Hot Under His Collar - Andie J. Christopher Page 0,77
never, ever allow herself to touch him again, and the bad seed inside her—the one that had grown into an entire Venus flytrap just waiting to pull him in—needed to savor this last contact.
She breathed him in, the scent of incense mingling with the old-fashioned way he smelled. If she was never going to have him again, she needed to have him in her mind forever. If she was going to shut the door on what was between them, forever and ever, she was going to really milk her sacrifice for all it was worth.
“Thank you.” That was the last thing she was expecting him to say. All these men in her life that she didn’t want or couldn’t have were out here surprising her. They had to stop doing that.
She dropped her hand, and they both looked forward. “No problem.”
“What are you doing here?” He didn’t sound angry or accusatory, but the words hit her like bullets to the heart all the same. Confusing, confounding man whom she understood perfectly all the same. He was hers in this way, and she would hoard that understanding all her life even if she couldn’t touch him, smell him, even hold him for one night.
That thought filled her eyes with tears, and she looked down to her hands to try to blink them away. “I think it’s best if I don’t—don’t see you again.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she took in the way that Patrick’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. He didn’t like what she’d just said, but he wasn’t going to contradict her. “Why?”
She shouldn’t tell him how she felt about him, and it was time to do the right thing. “They need you.”
“More than you?”
Her need for him was bottomless and without end. But he couldn’t know that. He needed to be of service, to be a conduit for God. He needed more than just her—her small life, the parties, and the perfect place settings. It was her turn to nod. Only she hoped he wasn’t noticing how weak her resolve was.
She tried to pull herself together. It wouldn’t do for him to know how difficult this was for her. He would give his whole life up to make it so that she was okay. He wanted her now because she’d tempted him. She was Jezebel, but she had enough of a soul left to stop herself from causing him to fall.
She loved him too much to see him fall. Still, she couldn’t actually say the words. “I think we’re all set for the carnival next weekend.”
Sasha could feel his incredulity without looking at his face. “That’s what you came here to say?”
“What else would I be here to say?” Willful ignorance was one of the only tools in the Finerghty toolbox that she hadn’t used with him. She’d always had a sneaking suspicion that he wouldn’t let her get away with it. But she risked looking at him now, risked him seeing right through her. “There’s nothing else I can say.”
She choked on the words, desperately hoping that he would really understand. He stared at her for a long moment, and then looked down at his hands. She didn’t risk that. If she let herself linger on the memories of him touching her, the ones she’d have to hoard forever, she wouldn’t be able to leave. And she had to leave.
He let her off the hook with one word. “Okay.”
Her heart was broken as she stood on shaky legs and walked out of the church. She’d never be able to come back.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
PATRICK USUALLY DIDN’T DRINK much while he was working behind the bar at Dooley’s. His dad didn’t have a rule about it, but it was more of an understanding. Tonight, he was pretty sure that his dad would comprehend his pain and why he wasn’t just having a beer while keeping watch over the nearly empty bar.
He also didn’t usually wear his collar while working. He only had to wear the collar when he was in public in his official capacity. Tonight, he was afraid that he would forget why he couldn’t go after Sasha if he wore street clothes. There would be nothing keeping him from closing up and going to her, leaving it all behind.
When he’d become a priest, he’d thought he’d never get dumped or rejected in love again. He’d thought it was impossible. But nothing was going to shield him from the intensity of this heartbreak—not his vows to the