Saints and Sinners (A Classic Romance) (10 page)

"Matthew, I—I think you should take your hands off me before you do something you might regret later."

"What's wrong?" he said smoothly. "Are they too pure for your tastes? I can remedy that." He pulled her closer, his hands relaying sensuality and tenderness that was too enticing and insistent for her to resist, even as her apprehension soared.

"Maybe you didn't hear me. I said—"

"Shut up, Dee. Hush your mouth before I do it for you." His fingers slid down her arms, and he raised her hand to his mouth and bit into the heel of her palm. Eager and sharp. Then leisurely and softly scraping. It was pleasure, exquisite pleasure.

It was also frightening, this intensity of anger and desire.

His fingertips traced a slow, burning path down her spine. His palm glided over her bottom before his fingers kneaded the flesh. She burned hot, sensitized where he touched. The sound of her response met with his low, challenging laughter.

"Eating this up, Delilah? Are you feeling a rush, some feminine sense of power by bringing the sanctimonious minister to his knees? Especially since we both know if I got on them now, it wouldn't be to say my prayers."

"You shouldn't say—be doing this." Her voice was more a languorous sigh than a protest.

"Why not? Because I'm a minister who's supposed to be more than human?"

"Yes. Yes—" Yes what? She didn't know what they were talking about anymore. All she knew was that both his hands were on her, moving over the thin silk, stroking and fondling and making it impossible for her to think.

"Don't you want to find out if a man devoted to God and humanity can lust? Aren't you just a little curious to know if you're capable of making Mr. Holier-Than-Thou lust?"

The wall must have moved, because it was suddenly behind her back and his hands were lifting her up, shifting her legs until they were wrapped around his waist. And where she was hollow and moist he was anchoring her with the ungiving bulk of his groin.

"Matt... Matt," she whimpered, "what... are you doing?"

"Lusting, that's what." He pressed into her hard with a slow, rolling grind. "I lust, Dee.
Feel me lust."

She lusted too. An ache gripped her, a terrible hurt that caused a moan to escape from her throat and spill past lips that were dry and in need of his.

"I feel so greedy," she whispered haltingly.

"That makes two of us, because this isn't nearly enough." His mouth found her neck and sampled it with too much leisure, nibbling and probing and lapping until she thought she might faint from the erotic treat. "You taste... delicious. Better than candy. Take another bite of the apple, Eve, and tell me if it's as good as the first." Then he was nipping a lobe and filling her ear with the sound of dark desire.

When she could endure no more of the tiny tortures, her head lolled against the wall, causing his teeth to rake over her skin.

"There's your sample," he said in a raspy voice as his fingertips stroked the hammering pulse in the hollow of her throat. "If you've had your fill, I'll stop."

"Stop and I'll never forgive you." Her fingers thrust into his hair, sifting through, then gripping the fine threads. Such wonderful hair, worthy of the man who held her. She pulled his head down and commanded, "Lust more, Matthew. Kiss me."

He kissed her. He kissed her as she'd never been kissed before. Oh, the things that man did with his mouth. Their melding was more than the exchange of curious, then well-acquainted lips. More than the sly slip of an agile tongue or the nipping bites of teeth.

It was the absolute giving and giving again of exquisite pleasure filling endless need. It was the sense of devotion he brought to their kiss, the murmured words he blessed her mouth with. He said that he cared deeply. He told her this was right, wondrous, a promise he'd waited for a long time, and yes, it was worth the wait.

He said the taste of her mouth and the feel of her body was heaven.

Her body had never been in better hands. The wine had warmed her, made her reckless, but the way Matthew touched her face and back and neck created enough heat to reduce her to whimpering for more. She wasn't sure what she was saying, because she was almost incoherent with arousal, desperate for a release that was uncompromising in its demand.

"Dee," Matthew groaned. "Dee." His head fell back and she tried, without success, to press it close to her once more. "Dear Father, help me."

"Help
me," she pleaded. "Matthew, please, help me." She was empty and crying for him to take away the ache. "I can't bear it. Don't leave me like this."

He remained still, except for taking in harsh, uneven drags of air. Then he rested his forehead against hers.

"Just be still," he whispered. "Be still with me, Delilah. We'll be all right, I promise,"

"But I'm
not
all right. I've never been less right in my life."

"Shhh... shhhh." He laid hands on her shoulders and massaged the tense muscles. Instead of relaxing, she grew more tense, his intention to help only increasing her distress. "It's my fault. I never should have let this get out of hand. It's just that—that I needed you. I was greedy."

"And I
still
need you. Be greedy some more."

"Dee, no. I'm asking you, begging you, don't make this any more difficult for me than it is. I'm struggling, and I'm dangerously close to losing the battle."

She wanted him to lose the battle because neither of them was winning anything but martyrdom by leaving it at this.

"Is touching me, letting me touch you... intimately, such a terrible sin?" she demanded. "If it's so terrible, then you tell me why God made men and women the way they're made, having drives and needs that only certain people have the power to satisfy."

"Ah, Dee." His low chuckle was strained. "It's not terrible, beloved, it's beautiful and very, very special. You're special, that certain person who's made something come alive in me. I said I lusted and you can feel for yourself that's still true. But the problem is, I've committed myself to a standard I won't compromise. Especially with you."

