Chapter Eight
The touch of Gideon’s fingers above her elbow was electric. Once she’d turned, he moved his hand to the small of her back and she was having feelings she really shouldn’t be having in a church.
She let him steer her toward a set of doors that led to the outside and was quite mortified when they were crossing the few yards of pavement between the church and the parish center that a strong wind blew up the narrow alley and sent her skirts into a flurry of ruffles around her hips.
Shit. She’d even worn a longer skirt, and a poufy one so she wouldn’t embarrass Gideon.
It was strange, this urge to at once provoke this man but also want to please him and obey when it really mattered. Mostly she liked her partners at Savage to punish her for being a brat. Which…she couldn’t say she didn’t want the stoic Father Gideon to scold her and take her over his knee—she absolutely did—but she also wanted his approval and for him to pet and spoil her.
She’d been trying so hard for the latter this morning, but when her skirt swirled around her in the gusts of wind his expression definitely changed. From one of placid pleasure to a split second’s worth of surprise and then to a simmering predatory. It made her heart skip a beat.
“Plum,” he said into her ear as his hand that had been resting easily on her back moved to grip her waist in a way that made her gasp. “Are you wearing stockings?”
“Y-yes?”
One of her more staid pairs, in fact, but that still meant they were black and had a seam up the back that she’d made sure to get perfectly straight this morning.
“With a garter belt and a thong?”
“Yes?”
She didn’t mean for it to come out as a question but he was scrambling her brain with his whisky voice and the dominant way he sunk his fingers into her flesh to hold her precisely where he wanted her—which was very close to him.
“That doesn’t seem like appropriate attire for church, young lady.”
Fuck. She suspected Gideon was a little older than her, but not by enough that “young lady” would be an accurate description. No, he was playing with her and she fucking loved this game.
They hadn’t negotiated this, but he had this way of making her sink into middle space with just a few words. Yes, she would absolutely bring it up before they played because he should know but she didn’t want to stop it now. She wanted to keep going. And going, and going.
“I-I’m sorry. I did the best I could.”
“That is just not good enough to escape me lighting up your backside for being an impertinent little flirt.”
Oh, God.And also Mother Mary and the baby Jesus and the wise men and the little drummer boy and all that. Had the priest just threatened to spank her? While she was down for it—so totally down for it—she didn’t think in an alley between a church and a church building was the right place for it.
“Is this game okay?” he murmured in her ear.
She nodded, convulsively.
“In that case, we’ll deal with your bad behavior later.”
* * *
Gideon was right. The coffee was decent for drip and there were donuts. The good ones from across town, not from the chain a couple blocks down from Caffeinatrix.
Luckily it seemed to be the fashion to cut them up so one could try a few different flavors. She was nibbling on a slice of what she’d guess was a key lime cream cheese donut that she could readily eat the entirety of when an elderly woman using a walker approached her.
“Oh, excuse me,” Plum said, stepping out of the way so the woman could have full view of the donut options. But the woman didn’t reach for a piece of peach cobbler or a wedge of the decadent classic glazed. No, instead she looked at Plum.
“You’re new here.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“But you’re not new to town. You own the café up the street.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Despite her white hair and thick bifocals, the woman’s eyes belied her shrewdness. “What did you think of the service?”