either. Both." Her huge eyes examined his face carefully.

  Mitch felt uncomfortable. He didn't like to talk about his feelings. He didn't want to talk about her feelings. And he was not going to get into why he had to push her away.

  At the same time, he was getting to the point where he could deny her nothing. He didn't want to explain the reason why he kept pushing away from her. That if he made love with her, he would never be able to walk away from her, even if she eventually chose someone else. Hell, all he did was kiss her, and she had him doing crazy shit like uprooting trees and bringing them home, mauling his knuckles in the process. He couldn't tell her that.

  "I can't really say," he told her, averting his eyes. "I... don’t have the words. I'm just not good with words." She was making him really uncomfortable. Frustrated, he stood and paced.

  "What I told you before, that I'll come to depend on you, and you'll go away." Saying it out loud made him sound like a total pussy.

  "Just from being with me? Just from having sex with me?" She looked confused. "I don't understand. I know you want me. Why does this have to be complicated?"

  He looked away and glowered, annoyed he didn’t seem to have the language he needed to make her understand.

  "Wait here," she said suddenly. "I'll be back."

  So, he sat there, feeling kind of helpless, until she came back with antiseptic and cotton puffs. He was surprised she knew where to find such things in a strange house, but on the other hand, she was exactly the sort of person who would know such a thing.

  She dabbed at his knuckles with the antiseptic.

  "I hope this doesn't sting," she said, wincing as she did so. "What am I saying? You're a big, strong minotaur, of course, this isn't going to hurt you."

  She dabbed at the knuckles of his other hand, her eyes on his. He jumped, hissed, and yelled in pain dramatically. Her eyes went wide in alarm.

  "Oh no! Did I hurt you?"

  And then he smiled at her. The kind of smile he felt all over.

  "Gotcha," he said. He grinned like a fool now.

  Tu soon figured out he was kidding and threw the unused cotton balls at him. "You asshole!" she yelled. She pushed him with her small hands.

  "Nice teeth, by the way," she said. "You should show them more often."

  They shared a laughed, Tu looking at him with smiling eyes. When their laughter died down, the amusement in her eyes transitioned to something else. Something heated.

  She placed a tentative hand on his shoulder, watching him for a reaction. When he didn't push her away, she placed her other hand on his other shoulder.

  "You said you don't have the words...so maybe we need to stop talking." She leaned in, ghosting her lips over his, then she pulled back and looked at him again.

  And then he moved.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Stuck in Her Chimney

  Maybe we should stop talking...
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  Mitch acted on her huskily murmured suggestion almost instantly, skimming his huge palm over her jeans from her hip to her knee, then up again. It occurred to her that he was following the line of stitches on her jeans. Like it had a mind of its own, her body responded by leaning into the touch.

  He did it again, this time cupping one ass cheek. Her chest heaved with excitement, his pale green eyes holding her brown ones with a smoldering gaze.

  Her breath caught when he touched her. When he squeezed her ass, she hissed out a harsh breath. Then he pulled her toward him, opening his legs to snuggle her between his thighs, and from his seated position, placed his head on her breast. He closed his eyes and rubbed his cheek against her sweater.

  "I need to memorize your scent..." he said, sucking in a long breath.

  The idea of this powerful man appreciating her this way, voicing his longing for her, made her almost dizzy with excitement. He said he didn't have the words, but as far as she was concerned, his words were perfect. Her experience with men had been confined to guys in their twenties, most of whom were more like overgrown boys than men.

  Mitch was a man.

  He had a man's powerful body, and a man's powerful urges, but tempered with age and experience. She was getting hot, her underwear drenched with her arousal. She placed a hand on his head and was surprised at how soft the dark brown strands were. She scrubbed his scalp, and he grunted appreciatively, the sound vibrating throughout her torso, landing at the apex of her thighs. Her clit swelled. When she shifted her legs, she felt her womanhood slick and swollen with desire.

  Damn, he'd barely touched her, and her whole body was on fire.

  "Mitch—" Her voice was needy. Desperate.

  "I can hear your heart beating," he said, mirroring what she had said to him the night before.

  "I'm excited," she said simply.

  "What I told you yesterday, that hasn't changed," he said. "I will come to depend on you, I will come to expect you to be around, then you'll leave." He pulled away from her and looked into her eyes.

  "I think you're getting ahead of yourself," she said with a small smile ghosting her lips.

  But part of her knew there was something about this man...something so compelling that walking away when the time came would be more difficult than she had imagined. But in the moment, she didn't care. She just wanted him.

  "I'm not going to let that happen," he said. She was confused until she realized he was finishing his previous thought. "We can only have the time we have here, until the snow melts and I take you home. And then you'll find a man your age and ride off into the sunset with him, and that will be that."

  "Like I said, you're getting ahead of yourself," she said, cradling his face with her hands, looking into his eyes. "What if all I want is the next few days and the memories?"

  He gave her a hard, assessing stare.

  "I need to hear you say you understand." She arched as he slid his large hand under her t-shirt, seeking the clasp of her bra. When it popped free, his fingers spread out over her back, and she pressed her chest into his. Both his hands cradled her body, and she closed her eyes to better appreciate the way it felt to finally have him holding her.

  "I understand!" she said, gasping at his touch, arching against his body.

  "Good," he said. He yanked her unto his lap, forced her legs to straddle him, and placing his lips against her breast through the fabric of her t-shirt.

  The callouses on the pads of his fingers sent shivers over her skin.

  "Your hands are so calloused," she said. He stopped moving his hands, stopped caressing her.

  "I like it," she said quickly. "I love your rough hands on me. Please don't stop."

  He grabbed her ass and began to move her pussy against him until she picked up his rhythm. She threw her head back, rotating her hips on him.

