Chapter 14 #2
I probably would leave it at that because I have some dignity left, but then he raises our joined hands and spins me in a circle. I add a heel click at the end of the verse because this song needs help.
“Was blind but now I seee-eee…and honey, it’s youuuuu.”
I pump my free hand dramatically skyward.
He groans but squeezes the hand he’s holding. “Did you just turn ‘Amazing Grace’ into a pickup line?”
“Not just a pickup line.” I spin (smash) into him and catch his other hand. “Dance with me.”
He mock-glares, but lets me take the lead, because of course he does. Preacher Man is steady as a stone, but he has rhythm, and when I guide him into a slow two-step, he follows, setting a hand on the small of my back. Our bodies snap together like puzzle pieces.
“You’re dangerous.”
“You let me two-step you,” I counter.
“You started it.”
We sway-dance up the path toward the rectory, quick-quick-slow-slow. Absurd and corny? Sure, but for some reason Jack always does what I want.
He leapfrog hops me up the steps to the door, wrapping his warm hands around my waist and lifting me up. I make ballerina arms, holding an enormous, imaginary beach ball over my head. I don’t feel like going in just yet, and if we do, he’ll just say good-night and that’ll be that.
He sets me down on the top step and then rummages in his pocket for the key.
After the second time I made him check the rectory from head to toe for burglars, he agreed to start locking the door on select occasions.
You never know who’s hanging around or what they want. He puts the key in the lock and pauses.
Maybe the lock’s warped. Stuck. Out of order and nonfunctional. Good job, lock!
“Let’s stay out all night.” I’m close enough to smell his soap—it’s clean and simple, all cedar and Sunday—and close enough that my breath hitches.
“Dixie.” I love the way he growls my name.
I tilt my head. He leans in because he’s the best at taking direction. Our foreheads brush.
And then—
A porch light flicks on across the street.
Jack freezes.
“This is the least private place in Wickham Hollow,” he mutters.
I can think of worse. Like his pulpit. The church steps. The middle of Main Street. “And?”
“So, I’m kissing you—” he’s already tugging me through the front door “—but not with our audience across the street reporting on tongue angle and hand placement to the choir.”
I’m laughing when he kicks the door shut behind us, and then I’m not laughing anymore.
He steps closer, close enough that I have to tip my chin up to meet his eyes. Those blue eyes—wait, no, brown eyes—are studying my face like he’s memorizing it. Like he’s been thinking about this moment for weeks.
“Tell me you want this,” he says, voice low and rough. He’s already sliding the guitar case off my back, setting it down. Somewhere. Anywhere.
My heart happy-hammers against my ribs. It’s not stupid. YES. “I want this.”
That’s all he needs. His hands frame my face, thumbs brushing against my cheekbones, and then his mouth is on mine.
The kiss starts gentle—a question more than a statement. But when I rise up on my toes and press closer, when my hands fist his shirt and pull him down to me, everything changes. His control snaps like a rubber band, and suddenly he’s kissing me like he’s been starving for it.
His lips are warm and sure, moving against mine with a confidence that makes my stupid knees weak. When his tongue traces the seam of my mouth, I open for him without hesitation. The taste of him—coffee and something purely Jack—floods my senses.
I should worry about the betraying sounds I make, but I’m too busy drowning in the sensation of his hands sliding into my hair, angling my head so he can kiss me deeper.
His body presses mine back against the wall beside the door, and the solid warmth of him is everywhere—his chest against mine, his thigh between my legs, the rough texture of his beard against my skin.
“God, Dixie,” he breathes against my mouth, and I love how wrecked he sounds. How undone.
I nip at his bottom lip and he shudders. “Don’t stop.”
He doesn’t. His mouth moves to my jaw, pressing hot, open kisses along the line of it. When he finds that spot just below my ear, I gasp and arch into him. He takes advantage, one hand sliding down to grip my hip while the other stays tangled in my hair.
“You’re going to be the death of me,” he growls against my throat. You feel plenty alive to me, Jack.
“What a way to go, though,” I manage, then lose the ability to snark when he sucks on the spot where my pulse is trying to beat its way through my skin. Jack’s got points of his own to make.
We’re all hungry hands and breathless kisses, the kind of making out that belongs in the back seat of a car or against a bedroom door. My fingers work at the buttons of his shirt while his mouth devours my neck. He’s got me memorized now. Me, too, Jack. Me, too.
But then he pulls back, breathing hard, his forehead resting against mine.
“We should…” He swallows. His eyes are dark and intense, the pupils blown wide. “We should slow down.”
I can practically see his self-control tank running on fumes, the little red warning light flashing like crazy. “Should we?”
His smile is soft and devastating. My hammering heart switches to a mournful key. “Yeah. We should.”
“Okay,” I blurt out.
He takes a step back, running a hand through his hair where I messed it up. There’s a canyon’s worth of space between us.
“Good night, Dixie,” he says, and I don’t know what name to put to the emotions I hear in his voice. I’m gonna need a field guide to reverends, because apparently they come with a whole set of feelings I can’t decode.
He turns and heads toward his room, leaving me standing there against the wall, lips swollen and heart racing.
“Yeah, well,” I call after him, pushing off the wall with more force than necessary, “don’t flatter yourself, Preacher Man! It wasn’t that good!”
He pauses at his doorway, glancing back with that maddeningly knowing smile. “Sure it wasn’t.”
Maybe he’s not taking things any further tonight (cheater), but I sure want to.
I’m in so much trouble.