“Do you know the story of the minotaur?” he asks, his voice conversational.
It’s a struggle to focus with his hands playing with my sex. The schoolroom at Harmony Hills had taught us almost nothing. We learned about the Bible, as interpreted by Leader Allen, and how to be good, obedient disciples. Only the boys were taught to read and do math. Girls quit school early, and me even earlier. Everyone knew that my mother was Leader Allen’s whore, even if no one said the words out loud. I think everyone knew that I would take her place, too.
I struggle to remember from tutors and textbooks.
“He was…” A gasp interrupts my words as his forefinger slips inside me. “He was half-man. Half-bull. He lived—” Another gasp. “In a maze.”
“That’s right. And every year the cities would send their young men and women—virgins, naturally—as a feast for the minotaur.”
“Until one of the men killed him.”
A strange smile twists his lips. “Well, every story needs a hero.”
“You’re not a monster.”
He ignores me, fingering me deeper. “The thing about the minotaur is that he knows what he is. He can’t pretend to be a human. He can’t pretend to be a bull. He’s trapped in that maze, not by the walls outside it, but by what he is.”
I grab his forearm, feeling the muscles flex. “You’re not a monster, Ivan.”
He adds a second finger, and I squirm. His arm on my shoulder holds me down. “There’s no use pretending he’s something different. He doesn’t even want to. But can you imagine how it would feel to find a sacrifice you wanted to be there? Who begged to stay?”
His fingers speed up, and I rock my hips against them, unable to slow down, unable to stop. “You’re not—You’re not a—”
He pinches my clit, and I soar over the edge, the climax like fierce wind against my face. I close my eyes against the blur and feel tears streak down my cheeks. I fuck his finger, seeking the last breathless rush before I crash at the bottom.
He does up my jeans with deft hands, efficient now.
Wet fingers press into my mouth, and I can only let him in. Only suck to clean him.
“No more questions,” he says softly. “I want you to call me Daddy because I want you to know that when we’re together, I’m the only one who can tell you what to do. And I will always do what’s best for you, even if you don’t like it. I will always give you what you need.”
I shudder, my insides clenching around nothing as my orgasm gives one final pulse. My eyes are wide, lips stretched around his fingers. I nod yes.
“And you’re my little one, because you want to be so good for me, don’t you? You want to be taken care of, cherished and punished. Isn’t that right?”
He removes his fingers from my mouth and leans back, studying me.
“Why didn’t you—”
“What is it?”
I bite my lip. “Why didn’t you want me to call you Daddy last night?”
He had put his hand over my mouth and fucked me into the bed.
He’s watching me from beneath heavy lids. “I didn’t deserve the name last night. I was angry, and I didn’t take care of you.”
We’ve been circling each other for years, teasing each other with bad behavior and punishments. The first time he did it, I had already been living in my own apartment and working at the Grand. I’d shown up for work late, and he’d swatted me over my panties. We’d dared a little further each time, but never going all the way—never actual sex until last night. It had left me unfulfilled and a little afraid, for exactly the reason he said.
I dare to put my hand on his leg, right below his knee. “Please, Daddy. Show me what it would be like with you. When you take care of me.”
Icy lust flashes through his eyes. “I am taking care of you, little one. That little pussy needs time to heal. I’m sure you’re sore today, aren’t you?”
A flush heats my cheeks. Very sore. “I don’t care about that.”
Two hands lift my chin, and I meet his eyes. “I care,” he says softly. “I’m not going to fuck you again until you’re ready to take me. But if you want to please me…”
My body tightens. “Please.”
He cups my cheek. “So pretty. So eager. And such a fuckable little mouth.”
The thing I can never tell anyone—not even Ivan—is that I would have done this no matter what. If I had stayed at Harmony Hills, Leader Allen would have used me this way. He’d groomed me for this purpose my entire life, not just at the end, and that grooming made me who I am. A disciple. A victim. I’d have been on my knees for him. I’d have been a good girl.
The difference is that I chose this. I chose Ivan. He may be a monster, but he’s my monster.
“Take me out,” my monster says.
I fumble with his pants. The button and the zipper are like foreign technology, my fingers suddenly clumsy. He is already hard, but I feel him grow thicker as I work him free. It makes me blush, feeling the effects of my awkward obedience.
The suit pants give way to a soft, stretchy boxer material. I glance up to find him staring right at my face. He isn’t looking at what I’m doing with my hands. He’s studying my reactions, and it makes my heart beat double time. What will he see? Nerves? Excitement?
I don’t know what he wants to see.
The skin of his stomach is hot as I slip my fingers under the waistband of his boxers. His abs are hard, and they ripple at my touch. I pull gently, but the fabric is caught against his erection. I’m afraid to pull very hard, afraid of how much pressure is okay. I have some experience with cocks, touching them, rubbing my ass against them in the club, but that knowledge is limited—and it slides away under the role I’m in. The innocent little girl.
He makes no move to help me or to free himself. He just watches me with an intent curiosity to see what I’ll do next. What I do is use my other hand to grasp his shaft and carefully pull the fabric over his cock. He feels impossibly hard against my palm, silk smoothed over a steel rod. His cock flexes in my hand, and I jerk back, letting him go with a sound of surprise.
“I’m sorry,” I whimper. “It scared me.”
“You’re doing great, little one,” he says soothingly. “You did exactly what I asked you to. Daddy will never get mad at you for that.”
Men like to teach you things. That’s what gets them off.
“What should I do next?”
The amused light in his eyes says he knows exactly what I’m doing. And that he likes it. “Lift up your shirt. I want to see your pretty nipples.”
Instead of obeying him, I cross my hands over my breasts. “What if you don’t like them?”
“Why would you think that?” He seems genuinely curious.
He’s seen them a hundred times already. And the insecurity is completely real because of it. He’s seen them a hundred times and never been overtaken with lust to the point that he had to have me. He’s seen me and rejected me. We’re playing a game where all of this is new—and it is, in a certain way. But in another way it’s the inevitable conclusion to years of foreplay. Both a beginning and an end.
“Because you’ve seen a lot of girls.” It’s a form of torture to be this open, this honest, like needles pressing under my nails. These words are everything I’ve ever feared. “How can I be special?”
He could ruin me with his answer.
He leans forward. “Candace, I’m sure your nipples are as pretty as the rest of you. But they aren’t what make you special.”
I look down, still cupping my breasts, shielding them. “Why then?”
He reaches out and taps my arms, and I let them fall. He cups my breast gently, his thumb fanning over my nipple. It stands up beneath the tank top. He keeps rubbing back and forth until the twinge between my legs grows sharp.
“Because of how sweet you are,” he says softly. “How hard you try to be good for me. Do you know how rare that is? How special? There is no other girl like you, Candace.”