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She sizes up the heavy wooden door. “You think it’s open?”
“They’re always open.”
“Oh.” I usher her into a dark vestibule. There is a dim glow coming from the church nave but a quick sweep of the place determines no one is inside. When I return to the vestibule, Taylor is leaned up against the stone wall adjacent to the door, licking her ice cream in the shadows. The heavy, outside rain echoes in the small space, no signs of lightening up. It’s like we’ve walked into a different world. Just the two of us.
You need to stop getting carried away before it’s too late.
“Let me try a bite of that,” she says, distracting me from that troubling thought. Flirty. Is she being flirty or am I imagining it? “And you can try a bite of mine.”
For a moment, I interpret that suggestion as sexual. At least until I remember the ice cream cone in my hands. Approaching her, I hold the cookie dough to her mouth, my balls tugging when she licks it, then sinks her teeth in, leaving a lady-sized bite behind. “Mmm.” She winces. “It’s good, but too rich for more than one bite.”
“Lightweight.”
She laughs, low and musical. “Your turn,” she murmurs, lifting her ice cream to my mouth. “How do you know Catholic churches are always open? Were you raised Catholic?”
I nod, taking such a big bite of her butterscotch ice cream that she gasps. “Yeah, that was mostly down to my mother. She dragged us every Sunday. Made us wear shirts with collars and summarize the homily afterward. If she suspected we weren’t listening during mass, we didn’t get to play baseball with our friends afterward.”
“Your mom sounds like a badass.”
“She is.” She’d adore you. Everyone would. “You didn’t go to church growing up?”
“Once in a while on Christmas, since my parents traveled a lot. They couldn’t really get their…footing in the community where we lived. They were always kind of the odd ones out. People either decided they were bad parents for putting their lives at risk constantly or they were simply intimidated by the two art crusaders down the block.”
“Did that mean you and Jude had a hard time getting your footing, too?”
“Me, maybe. But not Jude. He makes friends wherever he goes. People are naturally magnetized to his ability to try anything once.”
“Sure. But you’re the one who gave him that confidence.”
Her ice cream pauses halfway to her mouth. “What?”
“Jude. Your parents were busy, right? You raised him. And now…” I bite into my cone, sort of baffled by her confusion. She doesn’t already know what I’m telling her? “You’re still his biggest supporter. I’ll admit he’s cool. I like him. But you basically act like he shits rainbows, Taylor. His confidence and bravery comes from you.”
“Oh my goodness.” To my horror, her eyes flood with tears. “What a beautiful thing to say.”
“It’s…I’m just speaking the truth.” Her dam breaks on a sob. “Jesus Christ.”
She sniffles up at me. “Should you be cursing like that in church?”
“No. Please don’t tell my mother.”
Now she’s laughing. This is like watching a fucking tennis match, except the players are using my heart instead of a neon green ball. When we’ve been staring at each other so long, I’m about to ask exactly how many kids she plans to have, I mentally shake myself. “Are you done with your ice cream?”
“Oh.” She seems to have zoned out, too. “Yes.”
I take the rapidly melting cone out of her hand and toss it into the nearby garbage can on the other side of the vestibule, along with mine. When I return to her, I’m already starting to breathe hard, because if anything, the rain has gotten more intense and we’re in this little dark room, removed from the world, and my hands are itching to be on her smooth, bare skin. I might have been able to last five minutes without getting physical, but her apples scent is mixing with the rain and her natural sweetness, turning my mouth dry. I’m gravitating back toward her like a higher power—ironically—is in control and she’s watching me approach with half-open eyes, her back arching ever so slightly off the wall. And so I just keep walking until my forearms are planted on the wall above her head, my mouth a few inches above hers.
“I meant what I said before, you do have a soft center,” she whispers.
Those pinwheels inside me start going crazy again, spinning frantically. “No, I don’t.”
Her palms ride up my chest. “Yes, you do.” That touch moves down, down, over my stomach and lower where she unsnaps my jeans. Fuck. This is happening. “When we met, I needed someone to give me rough. Maybe you need the opposite.” Her hand delves into my jeans where she strokes my cock with a feather-light touch. Just grazes of her fingertips. And yet I’m already grinding my molars together to keep from spilling. “Maybe you need someone to give you slow and sweet. So you know you’re capable of it. So you know you deserve it.”
