“It’ll help me unburden. I know, I know.” She smiles with amusement and turns to walk toward the confessional, her cane tapping against the marble floor. “Lord knows I need it.”
Ms. Cortez is a very kind woman who has lived a very hard life.
As most of the people around these parts.
It’s nothing compared to what low income people in other countries go through. As someone who was deployed to Iraq, I saw that first hand. But suffering is relative, isn’t it?
They don’t know anything worse and compared to the successful in this city, their plight is arduous and painful.
I watch her amble into the confessional with her cane, a small smile on my face. It’s the closest I’ve come to peace in a week, my soul realigned with my true calling—
She’s here.
Golden hair glows at the corner of my eye, in contrast to the nearly black interior of the church.
It could be anyone, yet I know it’s her before I even complete turning in her direction.
My new distraction is a lonely figure among the rows of dark pews.
I’m not surprised to find her velvet stare locked on me. It’s the same expression she gave me last week when she first came in here.
When I first sensed the isolation and longing leaking off her, the yearning to connect with something larger than herself.
That same bolt of heat that obliterated me the first time returns with a vengeance. It’s like our Lord has decided to smite me on the spot, and I half-expect to find myself melting into the ground from the brutality of it.
That lost expression is nowhere to be found. In a long-sleeved black sweater that blends in with her surroundings, she sits there and analyzes my response to her presence.
Like she can sense the irrational hunger she’s set off inside me.
Like she’s somehow feeding off it.
Turn around. Leave. Don’t engage. The rules of war sometimes dictate that retreat is the better option.
And this is war. I have no doubt about it. A test of my faith through and through.
Did I miss sex? Some days, yeah. I’m not going to say I got around much when I was younger. I enlisted at eighteen and went off shortly after. My brother came three years later. We had our fun with the guys while on base, yet it was war in a broken country. The chances weren’t as abundant, even with all the women that served alongside us.
For the last week though, it’s become a raging demon in my gut. A turbulent force that’s banging against what I now know is a fragile door.
All because of her.
I almost dredge up the willpower to walk away from her. Swear to God, I almost do. But then my eyes caress that elegant face. The curve of her lips, titled in an almost Mona Lisa-isque grin. Her body is hidden from my view, yet my twisted imagination has no trouble conjuring up the visual.
There’s something about her skin. It’s otherworldly. Perhaps a trick of her makeup. Nowadays the beauty industry is good like that.
No. It’s beyond that. Almost . . . unnatural.
Every bit of that woman’s beauty is fucking unnatural.
I haven’t mentally cursed in so long that the thought takes me by surprise.
It’s official. I’m back tracking into the old me. Slipping at a precarious rate. I don’t understand why God sent that woman here, but if it’s meant as a test, I’m going to fail if I don’t get away from her.
So what do I do instead?
What I didn’t have the courage to do last week.
With blood rushing viciously into my groin, the erection on the verge of becoming visible to everyone in my church, I walk to where she sits.
She watches me every step and her eyes are the only part of her that move to track me. Evincing a serenity that’s at odds with the other aspects of her, she sits and waits patiently.
Her smile is all-knowing.
I slide into the pew next to her, compelled by an urge that’s as old as time and somehow incomprehensible, and the truth becomes clear as day to me.
This woman knows I desire her.
And she wants me to.
“Good evening, Logan.”
Her voice is almost as much of a gut punch as realizing that she knows my name. Heat rushes up my neck and I cough into my fist, fighting not to choke on my breath. “Father Logan,” I correct her, because dear God, if she says my name with that silky voice again I’m going to—
“Logan,” she says again calmly, defying my request.
There’s something surreal about this encounter.
Or perhaps I’m just a dumbstruck fool in the grips of lust.
“Who—who are?” I ask, chest racing.
“Athaliah. But you’re welcome to call me Thali.”
That name leaves me reeling.
Athaliah. A biblical name. Old Testament.
The daughter of Queen Jezebel of Israel.
Yes. That Jezebel.
The woman before me—Athaliah—stands, and I’m left staring down the length of her body.
Jesus save me. It’s even more gorgeous than I imagined. Her tight black sweater hugs her midsection and leads down to a leather skirt. Her heels are open-toed and elegant.
This isn’t how someone should dress when in the house of God.
Then again, the first time I saw her, she was wearing a thin white tank top that wasn’t the most decent, either.
“Why have you started coming here?” I ask.
She turns her head to look at me over her shoulder, golden hair brushing the small of her back. “The first time? I wanted to see what all this”—she waves a hand around—“was about. But now? Well, you want me here, Logan. So here is where I’ll be.”
Chapter Two
She knows my name.
My shoes slap against the floor with my rapid steps.
She knows my name.
It shouldn’t freak me out like this. Athaliah could’ve found it
