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I didn’t like him, really. But he poured on the attention and when I finally leaned in for that beer-soaked first kiss… Well, it was a cavern of open lips, extended tongue and more saliva than should ever be involved.
The third kiss, that was the cherry on top of last night and until right this second, I don’t think I allowed myself to honestly put together the pieces of the horror show that could have been.
It wasn’t the kind of kiss you swoon over in your diary or with your girlfriends. More the kind you should write in a police report. I didn’t tell anyone I was with what happened.
Not even Hank. For all his moral ambiguity, he never tried to force anything on me. But, he wasn’t overly protective either.
I remember falling into the cinderblock wall, spilling margarita number seven all over my boots, slurring I needed to find the bathroom.
I hear Hoover’s voice in my head.Dress like you’re offering a free meal and don’t be surprised when someone shows up to eat.
I shake away the fuzzy memory of the filthy bathroom in the basement of the afterhours club on the wrong side of the wrong side of town. Somehow, that wasn’t the worst thing that happened to me yesterday. The worst thing was coming home to find that my new stepfather took my cat away and I have no idea where she’s gone. Or if she’s safe. Or if there’s any way I’ll ever get her back or even see her again.
For a moment, a thick wave of guilt settles on my shoulders remembering the phone by my hip that’s recording everything.
Father Martin lightly scratches at his lower lips with his thumb, his gaze flickering from my face to my chest, lower, lower, then licks its way back up leaving a trail of quivering tension in its wake.
“What do you want to talk about, Kitty?”
I lift a shoulder to my ear, rearranging myself, uncrossing my legs, recrossing them, giving him a view of my other butt cheek as I sniff and debate which way to take the rest of our ‘session’.
“You’re the boss. You tell me.”
He answers with a slow blink, hands unmoving, gaze pinned on me as I start to break into a flop sweat.
He’s...unflappable.
And infuriating.
I count to ten, panic prickling over my skin as he waits.
And I crack.
“Sex,” I blurt out, expecting him to wobble in his seat, gasp or set his jaw in anger.
He does none of those. Just…holds my eyes with his and I’m melting into the velvet seat, crossing and uncrossing my arms and my ankles until I think my skin is about to flay from my body.
Kill me now. I have no game.
Whatever this plan is, it’s got holes in it bigger than the Grand Canyon.
He sits there in all that sexy silence. Then shows me the most heavenly smile. It’s sexy, sure, but not like lecherous. Not condescending. I tuck my hair behind my ears, then wind my fingers together in front of my lips lest they vomit out more awkward revelry.
“That’s a deep, broad, enticing subject.” His voice is liquid flame nipping at the gasoline that’s been spritzed over my skin. He reaches for my journal, taking it in one hand, the pen in the other.
He lowers his eyes as he slips the lid from the thick pen and starts writing on the first page. I count to ten. Twenty. Thirty.
How is he so calm about everything?
“What are you writing? About sex?”
He shakes his head, uncrossing his legs, laying the journal back on the table. “No. Just writing down my first assignment for you. Two questions. Make sure you answer them by our afternoon session tomorrow. After your morning chores and studies, we will meet here again and I’ll go over the rules.”
“I have chores? And studies? And rules?” I narrow my eyes, trying to get a read on him.
He meets my gaze steadily, his diamond black eyes unwavering. It feels like it lasts forever, like I’m more at home falling into his eyes than anywhere else in the world. “Chores and studies are important. Routine is important. Discipline is important. Don’t for one second think I’m expecting something of you that I do not expect of myself. I have chores and studies of my own.” His words might sound authoritarian, but he smiles. “But if you didn’t have chores and studies, what would you do with that time?”
I shrug. What else would I want to do? Right now, I’m not sure.
