Page 20 of Holly Jolly Heresy
In the other room, the oven timer dinged. Caleb cleared his throat and got to his feet, suddenly hot and itchy all over, like his skin was too tight. “That’ll be our dinner,” he mumbled as he hurried from the room, her words echoing in his mind.
She was right. He’d never had sex like that. The fumblings of his teenage years hadn’t prepared him for the possibility sex could be more than a physical give and take, but his blood hummed in recognition as she’d spoken. An involuntary acknowledgment of the truth in her words, a painful awareness of this entire aspect of human existence he had never experienced, would never experience—and why? How did this sacrifice, this artificial constraint on his humanity, glorify God?
What if the Church was wrong?
He closed his eyes and pressed his hands over his heart as Molly had done, breathing into the ache behind his sternum, the emptiness growing day after day, the loneliness no amount of prayer had assuaged. What if all this time the problem hadn’t been his faith or his temptations? What if sex wasn’t merely a biological impulse, but was actually the greatest moment of connection—to each otherandto God—man could experience in this life?
And what if Caleb wanted to experience it too?
Chapter seven
Molly couldn’t sleep.
It wasn’t just the strange bed or the light from the small bedside lamp (so much brighter than the one she left on at night in her bedroom at home) or the howling wind as it whipped around their cabin, threatening to tear it clean off its foundation. She was restless, her limbs vibrating with the intensity of her attraction to Caleb, with the belated embarrassment from their last conversation. Dinner had been eaten in strained silence before they’d said an early goodnight and shuffled off to their respective bedrooms, and it was all her fault.
I can’t believe I told Caleb he hasn’t had good sex.
She couldn’t stop thinking about what it would be like to have sex with Caleb. It didn’t matter that he was her frolleague, or twenty years older than her, or even that he was a priest. She wanted him. And she was pretty sure he wanted her too. Somehow she knew with a bone-deep knowing, sex with Caleb would be everything she’d described downstairs and more.
In the dark, she let her hand drift across her collar bone, fingertips grazing the sensitive skin, before sliding down to skate over her breasts. Her nipples pulled tight beneath the lace of her bra, and she continued her slow path over the peaks, across the soft roundness of her stomach, until her fingers danced at the waistband of her panties.
It was wrong to touch herself while she thought about him.
Not that that’s stopped you before.
But he isn’t usually in the next room.
A tree branch groaned beneath the weight of the falling snow outside her window, the wind loud enough he’d never hear her. He’d never have to know…
She wriggled out of her panties and dropped them on the floor beside the bed. Her robe fell open beneath the heavy comforter, and she drew her fingers through her wetness. In slow strokes, she teased herself, never touching where she wanted it most. Where she wanted him.
A loud crack and the room plunged into darkness, the whirring of the heating system abruptly halting.
“Shit,” she whispered, pulling her hand away and fumbling on the nightstand for the remote to the fireplace on the other side of the room. She only succeeded in knocking her cell phone onto the floor. With a muttered curse, she sat up in bed, turning her attention fully to the task at hand.
“You’re okay,” she mumbled to herself. “You are a full-grown adult with a job and a lease and crushing student loan debt. Full-grown adults are not afraid of the dark.”
The door to her bedroom flew open, a single point of too-bright light temporarily blinding her and she sucked in a startled breath. “Are you alright?” Caleb asked, his voice rough. Though he was hard to see in the shadow of his cell phone flashlight, she could tell he was more disheveled than usual, his robe hangingopen on his shoulders as though he’d thrown it on in a hurry and his hair sticking up in all directions.
“I’m fine. I can’t find the remote for the fireplace.”
He stalked across the room and found the button beneath the mantle. A fire roared to life in the fireplace, limning him in flame. He turned back to her, his eyes dragging along the opening of her robe, but she couldn’t bring herself to close it. His eyes on her made warmed her more than any fire could.
He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. “That should keep you warm until the power comes back on.” His eyes traced her form one more time, then he cleared his throat and turned towards the door.
“Do you have a fireplace in your room?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I’ll sleep on the couch near the one in the living room.”
Something wild fluttered in her chest in protest, a desperate need to say something—anything—to make him stay. If she didn’t say something now, then would she ever?
She scooted over in the bed and flipped back the corner of the comforter. “Or you could stay here.”
His face was hard, unreadable in the dim, flickering light of the fire, and he stood so still, like an animal hiding from a predator.Or like the predator itself.
“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
“What, do you snore or something?” she asked, the poor attempt at a joke falling flat.
