No. That was a lie. All of Sara Ruby was dangerous.
What she’d done to him just now was so much better than good. For a few brief seconds, reasoning and morality had left his body in a violent rush; clawed and fought its way back for entrance, hoping to grasp onto sanity and forgiveness.
From the moment Sara’s mouth moved to the other side of his head to do the same torture, he, as a man, felt cold and hot all at once. That never happened before. No woman, not even Beale—Good Lord, not even his wife!—had ever made him want her so badly the teeth ached.
She drew back and whispered against his lips. “Time to run away, Reverend . . . or something might happen in this room that I will not be forced to regret.” She meant he had better do so quickly, else he could be in deep shit in another few seconds if he dared stay as close as he was to her.
Christian gave Sara a sin-filled smile. The words, “Do I look like I want to run?” sealed the deal, far more than pulling her into his arms and finding her waiting mouth.
He’d been dying over the better part of ten long minutes to see exactly how much it would take for him to become senseless.
Chapter Fifteen
Guilt. It was the worst possible feeling known to man.
Nevertheless, guilt shook his soul from the moment he forced his muscles to take a step back from her . . . and then told her “No”.
Christian felt so damn guilty that it ate at his soul, piece by bitterly agonizing piece. He hated such a damning feeling. More so, he hated to put the look of regret in her eyes, knowing it had been done on purpose. She was, after all, quite right. If they had sex, easy access to an empty bed and the availability to look the other way, it would be a terrible mistake on both their parts.
Sara was incredibly vulnerable. She needed comfort and reassurance that life was still good. As a Reverend—Good God, as simply a friend to her—he could’ve easily gave her everything she would ever want. But he could not and should not lower his convictions, though he certainly desired to do so.
If he had sex with this woman, those convictions would be meaningless. Sara would expect more than it being done for the simple pleasure of touch. And Christian was unprepared to give her more than already offered until he could somehow settle his heart with the regrets of his past.
Beale had hurt him in the worst possible way. His dead wife had an affair with a man Christian, since childhood, had called his best friend. She’d been pregnant with that man’s child from the affair. Betrayal on a scale as grandiose as that was harsh; too harsh and too disturbing for a man to dissipate from his thoughts by the simple wave of a hand.
He never figured betrayal from his best friend would ever happen. Then again, he certainly should have expected it, knowing very little of Beale before marrying her.
She’d been love at first site. No, correction, she’d been lust at first sight. The love part never quite reached the plateau that it was supposed to.
Christian had been a total mess at the time. He was just starting in town as the new Reverend. He didn’t have time for Beale, and when he had, he drank that time away, purposefully avoiding what he hated to look at in the mirror.
Younger, foolish, Beale’s cunning skills had drawn him in.
The moment Beale died, Christian felt the guilt of Adam hit him so hard that it staggered him for days. He’d been glad his wife died. Her death gave him the freedom he desired for so long.
However, that freedom came at too high a price.
The questions, the answers he’d been unwilling to give, they all ripped him into shreds, leaving an empty shell of a man.
Sara Ruby was not Beale. No. She was so much better than a man’s lust. Yet, with Sara, Christian’s guilt was derived from a whole other source; the devil himself the cause for it. Surely only the devil would want a good and decent man to throw himself at a woman so unworthy that it made the teeth ache.
Surely only the devil would keep a man’s lust at an all-time high; painful and unbearable between the legs.
Only the devil then able to put so much dire temptation at his fingertips—and Christian unable to do anything about it.
Well, he wanted nothing to do with the devil’s wish today. In this room, inside this house, within his heart, knowing that heart already taken . . . God was in command.
And God wanted Reverend Mohr to remember His Commandments. He wanted Christian to behave as Reverend Christian Mohr.
He was supposed to protect the innocent with righteous prayers and good deeds, not make love to a woman who so vulnerable and not his to have. Worst still, not his wedded wife. Just looking in her soulful eyes, he knew Sara did not feel as he did. He could tell—purely by her actions and words—she would do what she could to fight against him on this.
God had made Eve for a reason. Check Adam when the ego too large and the need too great. Sara Ruby was just another Eve. She wouldn’t understand; nor dared she even try to understand what was going through his head. She made him want her in the worst possible way, and this want would have disastrous complications if left free reign.
Guilt was far too bitter of pill to swallow for any man. A razor-edged pill laced by feminine wildfire? Well, that was a truly dangerous medicine to a man’s soul.
He took another step out of her arms, then another, until he was very near the bedroom door and ready to bolt.
Sara was staring at him. Hard. The penetration of her eyes checked his words. She didn’t have to say what was on her mind. He could see exactly what this was through the mutiny in her eyes.
“I’m sorry, Sara,” he told her.
As she stepped forward, Christian took another large step back, holding up his hand. “This can’t happen. I know this is what both of us want. But right now, it is not what you need.”
She quickly voiced an opposite opinion toward this. “And how would you even know what I want or need, Reverend?”
