“I been tryin’ real hard to keep my head on straight,” he said, voice rough. “Tell myself we got time. That I can take it slow. But you walked into that house this morning like you belonged there, talked to those women like you’d been leadin’ them your whole life, and I…”
He exhaled through his nose, jaw tight. I resisted the urge to speak, to tell him he didn’t have to keep going.
He wanted to talk. I needed to let him.
But all he said was, “I’m losin’ my mind over you.”
The words fell out like they surprised him…and something about that scared me, thrilled me. My hands slid up his chest, over the firm stretch of muscle beneath his button-up, feeling the tension in his body like a wire pulled too tight.
“You’re not losing your mind,” I said quietly. My heart was pounding, my hands itching to be on his bare skin. “I feel it, too.”
His breath stuttered out of him at that, like I’d knocked the wind from his lungs just by saying it. He leaned in, brushed his nose against mine.
“I keep thinkin’ this is too good to be true,” he murmured. “And I’m…I don’t get to keep good things, June. I’m fuckin’ terrified I’m gonna lose you.”
That made something sharp twist in my chest. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Iknow,” I said. “Because I make my own destiny, Silas Ward. And you’re it.”
His lips ghosted over mine—barely there, more heat than pressure. “Can I kiss you?”
“You’re already kissing me,” I whispered.
That dragged a low sound from his chest. “Not like I want to.”
And then he kissed me for real.
Not gentle.Farfrom careful. This wasn’t the kiss he’d laidon me a few days ago in the church when I’d first come back…no, this was so much more. This was worship and reverence and prayer and deep, diabolicalsin.
I gasped against his mouth and he used it, sliding his tongue against mine in a way that had my knees going loose and my body arching into his. He groaned low in his throat, hands skimming down to grip the backs of my thighs.
“Wrap your legs around me,” he rasped.
I did. I couldn’t help it; I needed to be closer to him, needed to feel the press of his cock through his jeans. And there it was, there to grind on, hard and eager. He lifted me without so much as a grunt, like I weighed nothing—and he started carrying me, mouth still on mine, down the short hallway that led into the sanctuary.
“Silas—” I started, breathless, unsure of where this was going but knowing I didn’t want to stop.
“I need,” he cut himself off with another kiss, this one dizzy and off-kilter, as he shouldered open the swinging door to the church. “I need you. I need you right here.”
My breath caught as he carried me past the sawhorse, past the pews…and up the single step to the altar.
The altar.
“Here?” I asked.
“Here,” he said. “Because this is holy work.”
I should have stopped him—Iknewthat, because every good Christian girl instinct I had left was screaming at me that God was watching, that this was sinful, filthy.
But the way Silas looked at me…there was God in that.
I held his gaze as he lowered me gently onto the unfinished altar—the wood smooth beneath me, recently sanded, still smelling faintly of cedar and sawdust. Sunlight poured in through the stained glass window, Silas backlit in jewel tones.
He didn’t move for a second—just looked at me, with mysundress hitched up around my hips, legs spread on the altar of this church that had once preached nothing but shame.
“You don’t have to,” he said roughly, even as his hands settled on my inner thighs, as he knelt like he was about to pray. “If this is too much…if you need slow, I’ll wait. I’ll wait forever.”
