Nobody said anything after that.
The jukebox filled the silence with something slow and sad.
Dice refilled my glass again. Caught my eye when she set it down and held it for a second — that sharp green gaze doing something complicated — and then looked away.
I didn't ask anything else. Fifteen minutes later, I walked back to the apartment at midnight with the heat still sitting on everything and Reed's voice turning over in my head.
He decided a long time ago what he was.
I thought about Sunday. The pulpit. The way the room had held its breath. The way he'd said my name in the small office.
I thought about Danny Arceneaux, who moved to Shreveport, who was fine, who everyone had decided wasfine.
I wondered whether I would befinetoo.
Judah was in his office with a woman named Lauren Tate who had been making herself available to him for the better part of six months and had not yet understood what that meant.
She was dark-haired. That was the thing. Dark-haired and pale-skinned and green eyed — and as of the last five days, that had started meaning something entirely different.
She was on his desk. Her blouse was missing three buttons — he’d ripped them out, eager to get to her skin — to inhale that sweet perfume and get lost in her.
The office was dark except for the lamp in the corner, which threw a low amber light across everything — the bookshelf, the worn leather chair, the small wooden cross on the wall. Lauren had her hands braced behind her on the desk, her head tipped back, and she was making sounds that he was only partially hearing because the part of his brain that was supposed to be here kept doing something else entirely. Or rathersomeone.
He would fuck her, that was the contract between them, but he didn’t owe her anything besides.
His hand wrapped around her throat as he bottomed out.
She gasped, her pulse fluttering beneath his thumb, and he held her there — suspended between pleasure and that edge of fear he'd grown accustomed to inspiring. But it wasn't her fear he wanted tonight. It was something else, something that had been gnawing at him since Sunday service when he'd watched Mercy's hands tremble as she arranged the communion wine.
“Judah,” Lauren breathed; the sound of his name in her mouth felt wrong. He tightened his grip just enough to make her eyes widen, then released her entirely, pulling back.
“Get dressed,” he said, turning away from her confusion. The tattoo of a burning Garden of Eden stretched across his shoulder blades as he reached for his shirt.
“Did I—” she started, but he cut her off with a look that made her fingers fumble with what remained of her buttons.
“It's late. Darlene will be locking up soon.” The lie came easily. Darlene had left hours ago, but Lauren didn't need to know that. What she needed was to understand that this — whatever she thought this was — had reached its conclusion.
She slid off the desk, her movements jerky and graceless in the half-light. The sound of fabric rustling filled the silence between them as she gathered her things. He didn't watch her leave, but he heard the soft click of the door, the hurried tap of her heels down the hallway.
Alone, Judah pressed his palms flat against the desk where she'd been. The wood was still warm. He could smell her perfume — something cloying and desperate that clung to the air like a confession. But beneath it, he imagined he caught something else: the scent of true temptation, the fruit of the forbidden tree.
There were keys in his pocket. He fingered them absently, thinking of all the rooms in this place that were locked to the curious many, but unlocked for the brave few. He thought about all the doors she hadn’t opened. The thought sent heat pooling low in his pelvis.
Mercy.
He found himself laughing. Alone. In the half-light. Like a madman.
There was no mercy in it. It was torture.
He moved to the window, watching the empty street below. The heat hadn't broken even with nightfall; it pressed against the glass like a living thing, making the world beyond shimmer and blur. Somewhere out there, in that small apartment above the food bank, she was probably reading. He'd noticed the stackof library books on her desk when he'd stopped by earlier — he hadn’t seen the complete titles, but he was fairly certain those hadn’t been books on theology, although… One of them had been calledPriest.
He smirked. Naughty girl.
His phone buzzed. Billy Arceneaux, checking in about tomorrow's shipment. Judah ignored it. The routes could wait. Everything could wait when this fever was on him.
He thought about going to her. He could slip inside while she slept, stand in her doorway and watch the rise and fall of her breath. Would she wake? Would those careful eyes fly open, that perpetual wariness sharpening into real fear? Or would she surprise him, the way she had in his dreams, by opening her arms and pulling him down into the dark?
The fantasy made him hard again. He pressed his forehead against the cool glass, trying to clear his head.
