ChapterFive
SUNDAY
"Slow down. Not everyone here is a vampire," I called as Father Gallagher strode down the darkened hallway.
His long legs ate up the space at double the length mine did, but add to that his preternatural speed, and he was halfway down the hall while I trailed behind, forgotten.
"Walk faster, and we won't have a problem."
God, he was surly. And he smelled divine. Why did a priest need to smell so good?
We left the main hall and headed down a set of stairs that led into the bowels of the building. The air shifted to damp and heavy, the scent of earth and age filling my nose. We reached a doorway marked with his name, simple and unassuming, befitting a man of the cloth.
"Come in and kneel at the altar, Miss Fallon."
"Excuse me?"Kneel? He expected me to kneel?
"You heard me. Inside, on your knees. We have work to do."
"Listen, you're hot and all, but I'm not getting on my knees for you. I hardly know you."
And he was hot. God, was he ever. Tall and broad, but not bulky with exaggerated muscle. His understated black shirt and pants molded to his body just enough that I could easily watch the play of hisassetsas he walked in front of me. I’d never understood the desire to bounce a quarter off a man’s ass, but I’ll admit, he made me curious.
Suddenly embarrassed by the direction my thoughts had taken regarding a man who’d married the Lord, I cleared my throat and forced myself to lift my gaze.
Father Gallagher was staring at me. His nostrils flared angrily, and his intense, sapphire eyes bore deep into mine. “Well?” he demanded.
I blinked, having completely lost the thread of our conversation. He must have kept going while I’d been lost to my musings. What had we been talking about? Oh, right. He wanted to get me on my knees. Frankly, in a different situation, I might have considered it. All that smoldering intensity wrapped up in a delicious, completely forbidden package? That’s an altar I could worship at.
“I was just wondering where your collar was,” I lied, making my feet resume their hurried steps as I moved into what I’d assumed was his office, but turned out to be a little chapel.
“Only priests wear collars.”
My steps faltered again. “But I thought... he called you Priest?”
“That was a long time ago.”
I gestured to the flickering candles and the not-insubstantial crucifix hanging on the wall. “So what’s all this, then? Sort of a weird decorating choice for a vampire, don’t you think?”
His jaw tensed, and I could tell the time for questions had passed. Not that I thought it had ever actually started.
“I gave you an order, Miss Fallon. Obey it.”
“I’m not in the habit of taking orders from bloodsucking leeches.”
Oops. Wrong thing to say.
His eyes flashed dangerously. “And I am not in the habit of repeating myself.” He grabbed me by the back of the neck and forced me to the cold tile. “On. Your. Knees.”
My body obeyed without question, folding easily under the pressure of his vise-like grip. I’m not sure what it said about me that I pressed my thighs a little tighter together, his rough manhandling and the dangerous cast of his voice setting off a low throb in my core.
He released me at once, moving to stand just off to the left. “Your problem, Miss Fallon, is that you are undisciplined.”
“You could tell all that after just a few minutes in my presence, huh?”
His eyes tightened, but he didn’t rise to the bait.
“I am going to teach you mastery over yourself. Once you learn how to quiet your mind and focus, it should be no problem for you to summon your wolf.”