Page 319 of Summer Heat
The child of Pasiphae, Minos’s wife, who fell in love with a beautiful white bull. From their union came a child. A monster in every sense of the word, the Minotaur was banished to the Labyrinth and fed on sacrifice alone. Was the Minotaur some wild historical figure, distorted by the lens of superstition and poetry? Or was he the dark side of King Minos himself, the bastard child born of jealousy and greed?
These are the questions that plague me while I curl up in the giant armchair, the fire growing dim. There’s a slam from behind me—a door? A whoosh of wind sucks the air from the room. The faint flames from the log vanish, leaving me in darkness.
The book slides from my lap, hitting the rug with a thump.
I stand and whirl, facing the door. “Who’s there?”
“Good evening,” Gabriel says, strolling close.
I’m not sure when he became so familiar to me, but I can recognize his low voice without seeing him. I can make out his broad shoulders in the shadows. He tosses his jacket on the chair where I sat, and I catch a whiff of his masculine spice.
“What are you doing?”
“What I should have done last night. Tasting that…what was it he called you? The ripe peach?”
I take another step back, but there’s a fireplace. The last dying embers. “Now?”
“I think a cherry would have been a better analogy, don’t you?”
Having reached the end of the room, I walk sideways, circling, trying to keep the same distance away. He doesn’t seem perturbed by my retreat. He doesn’t slow at all.
“Wait,” I say because I need to plan for this. I know he didn’t have to give me last night. That was a reprieve I haven’t earned, a night I already owe. I’m in his debt, but that doesn’t mean I’m able to pay. “Just wait.”
He laughs. “Almost twenty-four hours and I haven’t touched you.”
“You want to keep me a virgin,” I say desperately, searching for anything to hold him back. I’m almost to the corner of the room now, on the soft rug with deep orange tones where I did yoga earlier.
“I didn’t say I’d fuck you,” he says, voice dark with promise. “I want to taste you.”
Then it’s too late to run. Too late to beg. He’s standing right in front of me, and my back is to the stairs, wooden step digging into my calf. I can see him, scent him, but even stronger is the otherworldly sense of him, the presence that holds me frozen in front of him, thicker than chains.
“Taste me…where?”
One blunt finger lands on my lips. “I’ll start here.”
Then his lips are on mine, hot and soft and persistent. I’m helpless to his demands, opening to him, a sigh of acceptance drifting from my mouth to his. I know that everything happening here is inevitable, almost fated, but this part doesn’t hurt. It feels almost like pleasure, his tongue swiping across mine, his teeth grasping my lower lip in carnal warning.
His hands cup my face, my neck. My breasts.
“Here,” he says, his voice rougher.
Oh God, my breasts. I scramble back, but the stairs catch my feet. His hands grasp my shirt and yank, revealing me. My bra is pushed out of the way. There’s no ceremony to the way he undresses me. It’s not a striptease, it’s a possession. He palms my breasts, feeling their weight.
“Smaller than they looked,” he says, and I feel the flush creep over my chest.
I want to forget standing on that platform, being watched by so many men, but I know I never will. It’s etched into my brain—the judgment and the lust, the shame and the control. “You bid on me.” I know I sound defensive.
“It’s not a complaint,” he murmurs, pressing my nipple between his thumb and forefinger. “You’re fucking glorious.”
The unexpected compliment makes me blink. Then his mouth is covering my nipple, soothing away the burn, hot and eternal. He flicks me with his tongue, back and forth, back and forth, and I whimper with shock. My hand reaches out to grasp anything—and what I find is the carving of flames, of a hand reaching up out of the depths of hell. I’m burning.
He marks a path of openmouthed kisses over my chest, and I feel conquered. As if he’s mapping every part of my body, owning me. What if he covers every inch? What part will be left for me?
His hot mouth closes around my other nipple, and my eyes fall shut. “Oh God,” I whisper.
“That’s right,” he murmurs against me, the tease of his lips as he speaks unbearable. “Let yourself feel good.”
There’s a though in there—something about sacrifice. About pleasure. Why does he think I wouldn’t let myself feel good? But then arousal arcs from nipples to my sex, and I forget about anything but his body over mine, his rough words promising so much more.
