Chapter 37
THIRTY-SEVEN
Zephyrine
My lungs burn as I climb the next hill, the running and the lack of oxygen at this altitude tearing into my chest as I try to catch my next breath.
But I move as fast as my feet will take me, up the hill and through the long prairie grass.
One after another until the top of this ridge is nearly close enough for me to reach out and touch. I’m so close and yet so far.
I glance back over my shoulder. He’s not far now.
Gaining with every long step of his stride.
One that far surpasses mine and leaves me desperate for another escape.
I'll lose the race in minutes, and he'll be on me, his hands wrapped around me as he drags me down to the ground. All reason gone. Replaced instead by the man who’s determined to get his revenge on me for my trick.
My heart flutters in my chest when I crest the next hill and see a small, slightly dilapidated church at the bottom of it.
It looks abandoned—the stones are thick with ivy, and there are wildly overgrown bushes at the entrance.
But if I can get inside and lock the doors behind me, it could buy me precious time.
I’d wait for his adrenaline to recede, and then I’d apologize for taking things too far. It could work.
I race toward it, my feet carrying me as fast as they’ll go. It’s one last burst of energy on my part. But I make it, quickly wiping the sweat from my brow as I take one last trudge of ascension up the steps to the door.
My hands are on the door handle, my palms slippery until I wipe them on my dress and try again.
It cedes to my pressure easily, swinging open and allowing me into a small vestibule.
It’s cooler inside than outside, the stones working as an insulator from the sun.
A sigh of relief ripples through me as I see him on the top of the hill, glaring at me as he watches me disappear inside.
I slam the door shut, my fingers fumbling for a lock but failing to find one.
I search for something to bar the door with, but there’s nothing.
My heart speeds its rhythm, panic setting in as I see him through a window, halfway down the hill and gaining on me rapidly.
How could this not have a lock? It has to have one somewhere. My fingers swipe over the inside of the heavy wooden door, trying and failing to find a locking mechanism to bar it shut.
I can hear him now. His feet across the gravel in front of the church. I have minutes, seconds even, before he’s on top of me.
I abandon the oak door, falling back to the other side of the vestibule and slipping beyond the wrought iron gates that lead to the sanctuary of the church.
My eyes float to them, rapidly assessing to see if they’ll close and discovering they’re on a track that runs along the wall on either side of the arched entryway.
I wrap my palms around one of the wrought iron spindles and pull, heaving as hard as I can to bring it to the center.
But again, I fail. The iron is heavy, and the tracks are worn, gathering dust and debris from all the years of disuse.
I heave again, harder, throwing all of my body weight into it.
This time, it creaks, threatening to move at first and then finally complies with a loud squeal of protest as I reach for the other one, hoping it goes easier than the first. If I can bring the second one to the center, I can find something to wedge them shut together. It shouldn’t take long. If I can just—
I hear the sound of his boots on the stairs. The echo of them hitting the stones of the entryway, and the thud as he crosses it. I can feel him before I see him.
I look up slowly, his chest rising and falling with the effort of every breath. He’s tired. That’s my only saving grace. Because his eyes are filled with fury, and his face is as stormy as I’ve ever seen it when he’s been alone with me.
“Sanctuary.” I claim it even though it’s been centuries since anyone respected it.
He lets out a sardonic laugh in response, his dark lashes lifting as he looks around the room. The blue-green of his irises lighting as a ray streams through the stained glass, catching on them. He almost looks angelic in this light. Almost.
“It will be,” he mutters.
“Levi.” I say his name like a prayer. His eyes shift from studying our surroundings to taking me in.
He steps forward and slams the wrought iron gate behind him; the clang resonates against the stone walls and through my body.
He grabs the rope I used on him off of his hip, tying the two sides of the gate together, sealing me in with him.
There’s a soft staticky hum in my ears that grows along with the echo of his boots closing the space between us, one methodical step at a time.
I feel the oxygen slipping from my lungs with every inch he draws closer.
He pins me against the wrought iron, the cold touch of the metal against my skin making me arch forward unwillingly.
I hold up my hands, pushing against his chest in a way that buys me exactly zero leeway.
He snatches my wrist, pinning it up behind my head.
The second follows the first. His lips curling in a devilish sneer before he leans forward, his tongue darting out to lick the sweat that drips down my neck.
I close my eyes until I hear the distinct rip of fabric. His knife tears into the left strap of my sundress and then the right. It slips from my shoulders and exposes my breasts. He stares, blatantly, a blush blooming over my chest, and my nipples bead under his watch.
“Disrespectful to try to lock me out when I’m generous enough to give you a head start.” The short puffs of his breath are cool against my heated skin, and I squirm underneath his watch.
