“Hm.” His gaze moves over me, and I clutch my purse tighter. If I can get to the house, I can hide the phone. But only if I get it past him first.
“Where were you?” I ask.
“Meeting.” He doesn’t sound like himself. Something has him bothered and he’s having a hard time hiding it. The way he’s looking at me feels different. Like he’s trying to glean what is inside me. He searches my face before his gaze lands on my collarbone.
I touch the scar to make sure it’s hidden by my hair.
“A meeting at a social event? Is that the whole reason we came? So you could go to some meeting?” I ask to deflect.
“Why do you come in here?” he asks, glancing around the chapel. “It’s twice now that I find you here.”
I shrug a shoulder, try to dislodge his hand. He eases his grip a little. “My mom used to bring me here when I was little, and she had to clean the compound. It was good money, so she took the jobs, but when my father or brother weren’t home, there was no one to leave me with, so she’d bring me here and tell me to stay put.”
“How little?”
“I don’t know. The first time was my fifth birthday.” I remember because she promised we’d go buy a gift with the money she’d earn.
“She left her five-year-old daughter alone in a church?”
“Unlike you and everyone in this place, we didn’t grow up with money to spare. We couldn’t afford a sitter.”
“Did she think Jesus would babysit?”
I narrow my gaze. “I guess she did, pot.”
“Pot?”
“Pot calling the kettle black. You know the expression? Or do you need me to explain it?”
“How the hell does that apply to me?”
“You leave your daughter to be watched by strangers.”
“I hardly—ah fuck it. I don’t answer to you, Isabelle Bishop.” He sets the folder he’s holding down on the altar and studies me, the look in his eyes stranger than usual.
“What’s going on?” I ask.
Instead of answering he shifts his hand to my shoulder and pushes me to my knees.
Panic rises inside me. I’m not sure if it’s the look on his face or the weight of his hand that scares me more.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
When my knees hit the floor, he shifts his hand to the top of my head. His touch is gentle. At first.
“Why did you tell me about growing up poor?”
“What?”
“Your story. Why did you tell me?”
“You asked.”
He cups the back of my head, then grips a handful of hair and tugs forcing me to look up at him. I drop my clutch to grasp his arm. “Is it so I feel sorry for you?”
“I told you because you asked. That’s all. I don’t want or expect your pity, so keep it.”
“Or is it so I don’t see you as a Bishop?” It’s as if he doesn’t hear me at all. He tightens his grip. I’m not even sure he’s aware he’s doing it.
“You’re hurting me.”
“Answer me.”
“I think you’ll only ever see me as a Bishop.”
“Because that’s what you are.”
“Let go. I mean it.”
“Or what? What will you do, little Isabelle Bishop?”
I don’t answer his taunt. What can I say? There’s nothing I can do. If I scream no one will come. Even if they do, they’ll take one look at us and choose a side. His.
He twists a little harder. “Rumor has it the bastard Reginald Bishop put in Mary St. James’s womb was conceived here. Right in the spot you’re kneeling. A sacrilege to her and to the god you pray to.”
I wrap my other hand around his forearm but it’s useless. I can’t budge him. He crouches down so his face is inches from mine. He watches me as he twists. A tear slides from my eye. He becomes a blur as more follow and I wonder for a minute if he means to do the same to me. To hurt me like my ancestor hurt his.
“Please let go… You’re hurting me.”
He blinks, eyes becoming slits. I wonder what happened in his meeting to bring on this dark mood. He eases his grip on my hair and brings his other hand to my stomach, then lower to cup my sex.
I gasp with surprise, and he just watches me.
“Please,” I manage.
“Please what?” he taunts, fingers working, the only thing between him and me the soft cloud like material of the dress. And it feels good. I hate it, but his touch feels good.
He cups the back of my head while his fingers move over my sex. His eyes burn into mine.
“Please stop or please make you come?” he asks.
“I hate you,” I manage even as I suck in a breath when he kneads my clit.
“But you want me to make you come all the same.”
I should be repelled by his touch. But like the last time I find myself gasping for air. Find my hands not pressing him away but clinging to him, wrapping around his shoulders.
“I’m not like him,” he mutters.
“Who?”
“Reginald Bishop. I’m not like him.”
I try to follow.
“Say my name,” he says like he did last time.
I shake my head but when his fingers move off their mark, I find myself pushing into his hand.
“Say it. Say it when you come.”
Not say it and I’ll make you come. Say it when you come.
I swallow hard. I want this.
He draws me to him, kisses me. I don’t kiss back. I can’t. But I don’t fight the kiss, either. I don’t bite. Because I want to come. I want to come this time.
“I…” I start to say against his mouth, and he just swallows the sound, swallows the words. I don’t even know what they were.
“My name, Isabelle. Say it.”
My dress must be soaked. Everyone will see. Will know. But right now, I don’t care. All I can feel is him, his fingers touching me, on me, inside me, rubbing me and when I can’t take anymore, I lean my head into the crook of his neck and I’m panting, breathing in the scent of him.
“Say it,” he says again, voice hoarse.
I turn my head, press my open mouth to the skin of his neck and taste him, salt and man. When I do, I feel him shudder. But the instant it happens, his hand is in my hair again, tugging me off.
But his fingers keep doing their work, knowing exactly how to touch me. A moment later, I give myself over to it, to the sensation of his hands on me, to the warmth of him, the smell of him. And when I come, I drop my head back and do as he wants. I say his name. I’m not sure he hears it. It’s just a breath. Just the quietest whisper. Because I’ve never felt this way before. Never felt like I would come undone when my own fingers play over my clit.
“Again. Say it again.” His mouth is on my throat, hot and wet.
“Jericho.” I blink, seeing him in a blur of sensation, my body jerking against his hand, fingers digging into his shoulders, the smell of incense all around us. Him all around me.
And as I float back to reality, I remember where we are. Kneeling on the chapel floor.
I remember who I’m with. A man who hates me.
But when I look at him, it’s not that hate I see in his eyes. It’s something else. Something dark and dangerous. An inferno in the depths of those strange, cunning eyes.