She cleared her throat. "It's popcorn."
He thought she'd been kidding about the popcorn part. As far as he knew, he didn't have any popcorn. It was then he noticed the pantry was open. He took a long step toward the pantry and looked in. Instead of neatly organized shelves of provisions sorted by frequency of use, everything had been shifted around. It looked as though she'd been looking for something—presumably the popcorn—and had cleared the shelves in her quest. It also looked like she'd tried to put things back. However, she did it incorrectly. This was yet another reason why things would not work between them. He was too old for her. She was too cheerful. And she did know how to organize pantries correctly.
"We don't need popcorn," he said gruffly. And somehow, this came out wrong. More intimate than he had intended. Almost as if he were trying to reassure her that it was okay to burn the popcorn.
But he wasn’t supposed to be reassuring her. He was supposed to be pushing her away. In that spirit, he added grumpily, "And stay out of my pantry."
She looked up at him, blinked her big brown eyes, and stared. Her bottom lip trembled, making him feel like a heel. His desire to carry through with his rudeness offensive wavered, replaced by an overwhelming desire to hold her. He clenched his hands into fists at his sides to prevent them from making grabby motions at her.
She wasn't very tall, but she was very curvy, and her generous proportions would work pretty well to make his grabby hands happy. In his fantasies—the ones that had kept him awake the night before and distracted him enough to seek punishing exercise as a physical outlet—he would grab her and hoist her up on the nearest horizontal surface, her legs winding around his waist instinctively. He would brush the tiny braids away from her neck, then lick her there. As good as she smelled—like coconuts and gardenias—he thought she'd taste even better.
But if he gave into his impulse, according to the myths and legends, he would have to make her stay. But she was young and beautiful, and she would have no reason to stay with him. It would simply be an exercise in frustration, and he was too old for that.
He was standing there staring at her, he realized, so he looked around the room for something else to distract him. But as a minotaur, his 330° field of vision was both a blessing and a curse. He didn't have to look straight at her to see when she licked her pretty pink lips.
His body responded with alarming gusto. The big, innocent eyes combined with her pouty, pink lips triggered his libido so suddenly that he couldn't prepare himself to resist. He could feel his dick rousing to attention, ready to point to the object of his desire, and he wondered why the hell he had worn sweatpants. It was just asking for trouble.
Her eyes downcast again, she said, "I'm sorry." She reached out a hand like she was going to touch him, and alarm bells rang in his head.
He knew with certainty that Petunia Greene wanted to touch him, to verify he wasn't mad at her. And she wanted to touch him because that is what you did with people who you're attracted to. She felt the same burning attraction he did.
The powerful, inexorable pull had his clenched fists two seconds from relaxing. He wanted to use his dinner-plate sized hands to cup and squeeze various parts of her body, wanted to test how soft or firm she was in all the right places.
Tu looked hurt by his subtle rejection. Mitch felt like this whole encounter was like the tick, tick, tick of a roller coaster going up the initial hill. He wanted to crest the hill with her and experience the joy and thrill of that first plunge. His skin prickled with excitement that wanting her could possibly lead the way to having her.
Mitch reminded himself how this was going to shake out. When the snow cleared, she would leave him. She was too young, too sweet, and too easy to give his grumpy heart to.
"You wanted to watch a movie," he bit out, still clenching his fists. "Forget about the popcorn, and let's just watch the movie."
"But—" she started to say, putting a hand out to touch him.
Mitch ignored the hurt in her eyes, and did what any coward would do, and left.
***
Mitch settled himself in a comfortable chair several yards away from his houseguest. He had set up the holo-projector so they could watch the film on a big screen. Tu cast him a puzzled glance when she realized he had no interest in sitting anywhere near her.
Tu had picked a movie called "A Christmas Story," which Mitch vaguely remembered his mother, the queen of Christmas cheer, had made her children watch every year. Mitch disliked Christmas. For him, the holiday represented the townsfolk of Perdition having license to bug the shit out of him, and for no good reason. His natural minotaur instincts were to avoid other people at all costs, so having perfect strangers ask him about his holiday plans, invite him to their social gatherings, and wish him happy holidays incessantly was the purest form of torture he could imagine.
Some would say his dislike of the season was a character flaw. Usually those people had a vested interest in spreading holiday cheer. Perdition was a shifter town, but it was also a tourist destination. Perdition was also a shifter town dominated by wolves, who were outgoing to a fault. As a result, the town actively encouraged tourism by holding events throughout the Advent season.
It was the perfect place for someone like Tu. She would blend right in with people of the town. Bubba and Vanessa Cermak, the new pack Alpha Pair, were invigorating Perdition to the extent that the town was booming with new residents, Petunia Greene among them. He could see her not only attending events but helping to organize them. He could also see her finding a suitable mate among the wolf population in town.
His last thought made him frown. Then he scolded himself, realizing if she found a mate in town, that would permanently fix the problem of their inconvenient attraction. The problem was, who in town would be good enough for her? He didn't know.
Throughout the movie, Tu peppered him with questions. How long had he lived in town? Did he know her sister? What did he do for fun? He gave monosyllabic answers to her queries, thinking that eventually, she would stop asking.
