Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 89763 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 449(@200wpm)___ 359(@250wpm)___ 299(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89763 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 449(@200wpm)___ 359(@250wpm)___ 299(@300wpm)
I start to lean forward, but his grip tightens on me. Still not hurting me, although I almost wish he would. It would make it easier to think. He’s so damn warm, chasing away the chill of the night, the fear that seems to plague my every step. It’s absurd that I should find comfort in his touch, but my body isn’t on the same page as my mind. I clear my throat. “You killed those guards.”
“Yeah.”
“You were ordered to kill me, too.”
“Mmm.”
Is that agreement? I can’t tell. I need to see his face to be sure.
“Asterion, you need to let me go.” The sentence has so many layers. I’m not even sure if I mean right now or in a larger sense.
One of his hands moves to my stomach, holding me against him. The other trails up to cup one of my breasts. “Tell me to stop.”
It’s the same thing he said to me all those weeks ago. Suddenly, I can’t bring myself to speak, but it’s not the same thing, is it? I’m not telling him yes. I’m simply not telling him no. That small, reasonable voice inside me is shrieking in dismay, is trying to remind me what happened the last time we went down this path.
Maybe it’s grief that takes the wheel now. Maybe this is the only way I know how to process the complicated emotions that have arisen after the events of the last couple weeks. Maybe I simply want to take something for myself in this world that demands everything of me.
I don’t tell Asterion to stop. Instead, I lick my lips. “Do you have a condom?”
11
The Minotaur
I should have known this shit would happen the moment I got my hands on Ariadne again. I’m so furious at her, I can barely think. Not because of the godsdamned blueprints but because she still seems to truly believe I’m going to hurt her. Kill her. I don’t know what it says that even with that, she’s pressing back against me, writhing as if she can’t wait to fuck.
But if she thinks she’s getting my cock again after the shit she pulled… Well, shit, she might just be right. I can’t think clearly with her big ass pressed against me, with her melting against my body in a way that speaks of trust even if she’d never admit it.
I’ve played the waiting game, and all it did was ruin me in the end.
Maybe it’s time we just flat out fuck.
This doesn’t really count as her coming to me, but damn if I can remember that right now. I pull a condom out of my back pocket and hold it up in front of her face. “This what you want?”
“It’s not about want.” She reaches back and palms my cock. “It’s about need. It’s like a fever I can’t quench. You touch me and…”
“Yeah.” It’s like she pulls the words right out of my head. But better. Always better. There are a thousand reasons to stop, to remind her of all the shit she has to answer for. I don’t. I tilt my hips forward, letting her feel how much I need her, too. The promise of more. “After this, we talk.”
She huffs out a laugh. “About what? I failed to get what you wanted, and now you’re going to kill me.” She hardly sounds like herself, her voice low and ragged. “I should be running and screaming, calling for help. Or at the very least I should be telling you no.”
“You aren’t telling me no.” I don’t quite manage to remove the threat from my voice, but then, I never do.
“I never seem to, even when I should.”
Because we’re meant for each other. Because she recognizes me the same way I recognized her when I was thirteen years old. I had nobody. I slept where I could, and people ran me off regularly. The only food I had access to was what I stole or climbed into dumpsters to get. And when times got really rough, I crawled into whatever bed I had to, did whatever acts were required of me, just to live another day.
Until the morning I saw Ariadne.
I was begging in the square, tempting the wrath of the cops that liked to hang out there and pretend to work. And there she was, a vision in blue, fresh-faced and innocent in a way I long since stopped believing in.
Until that moment.
Until she slipped away from her dour-faced security guard and crouched in front of me, all innocence and goodness that I no long believed in, and pressed a hundred dollars into my hand. But she didn’t stop there. She noticed I was shivering, noticed that my clothes had seen better days. Noticed that I didn’t have any gloves to stop my fingers from turning into fucking ice blocks. So she slid off her gloves, as easy as can be, and pressed them into my hands, too. I don’t think I’ve ever been so speechless in my life, not before that moment and not since. The feeling only grew after she left and I got a good look at the gloves. They were a thick wool, knitted and embroidered, imperfect in a way that speaks of handcrafting—of an item made with love.