“I never have before,” he admitted as he watched her throw her head back and increase the tempo. He didn’t move, just let her set the pace. Just let her take control. It was all he could do to watch her ride his cock, her eyes pressed closed and her breasts bouncing.
She must have realized that he wasn’t moving, just watching her, so she stopped and stared down at him. Then, with both hands, she grabbed his shirt in her fists and pulled herself down so that their mouths were almost touching. She whispered, “Fuck me, Ruston. Fuck me hard.”
That was all he needed. Rolling her over so that she was on her back, legs wrapping around him, he started to move—fast. Though his pants were still around his ankles, he wasn’t letting it slow him down, and he wasn’t taking the time to get them off. Her heels pressed into his lower back, and he realized that at some point she had lost her oversized boots.
When she increased the tempo again, he was okay with her setting the speed. Grabbing her hips as he drove into her, he watched her eyes close and her lips part as her breathing became ragged. She was going to come, and he wanted nothing more than to make it happen. Her hands grasped his hips tight enough to leave marks as she came with a rhythmic chant of, “Yes, yes, yes.”
Feeling her walls pulse around him pushed him over the edge, and he came hard. Wave after wave washed through him.
When his body was spent, he collapsed next to her. Breathing heavily, he lay with his eyes closed, but as his heart rate returned to normal, reality started to set in with the beat of the drum from the floor below. He was still at a party, and he had just had sex with Hazel May. Looking back, he wondered how things had that gotten so out of hand. And why was he so happy it had? “What just happened?” She was probably just as shocked as he was.
His words were met with silence, an eerie silence that had a thumping beat. Opening his eyes, he saw the bed was empty. He was alone. Sitting up, he realized the room was also empty.
She was gone.
Her shoes were still there on the floor, but she was gone.
Jumping out of the bed, he pulled up and buttoned his pants. It was only then that he realized he was wearing a condom. He hadn’t even realized she had put one on him. That was how out of control he was—he had forgotten about protection.
Grabbing the shoes, he ran out the door. She wasn’t there. Downstairs, the house was fuller than it had been before they had gone upstairs. He scanned the crowd, but he didn’t see her spiky hair. Pushing past people, he made it to the door but still didn’t see her. She was gone.
If it hadn’t been for the sensations still floating through his body and her shoes in his hand, he would have thought he had imagined the entire thing. She was gone.
Standing in the yard, he watched for her for a few minutes. Maybe she was still in the house? But he didn’t want to go back in there. When she didn’t emerge, he tucked the shoes under his arms and started for his parents’ house.
It was Friday night. Would she be in her pew on Sunday morning? She was gone now, but he knew that she wouldn’t be able to hide from him forever. She was his parishioner.
He had just slept with one of his parishioners at a house party. He should be regretting it but couldn’t bring himself to. Not at all.
CHAPTER2
“What the hell have you done?”Hazel chided herself as she drove out of the city. What was she thinking, having sex with Pastor Ruston? Not just sex, but dirty, fast, hard sex. Damn good sex.
When she decided to go to a party tonight, she had no intention of having sex, just wanted to sing a few songs when the band was on break, then get lost in dancing. For over a year now, she had been following The Swedes Band. They were good, the guitarist was great, and the drummer could actually carry the beat. And when they took breaks, they let her get up and sing—just a few songs, but enough to let her let go and feel something for a moment.
Singing two songs every hour or so was the only way she let go these days; her current life left no room for just being a wild and carefree twenty-three-year-old. She farmed with her grandfather and was a single mother to her John Henry.
So once a month, she drove an hour and a half from Landstad, North Dakota, down the Red River to Grand Forks, North Dakota, and sang her heart out for two songs at a time. She’d leave her son with her grandparents, getting a night of freedom.
But tonight, when she finally had the courage to look up from the guitar to see if anyone was paying attention or if they were just doing their own thing, she had immediately seen him in the crowd. What had drawn her attention to him, she didn’t know. But once she saw him, she couldn’t take her eyes off him. And he was staring at her also.
For the last two years, he had been the one in the spotlight with her in the crowd just watching him work. Well, it wasn’t exactly the same. She sat in a pew with her son on her lap as he talked of God and salvation from the pulpit. He would say the words, but she wasn’t listening; church was not for her. She did it for her grandparents, who were the religious ones. She felt that God had abandoned her long ago.
Had he known who she was right away? He had known by the time she had pulled him onto the dance floor. After one scan of the crowd, she knew it was him. Everybody’s eyes had been on her, some swaying to the music, some just letting the music fall on them.
Most of the time, when she had seen him outside the church around town, he looked just like he had tonight. Except tonight he was in jeans, not dark slacks. The button-up shirt had been the same as he usually wore, though tonight’s was blue, like his eyes. She had seen him around town looking like that, but never at a raging house party full of drunk college kids.
The slightly curly hair was combed to his head in his preacher hairdo. Later, when she had run her fingers through it, she was not ready for it to go so willingly into the loose curls she had seen hints of over the years. Why he worked so hard to get it to lay flat when the curls made him look so sexy, she’d never know.
Groaning at the memory, she pressed the accelerator harder with her bare foot—she had left her shoes behind. She’d had to get away from him—fast. What would she have done if she had stayed? Probably had sex with the man again. He was good.
She turned the radio on loudly in her pale-yellow Volkswagen beetle, trying to drown out the images in her head, but instead, it just brought her back into his arms, head resting on his hard chest. Once she was encircled in his arms, she felt her fear and worry melt away. He would take care of that, his body said as they swayed to the music.
Of course, her stupid move had been to drag him upstairs to the bedroom. Though she hadn’t done something like that since her first few years at college, she wanted to be alone with him. Alone to dance with him without being jostled and bumped into. Just be in his arms and let the music surround them. When they had gotten there, she had been a little sad that she couldn’t hear the singer through the floorboards. So, she sang the words so they could still dance.
Wishing she could blame her actions in that bedroom on alcohol, she knew she could not. As far as she knew, two shots of tequila were not enough to seduce a preacher. And she had tasted no alcohol in his mouth when they kissed. God, he was a good kisser.
Turning the radio down, she pulled out her phone, slid through the contacts, and read the names. She wanted to call someone. Talk to someone. Confess what she had done. But none of the names made her hit the call button. The only numbers that appealed to her were those from the book club, but it was so late at night, she knew the book club would wake up and conference call with her about what happened. Over the last half a year, they had gone from near-strangers to the best friends she had. Or maybe just the only friends she had.