Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
SIRE
“Bed’s there.” I point to it. “Extra sheets and towels are in the closet.” I point to those. “You got your own bathroom there.” I point to everything like Captain Fucking Obvious.
Why? Because I need someplace to look that’s not Wren.
Wren Chapel.
Jesus, Jesus. Way to make it obvious this is a divine intervention. Or a test of my faith? I don’t know yet, but I know I’ve been thinking about her since we met last week.
“We’ll fall in love.”
“We’ll fall in love.”
That luring mantra was the last thing Wren Chapel said to me, and it’s echoed through my mind daily.
Okay … hourly.
Fine. Sometimes more.
Wren said if I touch her, we’ll fall in love. It scared the shit out of me—and I don’t get scared—because it made no fucking sense.
Love doesn’t happen like that: with one touch. At least, it hasn’t for me. I just marry other couples, blessing their unions, while denying myself one.
I don’t fall in love.
I don’t deserve it.
Try as I might, I told myself not to think about the Iron Angel, and … I didn’t listen.
I thought about her all the time.
How she was brave, seeming wise beyond her years. How she had the tattoos of a savior, able to stare down a devil like me. How she wanted to protect me as much as I protected her. How she made me want to confess to her. I never felt so right sharing my wrongs.
I couldn’t stop thinking about her beauty, either. I thought about her in ways no man my age should. The urges of every wrong thing I wanted to do to her felt so goddamn right flowing through my cursed veins.
And hard dick.
I’ve been praying about her all week.
I knew she was safe. My mother would never let anything happen to her, and I don’t usually obsess over the victims we help. I focus on the criminals who hurt them and make their lives hell before ending it, promising to meet them there, where I’ll do it all over again.
But Wren kept taunting my mind. With worry. With want.
The phantom, throbbing pain where my finger used to be didn’t help. I unwrapped my bandage, cleaned my stitches, and didn’t regret it. I can still feel my pulse where a part of me should be.
And now that missing part of me has a name.
Wren Chapel.
A name almost as pretty as the small woman standing beside me, proudly wearing it well.
“Put your things in that dresser, use that lamp if you need it, and give the water a few minutes to heat up before you take a shower. It’s an old building.”
More obvious shit. More thoughts about her. More prayers I’ll be saying for my sanity—and celibacy—for as long as she’s here because now I’m wondering…
What would she look like naked in the shower with my cock pumping deep inside her.
Jesus, what did you get me into?
She’s a test, isn’t she? One my dick fails every time I glance at her. The damn thing spots her little waist peeking between her baggy jeans and that little top, barely revealing her pert tits, too, and the devil in my jeans twitches.
Sure, I was going to hell anyway, but not for this.
Not for wanting her.
“Okay, thanks.” She reaches for the handle of her suitcase, all the clothes and toiletries my mom bought her, but half of me isn’t depraved. I beat her to it and, like a gentleman, set it on the bed for her. “How can I thank you?”
Banish these damned thoughts from my mind. The ones imagining my tongue licking your wet, virgin pussy.
“You don’t need to thank me. Just—” I wave to the simple white room. White paint. White sheets. White linen headboard. Jesus, Jesus. It’s like you knew a virgin would move in with me. “Just keep it clean.”
Because, clearly, my mind isn’t.
“But I have to thank you somehow. I’ll earn my keep.” She glances at the hardwood floor, laughing, “Do your pet dust bunnies have names?”
I see one hopping by. “Yeah, sorry about that. I really only sleep and eat here. I try to keep it clean, but—”
“Perfect. I’ll cook and clean for you and—”
“I don’t need a maid.”
“But you need to eat.” You. “So let me cook, and I can babysit the kids at the church, too.”
“You like kids? Aren’t you practically one yourself?”
That’s a cute scowl she makes at my sarcasm. “I love kids and no. I’ll be twenty this September eighth.”
A smile smacks my face, a chuckle erupting from my throat.
“What did I say?” Her eyes widen. “Why are you laughing?”
“I’m not laughing.”
I am. It’s rare, and I’m laughing at God.
September 8. Really? The Virgin Mary’s birthday?
Okay, God, sign received. I haven’t stopped thinking about her since she took my breath away the night I met her, and she has a holy birthday.
Got it. Build a shrine for Wren Chapel and worship her forever. Copy that.
Question is … if I fuck her, too, will I explode into flames? Probably. But why do I suspect loving her would be worth burning in hell?
“No, you’re laughing at me.” A smile plays with her luscious lips. “So, be careful when you do because you’re cracking that tattoo by your eye.”
