Asked to Stay

Eleven years of night shifts taught her how to let people go. Nobody ever taught her how to ask someone to stay.

Carly Wojcik is the ICU nurse who takes care of everyone, and nobody ever asks her what she wants. So on her first night off in a month she walks into the Gloaming Fair on her sister's ticket, sober and restless, and at one in the morning, with the midway gone dark, she finds the fair's strongman still lifting under the bulbs.

Absalom is eight feet of horns, hide and patience. He asks before every new thing, and he lifts her like she weighs nothing. Then he asks whether she wants to stay, and for once Carly says yes out loud.

But teardown starts at dawn and the fair is gone by noon. In a hundred years and every town in America, nobody has ever asked Absalom to stay. Now a woman who has never asked anyone for anything has until the trucks pull out to find the words.

A steamy, open-door minotaur monster romance short with a big guy who asks first and a sweet, certain happily ever after.

Perfect for fans of Ruby Dixon and C.M. Nascosta.

Publication: October 2026
Pages: ≈ 41