I went still.
Judah was in the doorway. I hadn't heard him — he moved through this building like he'd been built into it. Dark shirt, sleeves rolled up, the ink on his forearms catching the light. He was looking at the strap with an expression that had no business being on a pastor's face at ten-thirty on a Monday morning.
He came into the room. The door didn't close behind him — it stayed open, the hallway beyond empty and quiet.
He crossed to me in four steps and moved my hand away from my shoulder, replacing it with his own. His fingers traced the edge of the strap, slow, following the line of it where it disappeared beneath my shirt.
“Good girl,” he said, low. I almost missed it.
Heat moved through me from the point of contact outward.
I turned around in his arms.
His head dipped. His mouth found the place where the strap sat against my skin — just above my collarbone — and pressed there. Open. Warm.
“You have no idea,” he said against my skin, “what it does to me knowing you've been wearing this all morning.”
“Judah—”
“In this building.” His lips moved up, barely. “At your desk. In front of Darlene.” His teeth grazed the curve of my shoulder and I gripped the counter behind me. “God should strike me down right now and I would die a happy man.”
“That's—” I tried to find the word. “That's genuinely blasphemous.”
“Mmhm.” He didn't sound troubled by it. His hand had found the hem of my shirt at my waist, fingers slipping underneath to the lace beneath, tracing the edge of it against my skin. “There will be more sets like this. You're going to wear them every day.”
“I'm at work.”
“You're atmywork.” His thumb pressed against my hip, over the lace. “Every day, Mercy.”
I opened my mouth to say something — I don't know what, something sensible, something that acknowledged we were standing in a staff room with an open door in a church — and he kissed me instead. Hard and brief and completely without apology, his hand still at my waist, his mouth tasting like coffee.
When he pulled back his eyes were dark.
“Fix the strap,” he said.
“No,” I told him.
He cocked an eyebrow.
“You put this on me — you fix it,” I told him.
A slow smile spread across his face, something darkly pleased in it.
“Well now.” His voice was rough velvet. “That’s a dangerous request.”
His fingers moved to the strap slowly, brushing against my skin as he adjusted it back into place. The touch lingered, tracing the line of my shoulder, my collarbone.
“Better?” he asked, though he hadn’t stepped back. The space between us remained charged, electric.
I leaned against the counter behind me and lifted my leg, my knee brushing the inside of his thighs.
His hand clamped around my leg, fingers digging into the fabric of my skirt.
“Not here,” he said, but his body contradicted him, pressing closer.
“Why not?” I kept my voice light, casual, even as my heart hammered against my ribs. “Isn’t this your kingdom? Your rules?”
I saw something dangerous light up in his eyes. His grip tightened on my leg.