“That’s not a crack. It’s a wrinkle. I’m forty-three and I’m laughing because only youth look forward to their next birthday.”
“Forty-three?” She scoffs, “You look so young. I pegged you for thirty or so.”
Fuck, don’t say peg.
Don’t say anything that makes me regret being a holy man—half the time.
“I’m way past thirty, and you’re all set.” I turn toward the door. “Unpack and join me in the kitchen. We’ll make a grocery list for tomorrow and … whatever.”
Just get me out of her new bedroom. Get me away from her smelling like pure soap and sin.
No one has ever done this to me. Not my adoring parishioners, throwing themselves at me. Not a hot woman at a coffee shop, twirling her hair. Not a flirting young man, buying me a drink at a bar.
No one, in years, has ever tempted me like Wren Chapel has…
In minutes.
Aiming toward my kitchen, I’m too disciplined and damned, I don’t let myself get tempted into—
Fuck, what is this feeling?
Lust. Yes.
No.
No. It’s lechery because she’s so young.
Maybe her age is why this tight feeling in my pounding chest feels like more. It’s why I agreed to let her stay here. I want to protect Wren. I want to keep her safe, and I’ll give anything to do it. My pinky. My life.
That’s natural. Right? It’s noble.
I want to save everyone, and Wren’s no different.
I’ve been this way since I was a kid. One of my first memories is of my brother, Axel.
I’m the oldest, and he was born next. I must’ve been three or so, and I could hear our father hitting our mother, and for the first time, I didn’t run to her, begging our father to stop.
Unfortunately, those nights are my first memories, too.
But that night, I ran to my brother. He was the most vulnerable, and I stood by his crib, watching him sleep, ready to soothe him if he awoke, scared like me.
It’s the first time I remember praying, too. I asked God to protect us from our father, the Devil.
Eventually, he did. We escaped him and the Bratva.
Eventually, the Devil came back for us anyway.
Pressing the button on the machine, I brew a pot of coffee. My soul is so malformed compared to others; caffeine calms me.
While it brews, I wipe the kids’ scribbles off my face with a wet paper towel. Once enough drips into the carafe, I pour a mug full. Black, like my soul, that’s how I like my coffee. I sip, praying for an answer.
What can Wren do while she’s here? While I find out who’s after her, so I can kill them, and let her go home safely, because with the urges I’m fighting, she’s not safe with me.
But she says she has no home.
No family either.
I can’t imagine. My family is my home. My brothers. My mother. They’re where I belong. Even though they’ll hate me one day. They’ll cast me out when they find out what I did, though I did it to protect them.
How was I to know that—
“Ahem.”
The gentle noise lifts my gaze from the floor.
Wren’s standing on the other side of the white marble island separating the kitchen from the living room.
I love my open-concept loft. It’s a modernized, converted space atop a historic, brick mercantile building. An old graveyard separates the back of this building from my church. My penthouse is in the perfect location, and it’s been all the space I’ve needed.
Until now.
Now, there’s not enough space between me and Wren. A continent separating us wouldn’t be enough for the forbidden thoughts I have about her.
“Do you have a garbage can?” she asks.
“Is something wrong? Are the dust bunnies that bad?” I take a sip.
“Dust doesn’t bother me, but…” She shrugs, smiling. “I’m on my period and I’d prefer not to walk across your pretty place with my used Always Ultra Thin pad wrapped in a bloody wad of toilet paper.”
I almost spew my coffee.
“Oh. Okay. Um…” I point toward the sliding door across the kitchen. “There’s a little trash can in there, beside the dryer. Use that and, sorry. I’m used to male guests.”
She tilts her head. “Boyfriends?”
“No boyfriends. No girlfriends, either.” Don’t think it. Don’t think it. “My brother stays here sometimes.”
“Jace?” She beams. “He’s sweet.”
“Yeah, he’s sweet until he’s not, but he has a place. My baby brother, Loch. He doesn’t live here anymore and would crash with me sometimes, but now he has a girlfriend, so…”
Why am I compelled to keep confessing to her? Hell, I already told her my darkest secrets, thinking I’d never see her again.
What are the odds she doesn’t remember everything I said?
With her mention of my boyfriends and girlfriends? With the way she’s looking at me? All cute and cunning?
Not a hot virgin’s chance in horny hell.
No, Wren doesn’t stare back with her topaz eyes, all innocent and sweet, even though I know she is.
Pure perception. That’s what she has, and she punches me with it, so I lean against the countertop.
It’s either that, or I start squirming. And do people make me squirm? Fuck no. That’s how odd this is. Odd and … interesting.