He pried her legs from his waist and slid them down his length. Her belly pressed into his front and she fought not to rub against what her womb still searched for.

"All right," she said, managing a tenuous control. "I understand. Your profession stands in our way." And so much more than that. Her reasoning remained scattered, but she gathered the remains, finding enough strength not to beg him to forsake his principles and slake their desire.

"It's more than my profession," he said slowly, seeming to weigh his words. "If lust were the only thing I felt for you, I'm afraid I'd be weak enough to take what's practically killing me not to take now. But I'm not willing to reduce what I believe we're meant to have to a moment's gratification."

The barest touch of his lips to hers was the sweetest torture. It was a humbling experience. A lesson in a kind of strength she'd never encountered in anyone but Matt. She discovered some of her own to broach an insurmountable obstacle.

"But Matthew, you don't really know me. I could be a risky deal, someone you might want more from than I can give."

"I'll take my chances. My sources upstairs tell me you're definitely a deal worth risking. They did send me to you tonight when I tried my best not to come. Then once I got here... out came the big guns."

"Divine intervention?"

"Mmm. Definitely divine."

"A little unconventional, don't you think?" Dee skated a fingernail down his chest. His broad, wonderful chest she craved to have for a haven... and if miracles came true, maybe she would one day. "Sending you over to watch me prance around half naked in my den of iniquity isn't exactly what I'd call prudent."

"The Lord moves in strange and mysterious ways." Matthew pressed her wandering hand against the heavy thudding of his heart. "I quit questioning His methods years ago." His smile was wry, intimate. "But I could question yours."

"I can hardly believe them myself." Dee laughed softly. "My only excuse is that I was feeling sorry for myself and dreaming up ways I'd like to make you fall from grace after ignoring me at lunch. I'd had a little to drink too. Actually, more than a little."

"I know. I tasted it. Very fine wine from a very naughty mouth."

"I was naughty, wasn't I?" She was slightly embarrassed but pleased. "If I'd known misbehaving could be such wicked fun, I would have tried it sooner."

"Then this sort of encounter isn't something you've... No, never mind. I'll trust you and not even ask."

Such a show of faith, Dee decided, deserved to be rewarded in kind. "I'll tell you anyway, Matthew. My evenings are usually spent alone in a granny gown with the lights out unless I'm curled up with a book. This was an indulgence. A very self-serving indulgence that wasn't very exciting until you showed up."

She draped her arms around his neck and he embraced her. His stubble rubbed back and forth through her hair, sending chills down to her toes.

"Yes... yes, exciting. Almost too exciting to stop."

"I wish it hadn't." She pulled back just far enough to see his face and take comfort that she wasn't alone in her deep sense of loss and regret.

Then Matthew shut his eyes and she felt some change in him, like a subtle shiver of energy. When he looked at her again, his expression was almost radiant, but it was shaded by an edge of conflict.

"Since I got here, I tried to keep an ear out for any sound overhead, just in case. The kids are sound sleepers?"

"Like the dead. The floors have yet to squeak at night."

He paused and stroked her hair, then asked gently, "Tell me, do you still hurt? Is the ache unbearable?"

She felt it more acutely now than she had in the throes of unsated need. The depth of connection between a man and a woman. Dee realized, could be as much of an aphrodisiac as fevered embraces.

"I do," she answered honestly. "And it is."

He nodded in empathy. "My own discomfort is my responsibility. But if you want, if your need is too much to endure, I'll take that as my responsibility too. I did create it."

She felt his palm press flat against her heat. The directness of his contact shocked her. It excited her beyond belief. Before she could recover, his hand curved in and cupped her. A broad fingertip stroked once, just once, the thin sheath of silk separating flesh from flesh.

She felt moisture between her thighs, and her legs buckled.

"Beloved," he murmured. "I can give you ease."

Chapter 7

As Matthew gave the benediction, his narrowed gaze settled longingly on Dee's bent head. He was thankful for a lot of things that went unsaid in his concluding prayer.

He was thankful that a week earlier Dee had declined his physical offering. Her struggle to refuse what she desperately wanted to take—and he craved to give—was great. But it had reinforced his belief in her respect for others' situations and feelings. He took it as a sign that his instincts and the inner voice were right: She was the one meant for him.

He was also thankful that the homeless society he'd left to give pastorship another try had called him in for an emergency. He'd been burnt out when he left for Hayes, two hundred miles and another world away; it was good to know he had recovered and could make a difference where he continued to be needed.

He'd needed too: time and distance from Dee. Time to contemplate, search, plan. He couldn't have thought as clearly in proximity to her. She, who was tempting, mysterious, made for him.

As Maude sang the postlude, Matthew stepped down the aisle, pausing where Dee and her family stood. At the last pew—another thing to be grateful for.

"Dee," he said in the low, confidential tone of a minister speaking a word of consolation, "I missed you."

She caught his sleeve as though by compulsion. "Yes. I missed you too." Her eyes were luminous; her face glowed as if a light shone from within. "Welcome back, Matt."

"Can you wait until everyone's gone? I'd like a word with you, alone."

Her nod was quick, hopeful, but strangely guarded.

He'd never known shaking hands to take so long. And Sally Henderson seemed to be hanging around, dusting her piano and checking for stray hymnals. He talked with Dee in an alcove about his week's work until Sally ran out of excuses to stay.