But she didn't. What was more, his non-answers did nothing to dissuade her interest in him, nor her desire to share similar details about her own life.
This was how he learned she was twenty-seven years old (definitely too young), had already been working as a teacher for four years since graduating university, her birthday was Christmas Eve, and she was thrilled to get the job offer from the Perdition School District.
In return, he found himself telling her that he had two older sisters who lived in Houston, that his family had moved to Perdition when he was twelve years old and beginning his minotaur transformation. This revelation forced him to reveal the particulars of minotaurism, that it was an X-chromosome linked condition passed from the mother, who is merely the gene carrier, to son. The gene is triggered by the interaction of other genes, and also environment, when the young male enters adolescence.
She stared at him, wide-eyed and in rapt attention, as he told her the origins of his kind, which had been genetically engineered by the race of aliens colloquially known as the gods to be personal bodyguards and protectors of their realms. Tu had digested this information in silence, nodding her head in acknowledgment as he told her all of this.
When she asked him how minotaurs mated, he shut down the conversation. She had then given him a thoughtful look before she resumed watching the film.
What he couldn't bear to tell her was the lore surrounding minotaur mating. How his kind tended to mate late in life. The gods had given minotaurs a mating urge that wasn't switched on until the male found his most compatible female—his true mate. After finding his true mate, the minotaur could form an inexorable mate bond with intimate physical contact. This was known as the minotaur's Kiss. When the male touched his mate intimately, he would forever be doomed to pine for her, and no other woman. Ever.
The movie's ending credits rolled. Mitch had never been so relieved in his life.
Tu looked at him expectantly,
wet her lips with her pink tongue, and started to say something.
Mitch wasn't having it. He interrupted her by standing abruptly.
"I need to get some work done," he lied. "I'm going to be in my study for the rest of the night. Have a good evening."
Before she could say anything more, Mitch got the hell out of there. He supposed he should be embarrassed for running away from a woman half his size like a coward, but all things being equal, cowardice was better than continuing to sit with Tu in companionable silence.
The truth was he was afraid of her.
So, he ignored the sad, hurt look in her eyes, turned on his heel, and ran away from her once again.
CHAPTER EIGHT
All I Want for Christmas is You
Petunia had had just about enough of Mitch Wayne, Cranky minotaur. She'd always read that minotaurs were grumpy bastards, but Mitch Wayne really did take the cake.
He’d steadfastly refused to allow her to help with anything around the house. Petunia had never been domestically inclined, but she had never been snowed in like this, either. In Ohio, snowplows efficiently removed snowfall almost as soon as it hit the ground. Any politician who ran the city of Dayton knew they would be voted out of office if their constituents couldn't get to work due to snow accumulation.
Therefore, the idea that a couple of inches of snow and ice should cripple any town or city for three days was absolutely foreign to Tu. She wondered whether the schools in Perdition would be closed on a day like this, if school were in session. She tried to pass the time by calling her sister via smartphone since her Omni did not work this far out in the boonies. Apparently, shifters were suspicious of the technology. But that quickly got old because once she had a conversation with Jasmine about her predicament, there really wasn't much else to say.
She even resorted to calling the parents. That was how desperate she was. Her father didn't like electronic communications so their many calls were limited to a few minutes at a time.
"We'll be there for Christmas," her father had said. "Let's plan on catching up then."
And what could she say to that?
Her mother did talk to her, but it was one of her vapid, self-centered chatter fests, and soon Petunia was off the phone again.
Mitch made himself scarce, avoiding any sort of contact with her. He went on his rounds every day. She had heard him talking to the Chief of Police about stranded motorists. She had volunteered to ride along with him, but he wouldn't let her. He implied it was dangerous to do so, and he was paid to take the risk.
The thing was Petunia suspected his reluctance to have her ride along with him had nothing to do with the possible dangers. She knew this because she had often caught him looking at her when he thought she didn't see him. And he wasn't just looking at her, he was looking at her.
When she lounged around the vast space of his great room, wearing her sleep shorts and a tank top because he kept his home at tropical levels, ostensibly for her sake, she'd seen him checking out her backside with interest.
When she went to the kitchen to make herself a snack, he was often there at the same time she was, even though he didn't make himself anything to eat. She found this to be strange until she realized why he might do such a thing.
What was weirder was where most men who are attracted to a woman would show it by being nice to her, it appeared minotaurs didn't roll that way. Mitch was constantly grumpy. Whenever she was cheerful and chatty, his usual response was to grunt at her. Still, the man was hot, and rather than dissuade her, his standoffish attitude made her wonder what he was hiding. Surely, he must be hiding something, if the refusal to allow himself to give into his attraction was any indication.
On the third day of being snowed in, when Tu was ready to throw something in her frustration at being cooped up, she decided to put her theory to the test.
She went to make herself something for lunch, and she did so while wearing boy shorts, a bra, and one of the oversized shirts she'd found in the spare bedroom. From the size of it, she reckoned it was one of Mitch's shirts. She sashayed into the kitchen, making plenty of noise to ensure he knew she was there.