“You’re being disrespectful. This is a sacred place.
You didn’t even bless yourself when you came in,” I rasp.
I’m reaching for any excuse to slow him down, even though my body is lighting up under his touch.
I need some semblance of the reasonable version of him I know.
I’m not even sure he exists in this room right now, but a girl can try.
“Oh.” He pulls back, his eyes searching mine, and then he holds my gaze so intently I fear I might melt under the weight of it. “We’re back to propriety now that it’s your turn?”
“Yes,” I answer him.
“As you wish.” He nods, the sneer of irritation thawing into what I could almost describe as amusement. And for a brief, fleeting moment, I feel like I might finally be free of his retribution.
He reaches over to the water stoup, dipping his index and middle finger inside to draw on the holy water, and predictably finds it empty after years of neglect. He frowns with disappointment.
“Well, that’s unfortunate. I suppose I’ll have to make do with what I have available.
” His grip on my wrists tightens, holding me with one hand, and slipping under my skirt and between my thighs with the other.
I’m drowning in the anticipation of his plans, and he groans against my throat when he finds me wet for him again.
“Look how good you are to me. Giving me exactly what I need. A fucking angel if there ever was one.” He teases me, slipping just the tips of his fingers in and out, painstakingly slowly, before he pulls them free.
He holds them up, studying them as they glisten in the low light before he uses them to wet his thumb.
He can’t be doing what I think he is.
He can’t.
He wouldn’t.
“How does it go again?” He looks at me in question before he brings his thumb to his forehead, making a small mark.
“In my mind.” He brings his thumb up to his lips.
“On my lips.” He smears his thumb over his lower lip and then uses his tongue to swipe up my wetness from the soft dent at the center.
He drops his hand to his heart and repeats the gesture. “In my heart.”
He smirks as he watches my reaction; my lips parted, and my brows frozen in shock. Reaching out, he grabs my jaw and swipes the remnants over my lower lip before he leans in and sucks it into his mouth, kissing and nipping at the lush bit of flesh before he pulls away again.
“That better? Or you think we have more to make up for?” He drops my wrists from above my head but holds onto them, looking to me for permission.
“More,” I murmur, the creep of excitement and anxiety blending together to develop another wave of desire that pools low inside me.
“I think so too.”
He takes my wrists and turns me around, bringing us to the back of the church where ascending rows of half-melted candles sit in wait for the churchgoers who will never return.
He kicks a prie-dieu forward from its place in front of the votive stands with his boot and drags me down, making my knees hit the tufted kneeler.
“Hands here.” He manipulates my wrists gently to place both of my hands on the prayer rail.
“Palms down.” I follow his instructions.
“That’s my girl.” I hear him murmur as I’m eyeing the iron gate and wondering if I could untie the rope as fast as I’d tied it earlier.
I don’t have much time to think, though, because he releases his hold on me and rounds the other side, climbing the small riser there.
The sound of his zipper lowering echoes in the quiet of the chapel. Bouncing off the walls and reverberating around us. The chapel has been deconsecrated, the crucifixes and the tabernacle removed, but it still feels wrong.
“Levi, please.” My eyes lift to meet his. “This is—we shouldn’t. I shouldn’t. I know you’re not religious but…”
My protests are meaningless though. He palms himself under his boxer briefs and then frees his dick, hard and swollen, a bead of precum already swelling to its full potential at the tip.
“You’re wrong about that, sweetheart.” His knuckles drag down my jaw, and then his hand cups my chin.
“I’m very fucking religious when it comes to you.
Listening to your confessions. Worshipping this sinful little body back to life night after night.
Forgiving your transgressions—like using me as your own personal fucking sex toy while I’m tied to a fence.
” He lets out a low whistle. “That last one though. That might be a cardinal sin. A few of them, I think. So I’m going to need more than a simple apology. ”
“I’ll say another rosary tonight.”
“No, sweetheart. That’s not enough this time. Not with your immortal soul on the line.”
He swipes the precum with his thumb and drags it over my forehead, and then down, pausing to swipe over my lips before he makes a final mark over my bare chest.
“You need to meditate on what you’ve done wrong. Dedicate yourself to it body and soul. What did the abbess call them?” He snaps his fingers, and his eyes light. “Devotionals. That’s what you need to practice. Thank fuck I’m here to help you.”
His palm cups my jaw, and he presses his thumb down on my lower lip, slipping his cock in between them while they’re parted.
“Give me those pretty blues,” he demands, and I do as I’m asked, letting my tongue swirl over his tip while he stares back into my eyes. “Now pray.”