And then I came again.
“And that’s my real sin,” Poppy finished. “That’s my real shame. I can’t sleep at night knowing that I let him—let myself—” She broke off and there was a moment of silence which I didn’t interrupt, both out of respect for her and also because I didn’t trust my voice. Her confession had been so raw—so fucking detailed—and I was filled with rage at this Sterling asshole and sorrow for her and also a fierce, unshakable jealousy that just weeks ago, he got to be inside her and he didn’t deserve it, not one bit.
But mostly I was so fucking hard I couldn’t think straight.
“I let myself come,” she said finally, in a quiet, sad voice. “He is a married man and he cheated on me for years and he wasn’t even sorry, but I still not only fucked him, but I came. I came twice. What does it matter that I made him leave right after it happened? What kind of girl still does that?”
I needed to say something, needed to help her, but fuck, it was so difficult to focus on anything other than the image of her face pressed into the seat as she gasped her way through multiple orgasms. I was going to hell for even thinking this, especially since I wanted to punch Sterling in the windpipe for acting on it, but it was almost unbearably sexy that those rough kinds of things got her off. Because they got me off too, and it had been so long since I’d had a woman whimpering under my touch…
You’re no better than him, I castigated myself. Fucking get it together. Feelings, focus on her feelings. “How did it feel?”
“How did it feel? It felt amazing. Like he was claiming me from the inside out, and when he came inside of me, it felt like he was marking me as his property, and it was his climax that made me orgasm again. I can’t help it—a guy coming is the hottest fucking thing, especially when I can feel it inside of me…”
My head fell back against the wood of the booth with an audible thud. “I meant—” I said in a strangled voice “—how did it feel emotionally?”
“Oh,” and then the breathy little laugh, and then fuck it, I’d go to hell, because I couldn’t not rub myself now. I was so hard that I could feel every ridge and slope of myself through my pants. My other hand toyed with my zipper as I stroked, trying to keep my breathing silent. Could I unzip myself quietly enough that she wouldn’t hear? Could I jack myself right here in the booth without her knowing?
Because there was no way I could live without it at this point. Her words were carved into my mind, and they would be there forever.
“I guess it made me feel like Sterling was right. I am a whore, aren’t I? I had a debutante ball and my family was listed in the Social Register and I have dressage trophies—but that doesn’t change who I am on the inside. I think deep down, I always knew that Sterling didn’t really love me, but I was willing to accept sex in lieu of love because I wanted that just as much as I wanted the romance, and what woman thinks like that, Father? That I’d rather have sex without love than have no sex at all? So what do I do now? How do I carry the shame of all this while at the same time knowing it’s a fundamental part of who I am?”
Shame. Yes, I knew that feeling; I was feeling it right now, in fact. I forced my hands to my thighs, well away from my erection. Concentrate, I told myself. And when you’re alone, you can take care of your…problem.
“God made us as sexual creatures, Poppy,” I said, wishing my words sounded more soothing than they did. With my choked voice and barely controlled breathing, they came out sounding like a dark threat. A dark, imminent threat.
“Then He made me too sexual,” she whispered. “Even now, I—”
But she stopped.
“Even now, what?” And I was using that voice again, and there was no mistaking the danger now.
I could hear her shifting in her seat. “I should go,” she said. I heard her reaching for her purse and then the door handle clicking open, but I was out of the booth and over to her side in an instant, standing there as her door swung open. I braced my hands on either side of the door (what in the actual fuck was I doing?) blocking her escape because I had to know, I had to know what she was going to say, and if I didn’t, I would go crazy.
She looked up at me looming over her, her hazel eyes growing wide. “Oh,” she breathed. We stared at each other for a moment.
It could have ended right there. It would have, even with her red lipstick and her bright eyes and her nipples in tight little points under the thin silk blouse she wore. Even with my wide shoulders blocking the door to the booth, even with the surge of power and satisfaction and lust that came from positioning my body against a woman’s in this primal, dominating way.
It would have, I swear.
But then she bit her lip, those slightly-too-big teeth digging into her full lower lip, all pure white digging into the sharpest, bloodiest red imaginable, and then she rubbed her thighs together, a tiny noise coming from somewhere in the back of her throat.
I stopped seeing a penitent.
I stopped seeing a child of God.
I stopped seeing a lost lamb in need of a shepherd.
I saw only a woman in need—ripe, delicious need.
I stepped back, drawing a deep breath, some valiant part of my conscience trying to flicker back online, and she took a tentative step out of the booth, her eyes still pinned to mine. I let her walk past me, but it wasn’t because I wanted her to leave or because I wanted this temptation to end. No, it was more like I was giving her one last chance to escape, and if she didn’t then Jesus help her, because I had to touch her, I had to taste her and it had to be right the fuck now.
She backed up a few paces until she bumped against the baby grand piano set below the choir platform. She still didn’t speak, but she didn’t have to, because I could read every tremble of hers, every breath, every goose bump. Her teeth still bit her bottom lip and I wanted to bite that lip, bite it so hard that she would squeal.
I advanced on her, and she watched every step of mine with a hunger that was beyond palpable, it was oppressive, it was ferocious.
“Turn around,” I ordered her, and fuck if she didn’t comply right away, turning and bracing her hands against the edge of the black wood. She was still rubbing her thighs together when I reached the piano and stood directly behind her. I ran my index finger from her hand to her shoulder, feeling every pebbled inch of skin on her arm. “Now what were you going to say in the booth?” I asked her in a low voice. “And remember that lying is a sin.”
She shivered. “I can’t say it. Not here. Not to you.”
My hand reached her shoulder. She’d worn her hair up in a loose twist, exposing the ivory nape of her neck, and I caressed it now, wanting to devour every shudder, every hitched breath. And then I placed the flat of my palm in the space between her shoulder blades and pushed her down against the piano, so that she was bent over, the side of her face pressed against the glossy wood. She was so petite that she had to stand on tiptoe, her leather ballet flats tugging free of her heels, her calf muscles bunching into tight balls.
She’d worn a high-waisted pencil skirt, and once she was bent over, the slit rose high enough to expose a narrow glimpse of pink flesh.
“Poppy,” I said dangerously, “did you come here without underwear?”
My hand was still on her back, my fingers resting against her neck, and she nodded.