Soon, she heard faint footsteps, and the sound of the kitchen door opening. Mitch’s distinctive scent invaded her senses, making her heart go pitter-patter.
She had her head buried in one of the cabinets, her ass sticking up and wiggling for his benefit. The sharp intake of his breath let her know he had seen her. She smiled to herself and reached farther into the cabinet, letting the shirttail ride up as she did so. She knew without any sense of vanity that her skin was pretty, and she knew he must be looking at it. She could feel the gap between the top of her boy shorts and the bottom of the shirt.
"What are you doing?" His deep, dark voice vibrated the space between them, causing her skin to prickle and her clit to swell.
She kept her head in the cabinet, wanting to force him to come closer to her. This man wanted her, but something told her that he would not respond to the blatant come on. "Hm?" she said, moving more pots around and wiggling her ass. "I can't hear you very well. Can you come closer?"
She heard him step closer to her. Close enough that she felt his presence, and the vibration of attraction between them began to thrum in earnest.
"There is nothing in the cabinet that will help you make a peanut butter sandwich," he grumped.
She couldn't see him, but she could imagine him standing there, arms crossed across his chest, which was his usual stance, and he'd be frowning. Boy, did the man like to frown. However, he paid enough attention to her that he knew her preferred lunch. That was good.
"I decided I didn't want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich today," she said, putting a wiggle into her faux search for pans. She heard him suck in a breath, and she smiled.
"Get out of there," he commanded her. "Tell me what you want to eat, and I'll make it for you."
She stopped moving for a moment, then she started to back away from the cabinet. Slowly, so he could get a good look. She sat back on her haunches and looked up at him. He glowered at her, eyebrows drawn together, and his jaw twitching.
"Oh!" she said, flipping a long, skinny braid from where she had put it in a messy bun. She had taken some pains with the arrangement, making it as sexy as she could. Making it look as if he could grab one strand and make it all fall with one pull of a hairpin. Slowly, she got to her feet, her eyes on Mitch the whole way up. He really was quite the specimen, big and strong with beefy arms that would feel wonderful around her.
His surly personality gave her the sense that the man would be a beast in the sack. Literally and figuratively. The way his full lips often curled in a sneer, the tick in his jaw that indicated he was working hard to restrain himself...
Yep. She wanted Mitch Wayne. What was more, Mitch Wayne wanted her. But oddly enough, he didn't want to want her, of that she was sure.
She decided to push the envelope. She rubbed the back of her neck, tilting her head to one side to give him a submissively tantalizing view of her long slender neck. She had always heard that bearing one's neck to a shifter, even one that wasn't a predator, was like waving a red flag at a bull. Like hanging a neon sign over her head that said, "come and get me, big boy."
His lips mashed together until they were white. The muscle in his jaw picked up speed, pulsing like a strobe light. He was barely hanging on. His hands clenched into fists at his side. And his breathing shallowed.
She moved closer to him.
"That's very nice of you to offer," she said, sidling up to him. His eyes stayed focused on hers, his pupils dilated. "What do you like to cook?"
She was so close she could smell his scent. She could see his male nipples outlined by the fabric of his t-shirt, as well as the thatch of crisp hairs that covered his chest. She reached out to touch him, and he stepped back quickly. Something inside of her flinched, but she was determined not to let it show on her face. He turned away from her and headed for the cooler on the other en
d of the kitchen. She watched his taut, firm ass retreat, and she sighed with longing.
He heard her, but he ignored her. She decided not to be deterred.
"How about vegan quesadillas?" He turned to look at her over his shoulder, his expression once again passive.
"Uh...sounds great!" she told him. She sat at the kitchen table, watching him as he prepared her food.
"When did you learn to cook?” she asked him.
"When I wanted control over what I ate," he said. He had gathered the ingredients and laid them out on the counter next to the stove.
Tu couldn't imagine a time when the man didn't want control over every aspect of his life.
"So, you were...eighteen months old?" she said casually. She had turned her chair so it was facing him, not the tabletop. She enjoyed watching his muscles under his t-shirt as he prepared her lunch. She fidgeted in her seat. Her clit throbbed, and she crossed her legs against the ache.
Her little joke made no impression on him. Not even the twitch of the lips that would indicate he was trying not to smile. So, she contented herself with the eye candy aspects of the man: the muscles, the sexy drawl he had that seemed deeply exotic to her Midwestern ears. She wanted to hear more of that accent. So, she asked him an open-ended question.
"Do your sisters ever come home to visit?" she wanted to know.
"They moved away for college, but never really came back. I see them sometimes during the holidays." Mitch’s jaw ticked again, and she watched him, puzzled.
"So, why did you stay?" she asked him.
The quesadilla Mitch had cooked looked and smelled delicious. He turned off the burner, grabbed a plate from a cupboard, and slid the quesadilla from the pan to the plate. He set the plate in front of her, retrieved cutlery, salsa, and guacamole from another cupboard, and placed all of these in front of her as well.
"I've had this business for a long time. This is where my business is, so this is where I am." He crossed his arms over his chest and loomed over her, looking irritated.
Her Mistletoe Minotaur: A BWWM Paranormal Holiday Romance (A Very Alpha Christmas Book 1) Page 5