“What did you go to school for, Father Bell?” she asked, still scrolling, pausing to click every few seconds.

“Before my mDiv? Classical languages. Si vis amari, ama.”

“I’m guessing they didn’t teach you a lot about spreadsheet formulas in Latin class.”

“I was usually busy in the other kind of sheets.” I’d meant it as a lighthearted quip, but it came out lower than I’d intended, more intense. It came out like a warning.

No. It came out like a promise.

Her hazel eyes flashed up to mine, and she drew in a breath when she saw my face.

Fuck, what was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I keep any interaction with her normal and well away from implications of sex? “You were saying about the formulas?”

“Um, right.” Her eyes flicked back to the screen, and she swallowed. Her smooth throat moved with the motion, and I wanted that throat arched up in offering to me.

I wanted that whole body arched up in offering to me.

“Doesn’t the church have real book-keeping software?” she asked, stopping to fix a row of data that I’d accidentally cloned.

“Yes, our office manager does, but I don’t know how to use it.”

“So you can quote Seneca but you can’t use Quicken.”

“You knew that was Seneca?” I smiled despite myself. I didn’t meet very many people who even knew who Seneca was, much less who were able to recognize a quote from one of his letters.

“My parents paid a lot of money when I was a girl to make sure I knew all sorts of useless things.”

“You think it’s useless? Non scholae sed vitae. ‘We learn not for school, but for life.’”

“But si vis amari, ama? ‘If you wish to be loved, love?’ I tried that once. It didn’t work out so well.” Her voice was bitter.

I put my hand on her wrist. It was pure instinct, to comfort someone who was hurting, but I hadn’t counted on the heat rippling up from her hand, on the way that my touch would send goose bumps crawling up her arm. I hadn’t counted on how perfect her delicate wrist would feel with my fingers wrapped around it, as if God had made it for the sole purpose of me holding.

I should let go. I should apologize.

But I couldn’t. And I couldn’t stop myself from saying, “Maybe you loved the wrong person.”

Because who wouldn’t love this gorgeous creature? This over-educated, over-sexed woman who oozed intelligence and sensuality? This woman of white skin and red lips and a brain built for running financial empires?

She met my gaze again. “Maybe you’re right,” she whispered.

We stayed like that a moment, our eyes locked, my hand gripping her wrist, and then—may I be forgiven—I slowly ran a thumb along the underside of her wrist, a motion that nobody could see, but that she definitely felt because she took in a shuddering breath.

Fuck, she was so smooth, her skin so silky. I wanted to kiss that part of her wrist, press my lips against her pulse point, right before I tied a rope around it. In fact, I got as far as lifting her wrist off the table before the hissing of the espresso machine brought me back to my senses.

What the fuck was I doing?

I let go of her hand and shut the laptop closed, standing abruptly. “Sorry. It’s none of my business.”

“You’re a spiritual advisor,” she said, peering up at me. “Isn’t everything your business?”

I was too busy pushing my stuff into my laptop bag to answer, desperate to leave, trying to convince myself that it was okay, it was fine, I had just comforted her, I had basically done nothing more than hold her hand, which I wouldn’t think twice about doing with any other parishioner.

It was fine.

But when I turned around, Poppy was standing next to me with her own bag all packed up. “Can I walk with you back to the church?” she asked. “My house is on the same block.”

Of course it was.

“Sure,” I said, hoping I sounded normal and not like a priest trying to fight an erection in public. “No problem.”

We stepped out into the heavy May heat, crossing the street. The silence between us felt odd, laden with whatever strange moment had just happened, and so I spoke, trying to stave off the fantasies that continued to crowd at the edge of my mind.

“How long have you lived here?”

“Not long,” she said. “I just closed on the house two weeks ago, actually. Once the owner of the club I worked at found out I had an MBA and a lot of experience, he asked me to come on board as a marketing and financial consultant, which I could do remotely and which pays—well, it pays a lot. And then last month, when he found me…”

Her voice broke and she squinted at the sidewalk, as if examining something. I wasn’t sure exactly what had upset her, but I gave her a moment to collect herself.

We walked several feet before she continued. “So now I make good money, working for a nice guy, and I have the freedom of starting over in a sweet little town. It’s what I had wanted before Sterling came to the club.”

Sterling. I recognized that name from our conversation about her past, and damn it all if it didn’t trigger a ridiculous spike of jealousy, as if there were any universe in which I’d be allowed to feel possessive of Poppy Danforth.

We reached the church.

“It was nice to run into you, Father,” she said with another one of those small smiles, making as if to keep walking.

“Which one is your house?” I was stalling. I knew I was, but I couldn’t help it. I needed just one more glimpse of those red lips, one more word in that breathy voice.

“That one.” She pointed to a house across the park, a snug bungalow with a large tree in the front yard and an overgrown garden in back. I would be able to see it from the rectory. I would be able to see if her lights were on, if her car was in the driveway, if she was moving through her kitchen early in the morning making her coffee.

That didn’t seem like it would be a very healthy opportunity for me to have.

“Well, if you need any help moving furniture around or anything…”

Shit. Why did I offer that? As if being alone with her, in her house, was a great thing for me to do.

But then her face lit up and my stomach constricted at the sight. Because she was beautiful all the time, but happy? Happy, she was fucking radiant.

“That would be amazing,” she said. “I don’t know anybody here and my friends in the city are all so far away…yes, I will definitely let you know if I need help.”

“Okay,” I said, still captivated by her smile and her suddenly lively eyes. “Any time.”

She leaned forward, pushing up on her toes, and I had no idea what she was doing until I felt her soft lips press against my cheek. I froze, every detail, every sensation etching itself into my soul, imprinting itself while she imprinted my skin with her crimson lipstick.

“Thank you,” she murmured, her words and her breath near my ear, and then she bit her lip and turned away, walking towards her house.

And I went inside the rectory for another twenty-minute cold shower.

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t both dreading and looking forward to Monday’s confession hours with equal measure. I’d spent Mass on Sunday searching the pews for Poppy, and when I didn’t see her, a brief balloon of hope and despair had risen in my mind. Maybe she was gone, maybe her brief flirtation with religion had flamed out, and maybe this un-winnable test of my self-control was over.

Maybe she was done with me, I would think, and the balloon would fill with relief.

Maybe she was done with me, I would think again, and this time the balloon held only pain.

And so when Rowan finally left the booth that Monday and someone else slipped inside, the balloon burst with a vengeance, and my pulse began to race (with trepidation or arousal, I didn’t know.)