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He knew the feeling. “Here’s your chance to prove me wrong.” When he tugged on her towel, she didn’t stop him. She let it fall, and that was when his anger and frustration coalesced into a desire more powerful than he’d ever felt before.
“Wow,” he murmured.
There was a stubborn resistance in the tilt of her chin but he chose to ignore it. Bending his head, he took one perfect nipple into his mouth.
Gasping, she writhed beneath him, but she didn’t push him away. By the time he looked up, her eyes were closed, her lips were parted and her body quivered whenever he touched it. He should stop. He was making another mistake. Everything inside him screamed that he was taking this too far. But he couldn’t seem to pull his hands or his mouth away. He’d been craving this, craving her, for too long.
“I hate you,” she murmured as his lips moved up her throat and his hands slid over the contours of her body.
“I don’t blame you.” He found her mouth, kissed her deeply. He wanted her to pull at his clothes, help him remove them. He could feel the tension inside her, but she refused to act on it. She refused to be the aggressor in any way. That would’ve told him something, had he been thinking. But he’d quit thinking the minute he’d seen her in that towel. The only thing going through his mind right now was the acute pleasure it gave him just to touch her. And the fact that he had a condom in his wallet.
Sweeping her into his arms, he carried her into the bedroom, where he did everything he could to get her to the point they’d found so easily back in January. She responded but wouldn’t fully engage, wouldn’t let go long enough to be able to enjoy their lovemaking to the same degree. And when it was over, she wouldn’t touch him as a lover might, wouldn’t curl into him so they could sleep, didn’t have anything to say.
“You okay?” he asked, suddenly unsure of the logic that had brought him here.
“I’m fine.” She sounded indifferent and, as soon as he slid off, she got up.
“Rachel?”
She stepped into a pair of lacy panties. “What?”
He’d gotten what he wanted, and yet he wasn’t satisfied. Something was missing, and it gnawed at him. “I’m sorry if I…I mean, I feel like maybe…I owe you an apology.” Had he misread the signs? He was pretty sure she’d wanted to be with him when they started. She certainly hadn’t said no or tried to stop him, and yet…he was afraid he’d crossed a line he shouldn’t have.
“You don’t owe me anything,” she said. “It was nothing, right?”
“So you’re okay with what happened?”
“Of course. Now we’re even.”
Leery, he got out of bed. “Even in what way?”
She kept dressing, didn’t deign to glance at him. “You gave me what I wanted in January. And I gave you what you wanted just now. Like I said, we’re even.”
“That’s all there is to it?”
Her wedding ring flashed as she pulled on a T-shirt. “That’s all there is to it,” she said. Then she walked into the living room, where he could hear her taking the cans to the truck.
21
While Sarah polished silver in the large conference room that doubled as a dining hall, Ethan met with various committee chairmen in charge of new construction. Bart was with him. Whenever Ethan was alone, they talked about some computer; it sounded as if they’d lost the password. She didn’t know what that meant but they were both acting…odd. Almost…intimate in a way she’d never witnessed before.
Bart was gaining too much power, Sarah decided. And that worried her. She didn’t care for Bart. Unlike Ethan, he had no passion for life, for God, for people. As much as she would’ve liked to feel a certain kinship with him—he, too, had a very obvious physical defect—he seemed devoid of the more tender emotions. He had a job to do and he did it well. She couldn’t picture Ethan without him. But why was he inside today? He had his own office not far from the front gate.
She blinked as she realized Bart was staring back at her and bowed her head over her work. She’d heard him mention Martha’s name, so she knew at least some of his business had to do with her old friend. Was Martha causing trouble on the outside? If so, it was probably because she was trying to get James back. Any mother would want her child, wouldn’t she? Sarah had often wondered how Martha was coping without her family.
She didn’t have to look up to know that the footsteps drawing close belonged to Bart.
“Sister Sarah.”
Swallowing hard, she kept polishing. “Yes?”
“You were talking with one of our visitors last night, were you not?”
“Yes.”
“What were you saying?”
“I was doing my best to testify of Christ and His Word.”
Placing a finger alongside his nose, he propped up his elbow with the other hand. “And was she receptive to the Word?”
Sarah remembered Rachel’s uncomfortable questions but focused instead on her statement that she, too, wanted to live a better life. “She said she was.”
“Did she ask about Courtney?”
“No.”
“What about Martha?”
Sarah felt caught. She couldn’t lie to the Lord’s anointed. Not again. She’d already lied to Bart when she pretended not to know about the unflattering statements Courtney had made before she left. Sarah had read her scriptures for an hour a day ever since, hoping to make amends for that sin. By me or my servants, it is the same. Bart wasn’t Ethan, but he was anointed as a Spiritual Guide.
“I asked you a question,” he said when she didn’t reply.
“No, Brother.” Sarah winced at her reflection in the silver. Another lie. Was she making herself as ugly inside as she was out? Possibly. But she was fairly sure she’d feel worse if Bart got angry at Rachel because of what she said, although she had no idea why that might be true. Rachel was an outsider. It was Rachel she shouldn’t trust.
“What did she say?”
Sarah couldn’t tell if he believed her or not. “She said she could feel the spirit of the Lord at the Introduction.”
“She did.”
“Yes.”
“It was there in abundance.” He started to walk away, but turned back unexpectedly. “Have you heard the good news?”
“Good news?” Aha! Something had changed. She’d sensed it.
