“Nothing you need to worry about,” I say, but the lie tastes like ash.
Charlie’s jaw sets in that stubborn way that makes my chest tight with conflicting emotions.
Love and fear and desperate need all tangled together until I can’t separate them anymore. “Don’t do that. Don’t shut me out.”
Elijah clears his throat. “Perhaps we should discuss this somewhere more private.”
But I can’t move.
Can’t look away from Charlie standing in my doorway, her dress clinging to curves I’ve memorized with my hands and mouth.
The swell of her breasts rises and falls with rapid breaths, and I remember how they felt beneath my palms, how she gasped when I traced my tongue across her skin.
Stop.I force my gaze back to her face, but that’s no safer. Her lips are parted slightly, and I can see the pulse hammering in her throat.
I want to press my mouth there, to feel her heartbeat against my tongue, to mark her as mine in ways that would leave no doubt.
Marcus shifts beside me, and I catch him watching Charlie with the same hunger burning through my veins.
His hands flex at his sides, and I know he’s fighting the same battle. The need to touch her, claim her, forget everything except the way she feels beneath us.
“I need some air,” I manage, my voice strained. “I’ll be in the gym.”
I flee before anyone can respond, before I do something unforgivable like pull Charlie against me in front of witnesses.
The basement gym is cool and dark, smelling of old sweat absorbed into concrete floors. I wrap my hands with practiced precision, the familiar ritual calming my racing thoughts.
The heavy bag takes my first punch, then another, and another. Each impact sends pain radiating through my split knuckles, but I welcome it.
Pain is clean, simple, easier to process than the tangled mess of emotions threatening to drown me.
I lose myself in the rhythm. Jab, cross, hook.
The bag swings with each hit, chains rattling overhead. My cassock is long gone, just a white undershirt soaked with sweat, my body moving through combinations I haven’t used in twenty years.
But they come back easily. Muscle memory doesn’t forget violence.
I sense her presence before I hear her footsteps.
The air changes when Charlie enters a room, becomes charged with electricity that makes my skin burn. I stop mid-punch, chest heaving, and turn to find her standing at the bottom of the stairs.
She’s changed into jeans and a simple shirt, her auburn hair loose around her shoulders. The casual clothes somehow make her more beautiful, more real, more dangerous to my carefully maintained control. I can see the outline of her bra through the thin fabric, and my mouth goes dry.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I say, but I don’t move away.
“Neither should you.” She crosses the small space, her eyes tracking the sweat running down my neck, the way my undershirt clings to my chest. “Beating yourself up won’t solve anything.”
“It helps me think.”
“Does it?” She stops close enough that I can smell her shampoo, that vanilla and cinnamon scent that’s become as necessary as air. “Or does it just let you pretend you’re still in control?”
The observation is too accurate, too knowing. I grip the edge of the weight bench, needing something solid to anchor me. “Charlie, please. I can’t do this right now.”
“Can’t do what? Talk to me? Look at me?” Her voice breaks slightly. “You’ve been avoiding me for days, Adrian. Ever since the Bishop arrived. I need to know if you’re planning to take that fight.”
I don’t ask how she knows about it. Marcus would have felt guilty and probably caved under her pressure.
“I don’t know.” The admission costs me. “Fifty thousand dollars would solve so many problems. Your grandmother’s medications. The church’s repairs. All of it.”