  His fingers snaked into her braids, his fingertips grazing her scalp. He tugged lightly.

  "Is this okay?" he breathed softly against her skin.

  She nodded. "Yes."

  He pulled a little harder, then licked her neck, then chewed at the skin there lightly. Goosebumps traveled over her skin at the contact.

  "Is this okay?" he whispered again.

  "It's more than okay," she said, sensing he was holding back.

  "I am not...a gentle lover." His voice was ragged.

  "I hope not," she said. "But how...not gentle...are we talking about?

  "I will never hurt you," he said. His hands kneaded her flesh.

  Not physically, anyway...

  But she put that thought aside. It didn't matter at the moment.

  "I know you won't," she said. She lowered her mouth to his, drinking his taste with little sips, small kisses, small licks, which invited his tongue to come out and play. He tasted like coffee and pancakes and the faint traces of minty toothpaste. His beard brushed her face as she kissed him.

  She was ready to lie down with him. She wanted to stretch out with him on his giant bed with its cool white sheets...

  He took her bottom lip and held it between his teeth, running his tongue over it, then drawing it into his mouth to suck on it. She moaned into his mouth. Where she had taken sips of him, he took long gulps of her, working his soft lips over hers. When she didn't protest, he pressed his lips more firmly against hers, and she accepted the greedy pressure of his mouth.

  When she moaned, he disengaged her carefully and rose to his feet while still holding her tight. He picked her up, and her legs automatically went around his waist. The breakfast dishes were forgotten as he carried her out of the kitchen, through the great room with its festive holiday decor, and into the master bedroom where the lights were off and there was no blinding reflection of sunlight off the newly fallen snow through the windows.

  He had not made his bed earlier, and the rumpled sheets were oddly inviting. He tossed her in the middle of the bed where she bounced and giggled. Mitch’s serious face lit with some private humor, his lips twisting slightly with amusement.

  "What's funny?" she asked, rolling slightly to the side of the trampoline like bed.

  "You look like someone set a glass of chocolate milk on a white tablecloth," he chuckled. "And I love chocolate milk."

  He drew out the word "love," as he licked his lips.

  "Chocolate milk? Dairy or vegan?"

  He scoffed and pursed his lips.

  "Do I look like a meat-eater to you?" Because really, how weird would it be for someone who shifts into a bull-derived creature to have anything to do with consuming dairy?

  "Why, Mr. Wayne," Tu said, "I believe I have found the humor I wasn't sure you had."

  Tu leaned back on the pile of pillows, watching him, wanting to get a good view of him taking his clothes off. She had had fantasies about running her fingers over that lightly furred barrel chest of his. She wanted to focus on nothing else as he showed her the goods.

  He removed his henley and tossed it across the room.

  "Ohhh..." she cooed. "I get a show." She shimmied in anticipation from her spot amid the nest of pillows.

  He cocked an eyebrow at her, unbuckled his jeans, and slid them down. It was then Tu realized that Mitch liked to go commando, and the bulge she had wondered about for the past few days became more than just an abstract concept.

  Mitch was long, thick, veined and beautiful, the head purplish and mushroom-shaped, his balls larger than average, but not freakishly so. But big enough to add a little something while he fucked her.

  His dick sprung out to slap against his lower belly, reaching almost to his navel, and Tu stared in wonder. She swallowed. She blinked.

  Her joking demeanor fled. Her pussy clenched in anticipation of him being inside her. She rolled up to her knees and began to strip, yanking off her t-shirt, tangled with the bra Mitch had so deftly undone, and tossed it to the side of the bed. Then she settled on her haunches.

  Mitch had a big dick, and he gave her a truly cocky grin. Of all the things there were to b
e cocky about, she supposed the size of his manhood would be a good one. He stood right at the foot of the bed, and she got a good look.

  "Y-you should smile more," she said, her eyes bugging. "If I looked like you, I'd be grinning all the time."

  "Come here," he said. With the lights out, the late morning sun filtered softly through the shades of his windows. As a result, his white eyeshine glowed in the dark. She could just make out the horns of the sprawling tattoo in the gloom.

  She shuffled toward the foot of the bed on her knees, completely naked from the waist up. His long hair was mussed from her having pulled on it. The dark room held a chill, and her nipples stood at attention. She covered her breasts with her hands, then watched as he frowned at her.

  She was close enough to him to feel the body heat he cast off. She knew shifters tended to run hot, but this man was a furnace. She could sense the chastisement his frown suggested.

  "It's cold in here," she said.

  "You won't be cold for long," he told her. "Put your hands down. I want to enjoy looking at you."

  She dropped her hands and rolled her shoulders to make her boobs, with their taut nipples, point at him. His normally stoic eyes twinkled at her. Twinkled! And then he did something she didn't expect. He placed his fingertips on her shoulders and pushed.

  She bounced flat on her back on the mattress, giggling. "You asshole!" she said, rolling onto her hands and knees and crawling away from him. She almost made it to the edge of the bed when she felt the bed dip and felt a catcher's mitt sized hand grab her ankle.

  She shrieked when Mitch’s other hand grabbed her hip firmly. She hadn't considered that a man so big and so much like a modern-day Paul Bunyan could move that fast.

  In seconds, she was flat on her stomach with Mitch straddling her hips and pinning her lightly—but firmly—with a large hand on her shoulder. She tried to push up, but she wasn't going anywhere. She had a cheek against the sheet, but she couldn't see him. However, she could feel him—strong thighs and steel pipe erection, holding her hips in place.

  Tu felt helpless and safe at the same time, which was weird, because she mostly had vanilla sex, and this didn't feel vanilla at all. Also, she was really turned on. Something about the huge man hovering over her, somehow knowing how much force needed to restrain her, had her pussy gushing with arousal.