He gave a suddenly angered woman a weary smile. “It is the same need as I have, Sara—only far stronger, and much more convincing to the flesh.”
Apparently, this was the first time she’d ever shut down by a man she’d literally thrown herself at.
“Then why are you leaving me if your need is as great as mine?”
“Because . . . if I do not leave this bedroom within the next two seconds, I will never leave. And life for the both of us would have harsh answers to be made to those asking far too many questions about it. I, for one, don’t want to make excuses to how I feel about you.”
“I say . . . let them ask,” she said quick, trying quite valiantly to change his mind and have him stay with her.
Only Christian’s mind was set firm on escape. He wanted her. Of course, he did. The woman was smokin` hot. Nevertheless, he could not have her. Her flesh could not be his. Her touch was not to be his. Her heavenly kisses were not to be his—at the very least, not supposed to be his.
Sara Ruby was a sin of the very worst kind. A man’s unquenched thirst set near a dry well.
Christian had thought he could control that thirst and the undeniable desire he had for her. That moment passed. Control was slipping steadfastly away. All he had to do was look into her eyes and his mouth watered, wanting more.
They barely knew each other. Sara lost everything by fire. To take her in his arms, and then to bed, would’ve been wrong on his part. We would be using her—nothing less, nothing more.
Until gave the chance to figure her out, he was going to leave things as they are. He knew now he should never have pushed her by so many kisses and so great of want spoken aloud, but he was only mortal man and sin his only vice.
The moment he’d stepped foot inside the comforting warmth of his church earlier today, felt the presence of God surrounding him in a way that could not be stopped or explained, and he delivered Harriet Thorn those prayer books with more than accurate advice he need watch his step in Preacher’s Bend, Christian was ever so gently reminded who and what he was.
As a Man of the Clo
th, he had an unwed woman inside his house, and she wanted him as much as Eve had likely desired to have Adam in her grasp. This need, that desire, the incredible lust had to simmer for now. As Sara had said . . . before something terrible happens neither would regret.
****
Sara could not imagine a harder slap to the face than the one given her by Christian handing her a hard stare, then walking away and out of the bedroom in mute.
She felt the slap as if physical—a plunged knife straight through the heart.
Taught always to face pain head on, and quite experienced in the rejection department, she knew she had to leave things as they were. But the pain grew to where she could barely breathe, so she followed his hasty escape, intent on altering the future.
Unfortunately, she could not find him until nearly five minutes of futile search throughout the house. He’d simply vanished, or perhaps had been hiding from her.
It wasn’t until she noticed the back door stood open that she found him. Christian had gone outside and was seated on a stone bench in his back yard, staring off into the dark woods directly behind the house.
Her footsteps brought her close, but she stayed far enough behind him so as not to disturb him from his thoughts. His hands were clasped in prayer and the Reverend talking to someone; likely, that someone his God. Not hers.
When done, he said loudly, “You can come closer, Sara. God won’t turn you into a pillar of salt for being nearer to me.”
His body faced to the woods his tease didn’t quite achieve its intended target. For a brief moment, Sara wasn’t quite so certain God would look the other way, or not turn her into a pillar of salt. She certainly deserved to be for what she’d done and said to Christian back inside the house. She’d practically begged him to stay with her.
The guilt toward it, and the shame of her past brought to her heart, caused her forward footsteps to be timid and filled with wrought. Yet if she stayed mute, it would only eat her alive as to what was running inside his head. Without told, she would never be able to guess his intentions, or even put answer to her own.
Christian slid over on the bench to make room for her. When she sat, he took her hand in his and held onto it for dear life.
He started first. “I’m sorry I just walked away as I had. Nevertheless, we both know that if I hadn’t, things would have gotten well out of hand. And neither of us, I feel, is ready for that.”
Sara nodded, giving his fingers a gentle squeeze. “I’m sorry, as well. I’m so lost right now that I pushed you to hard. I’m scared. I have someone out to get me, someone who already took so much from me. And I nearly . . . Well, I should’ve pushed you away, not begged you closer. My only excuse is my fear.”
Christian’s blue eyes trapped hers. “Sara . . .”
“Yes?”
He then leaned to her and gave her a sweet, exquisitely gentle kiss. As he pulled back, he said, “Please forgive me, but I had to do that.”
Her answering smile produced more out of him.
“If I had left things as they stood, the guilt would have been far worse. I had to kiss you right now. In fact, I have to touch you to make this real.”
“I . . . ,” she started, unable to finish the sentence because his lips had found hers again, and this time Christian did not pull away. His hand slipped around her back and strong muscle in his arm drew her closer to him.
He’d left her breathless.
“I can forgive you,” she whispered against his mouth. “But can you forgive yourself, Reverend?”
He gave her an easy smile that said the answer to this was a definite ‘no’.
He couldn’t forgive his actions. Perhaps why he’d been out here, asking God to do it for him. Regrettably, God must have left it up to Christian to choose, because it wasn’t long before she found her body pulled from the bench and they started walking toward the woods, hand in hand. Dusk settling around the back yard, drawing deep shadows across the lawn, fairly soon it would be too dark to see even a few feet in front of her.
