Chapter 21
LENNON
Hannah’s room was small and blue. Frothy white curtains hung in the window.
The dresser, bed, and desk were made of pine—I couldn’t escape it, but it was growing on me.
A small porcelain statue of an armor-clad knight on a white horse sat on the dresser, and a painting of a young girl in a pink dress reading a book by a stream hung on one wall.
It was a tiny oasis of femininity in a ranch that solidly tilted toward rugged.
Hannah and I were clearly very different people, but I had a feeling I would like her.
When Jeremiah informed me that I would be staying in his apartment at the lodge, I hadn’t argued. Honestly, I was relieved. But now that I was standing in the doorway of his sister’s bedroom, I felt like an intruder.
“Are you sure your sister won’t mind me staying here?” I gripped the handle of my suitcase, unsure if it was okay for me to unpack. Maybe I should shove it into the closet and leave it at that. It wouldn’t be the first time I had lived out of a suitcase.
“I already texted her. It’s fine. She said she’s only using the top two drawers. The bottom four are empty.” He opened and closed each drawer in rapid succession to verify, then nodded. “Go ahead.”
“All my clothes are dirty. I need to do a load of laundry before I settle in.”
I moved my bags to a corner so they were out of the way and picked up the silver-framed photograph on Hannah’s desk.
It was Jeremiah and a blonde, twenty-ish-years-old woman who I assumed was Hannah sitting in the rocking chairs outside the lodge, both of them holding mugs and smiling at whoever was taking the photo.
Hannah was wearing a long skirt and an oversized sweater, although it looked like summer, judging by Jeremiah’s T-shirt.
“Was she raised at the compound, too? You don’t have to answer that. It’s none of my business. I’m being nosy,” I added quickly.
“It’s not a secret. Yes, she was raised at the compound, too. She was my only full-blooded sibling. I shared a father with seventeen other kids, but our mother had difficulty conceiving and staying pregnant. We were her only two. I’m almost six years older than Hannah.”
I sucked in air. “Seventeen kids? Your father has seventeen kids?”
“Eighteen, counting me.”
“Holy shit. He must have had, what, five wives?”
“Three.”
It took me less than a split second to do the math. As long as numbers were in my head, I was good. It was on paper when they screwed with me. “Two of you were your mom’s, so the other two wives had eight kids apiece?”
“One had ten, the other had six. Probably more. Eighteen was how things stood when I was banished at fourteen. His wives were still fertile then. They probably had more. He might have taken on a fourth wife, too.”
My mind was well and truly boggled. “So you have sixteen brothers and sisters still out there. At least.”
His lips flattened. “There were a couple of years where a sibling would show up at my door. Banished brothers, mostly, but the occasional runaway sister. I gave them a place to stay, got them the help they needed. Seven years ago, the compound was raided by the FBI. It’s been quiet since, but I keep looking for them. ”
“Is that how Hannah escaped the compound?”
“The raid? No. And she didn’t run away. I went and got her when she was fourteen.”
I studied the photograph. Long, white-blonde hair. Crystal-blue eyes behind her glasses. “She’s pretty,” I remarked. “They couldn’t have been happy with you taking her.”
“I didn’t give them a choice.”
The darkness in his tone pulled my gaze to him. His eyes were fixed on the photograph in my hand, eyes steely, mouth a grim slash. “Good,” I said, and meant it.
That brought a bit of light back into his face. His mouth softened, and when he turned to look at me, there was a hint of amusement in his blue-gray eyes. “You keep saying shit like that, I might start to believe it.”
I gave an exasperated huff. “All evidence to the contrary, you mean? You are good, Jeremiah. Annoyingly good. Why can’t you see that?”
“As I said, goodness is in the eye of the beholder. Who decides what it means to be good, Lennon? God? Or man’s interpretation of God? They banished me as a child for sinning. I am a son of perdition.”
“You know that’s shit, Jeremiah. You know that.”
“Wars are fought and populations exterminated by people who claim to know, and yet none of them seem to agree. So, no, I don’t know.
I’m not that arrogant to claim I know the meaning of life.
” His fingers threaded through my hair, pulling it back from my face.
“It’s all right, though. I kind of like being damned.
” He twisted my hair around his fist as he examined it.
“What?” The word burst out of me on a surprised laugh. “You like being damned?”
He tugged me closer, and my breath hitched. “There’s a freedom in it. Once you know you’re going to spend eternity in hell based on someone else’s definition of goodness, you get to decide how to spend your time on earth before you get there. Do you want to know my favorite Bible verse?”
“Yes,” I gasped, because now his other hand was gently curving around the base of my throat, his thumb tracing my clavicle.
“Isaiah forty-five, seven. I form the light and create the darkness. I make peace and create evil. I the Lord do all these things.” His mouth pressed each word into the delicate skin of my neck.
I twisted my head to the side to give him more access.
“Righteousness is not goodness. Flooding the world is righteous. Turning a woman into salt is righteous. I don’t think anyone would claim those things were necessarily good. ”
It was hard to focus on his words when his mouth was doing wicked things that made me clench my thighs together.
“I may be righteous, but I don’t know that I’m good. Because when I close my eyes, the things we do to each other…” His teeth scraped over the pulse point below my jaw. “Are very, very…” He sucked gently at my skin. “Bad.”
“Tell me,” I pleaded. “Oh, god, please tell me.”
“You want to hear all the ways I’d disrespect you?
You want me to tell you how I fantasize about putting you on your knees and fucking that sassy mouth of yours?
That you ruined my life telling me about facials because now all I can think about is you dripping with my cum?
That my thirst for you keeps me up at night? Is that what you want me to tell you?”
Anticipation shivered down my spine. “Yes,” I whispered, reaching for his belt buckle. “That’s what I want.”
“Hell.” He trapped my hands in his, stopping me from getting what I wanted, and groaned. “I need a second.” His forehead dropped to mine. His chest brushed mine as his breath sawed in and out. “Now I know how Galadriel felt when she didn’t accept the ring from Frodo.”
It took a moment for my lust-dazed brain to understand what was happening. Jeremiah was turning me down. Heat scorched my cheeks as I reeled back, wrenching my hands from his. Not so shameless after all, Miss High and Mighty, my mother’s voice cackled in my head.
“Sorry. Oh, god, I’m so sorry. I thought—I mean, you said you wanted—” I stumbled backward, tripping over my own feet.
He reached for me, thought better of it, and gripped the edge of the dresser behind him so hard that his knuckles turned white.
“I do want. Fuck, honey, I want so badly that my balls are a permanent shade of blue. But we’re at the end of a very long day.
You’ve had one and a half panic attacks, found out your stalker lured you here, yelled at me not even two hours ago, and threatened to run away to a nunnery.
You need food. You need a hot shower. You need rest.”
“But I want your dick,” I shot back.
He gave me one heated, hungry look that turned my insides molten before squeezing his eyes shut with a shake of his head. “If you still want my dick tomorrow, it’s yours.”
I studied him, baffled. He was really saying no to a blowjob out of concern for my physical and emotional well-being?
Was that something men were even capable of?
Heaving a sigh, I pressed a kiss to his cheek.
Every muscle in his body strung taut in response, like it took everything he had to hold himself back.
“What did I tell you?” I whispered in his ear. “Annoyingly good.”