“What are you doing?” I asked, bemused.
Eva pulled me in after her. “Kissing you, of course.” She smoothed her palms up my chest and walked me back against a wall.
“She likes this shirt,”the monster noted.“We’re wearing it every day.”
When Eva tugged my lip between her teeth, I let out a ragged breath. I couldn’t get enough of her. I felt hungry all the time, but nothing satiated me like she did. Friction charged the space between us with desire. She could banish my darkness forever—I knew it. Her touch sanctified ordinary places. The greenhouse. The attic. The pantry. The pond. All christened with our stolen moments.
The landmarks on my skin had changed too. My scars no longer felt like accusations.
“Stay in Audrey,” Eva murmured.
“What?” I asked.
“I know what you have in your pocket, Arthur.” She bit her lip. “Don’t call her.” Bewildered, I pulled back, but Eva took my face in her hands. “Stay here. With me.”
“I…” I tried to say that I couldn’t. I tried to explain this feeling in my chest that maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe I needed to leave so Icould come back, like a migrating bird sure of its place. “I don’t want to leave you, bee girl.”
That was an easier truth.
A mischievous grin spread across her cheeks. “Good.” Then she was pulling me toward the pews. “Now come on.”
I scanned the sanctuary. “Isn’t this a bit irreverent?”
Eva shrugged. “I figure God’s seen it all by now.”
I wouldn’t know. I’d never understood the concept of churches in the first place. It seemed a little strange to seek the divine indoors when the wilderness was practically bursting with it. I’d found God among the trees, where the sun touched my skin and the warblers sang.
A sudden flutter of wings drew our attention to the rafters, where a nest of oil-slick starlings flitted. “I’m surprised the pastor was able to focus with all that,” Eva said.
“Don’t talk birds to me, bee girl, or we’ll never leave this room.”
She laughed and pulled me down. I slipped a hand beneath the soft layers of her skirt and cupped a hand around the back of her thigh.
I loved her thighs.
When I took her mouth in a kiss, Eva made a satisfied sound. She tilted her head back to expose more of her skin to me, tugging her neckline down. Her neck tasted like salt, likeneed. I melted as I kissed my way down her jaw and collarbone. No one had ever needed me before.
Eva hooked her finger in my belt loop, her eyes a question in blue. I nodded, and she slid the buckle open. The graze of her fingers made me groan. “Way better than dancing,” I husked.
Just then, the door behind us gave a whine. At first we froze,before jumping apart a moment later, scrambling to put our clothing to rights. “I thought you locked the door!” I whispered.
“I thought I did!”
A shadowed figure staggered inside, a flask dangling from his fingers. “Thought I saw you come in here,” Lenny Walker slurred. Even in the shadows of the small chapel, it took him only a second to locate us. Startled. Wrecked. Lips puffy and clothes askew. Lenny sucked in a breath and stumbled forward a few steps. “You,” he growled. “You let this piece of shittouchyou?”
I stiffened.
“What gives him the right—” Lenny stumbled and had to catch his balance on the backrest of a nearby pew. I moved to stand between him and Eva. Lenny cut me a hard glare.
“Fuck off,” I growled.
“I’ve been waiting”—Lenny smashed the flask on the wooden floorboards, and the sound made me flinch—“long enough.”
Then he lunged forward.
“To your left.”
I shifted obediently, pushing Eva to the side.He won’t get near her.Lenny tripped over his own shoes and fell, feet upended, over a pew.