With hope, Christian knew where he was going and for what purpose once there, because she certainly had no clue to why they were headed toward the deep unknown. Yet she trusted this man as no other. She would trust him with her life.
“I want to show you something,” he said.
“And you can’t show me this when we’re in better light?”
“No. You need to see this now,” he determined.
He physically dragged her across the back yard. They had to step over and duck under deep underbrush and scattered limbs on the outskirts of the woods to gain entrance to a stone path. Once nearly one hundred yards into thick bramble woods, Christian looked to have found what would lead him and her toward a place he had in mind. They walked this second path until it came upon a small stream.
Sara never even knew Preacher’s Bend had such a small stream. The town was named after a crook in the river, where two hundred years ago an old Preacher lived. Nevertheless, the flowing water was there, dead center in the middle of Reverend Mohr’s back yard.
On the opposite side of the stream was a headstone made out of dark marble. A little wooden bridge crossed the stream to an angel statuette looked to be guiding the remaining way.
One could be buried anywhere as long as record of its location kept at the courthouse and clearly marked as a gravesite, but Sara hadn’t put thought there’d be a grave in this man’s back yard. She had no idea whose grave it was until she was told to go first over the bridge.
Sara hesitated, yet knew in her heart nothing bad would happen to her when she with this man. She crossed the bridge, stood on opposite side of the stream, and waited for Christian to join her. Once his feet touched her side of the stream he started walking them toward the headstone.
As it got darker and darker within the eerily silent woods, Sara could barely make out the name inscribed in the marble.
“It says Beale,” he quietly informed her. “And it is a constant reminder to what I can’t have right now.”
Sara couldn’t quite grasp where this turn in conversation was headed, or the reason he was showing her a gravesite, until he added more depth to the mystery and kept the words flowing, starting to unravel his past, thread by devastating thread.
“My wife was pregnant with another man’s child the day she died.” He took a deep breath, held it, then finished on a catch.
“Sara . . . I was glad Beale died. Her death solved so many . . . God help me, it solved all of my problems in one fell swoop. Her affair, another man’s child, and my alcoholism could then be hidden.”
Christian turned to her and by the rising moonlight and fading day the darkness of dusk made the tears in his eyes visible. She even felt those tears as if they her own. She took his hand in hers and held onto him. It was the least she could do. As well, all she could do at this point.
“I told Beale the day she died I wanted a divorce. And do you know what she said to me?” A strange chuckle came out of him.
Sara shook her head. Quite obviously, she had no idea what it was his wife had said to him.
He snorted loudly before continuing. “She told me to go to Hell. Me. Can you believe that? Reverend Christian Mohr was to go to Hell. And do you know what I said back to her? I’ll tell you, Sara. I told my wife that I had it all set with the Big Guy, and couldn’t possibly go anywhere but up, floating there by gilded wings.”
Sara knew he did not want interruptions so she gave his hand a gentle squeeze to ease his obvious pain.
Christian closed his eyes and he turned from her to say the rest. The words practically wrenched from his lips. “My God, Sara, when I have you in my arms and you kiss me back how can I possibly forget what I did to a woman who never deserved to die because of my hatred and shame?”
Sara’s voice came out as a mere whisper. “Why did you bring me here?” She needed him to explain the reason. She wasn’t going to guess.
He looked her square in the eyes. “To prove to you I
am not as worthy as you think, or even worthy of you, and that I am indeed human with the same capacity of guilt and hurt as any other man.”
Not worthy to have her? If anyone was not worthy, it was Sara. She’d been told time and time again how worthless she was. From foster home to foster home, throughout a very flawed system, even while an adult and capable of changing this unworthiness.
“Shouldn’t it be my choice who is worthy to me?” she asked.
Christian shook his head to deny that it was. “No, Sara. It should be God’s choice. And since he very clearly has filled my heart with shame, at this point in time I suspect I had better listen to Him or find myself on His bad side for another of many times.”
Sara placed her hand to his face. Christian leaned his head into it, then turned to give her palm a chaste kiss. Seconds later, he grasped her hand firmly into his and pulled her as close as she could possibly get to any man.
His chin put to the top of her head he rasped out, “Why is He doing this to me? Why, Sara?” The words filled with anguish and vital need the moment he added, “Why do I no longer want to listen to my God?”
Sara tipped her face up and as gently as she could she answered this. “Do not stop listening to God, Christian. That would only make this so much worse.”
What she was really trying to say, without having said it aloud, was that it would only make to two of them being together more of a sin in the eyes of others. If he stopped listening to God, he would then stop caring about who he was, and Sara didn’t want such a heavy responsibility or burden placed upon her shoulders. She didn’t want to be the cause a good and decent man stopped caring.
Christian closed his eyes. He reopened them when Sara dragged in a deep and unsettled breath.
“Isn’t He doing this to the both of us?” he asked, mere seconds before their lips met and another kiss became almost unstoppable.
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