What? No! I had been one class short of a Women’s Studies minor in college! “I—”

She took another step forward. Only the mop bucket was in between us now, but the bucket couldn’t stop me from noticing the elegant curve of her collarbone under her sundress, the faintest suggestion of cleavage before the bodice began.

“I want to be a good person, but more than that, I want to be a good woman. Is there no way to be both completely woman and completely good?”

Shit. This conversation had gone from taxes to the darkest corners of Catholic theology. “Of course, there is, Poppy, to the extent that anyone can be completely good,” I said. “Forget the Eve and the apple stuff right now. See yourself as I see you—an openly loved daughter of God.”

“I guess I don’t feel so loved.”

“Look at me.”

She did.

“You are loved,” I said firmly. “Smart, attractive woman that you are—every part of you, good and bad, is loved. And please ignore me if I fuck up and make you feel any differently, okay?”

She snorted at my swearing and then gave me a rueful grin. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I didn’t mean to corner you like that.”

“You didn’t corner me. Really, I’m the one who’s sorry.”

She took a step back, like she was physically hesitating about telling me what she was about to say. Finally she said, “Sterling called me last night. I think…I guess I maybe let it fuck with my head.”

“Sterling called you?” I asked, feeling an irritation that was way beyond the scope of professional concern.

“I didn’t answer, but he left a voicemail. I should have deleted it, but I didn’t…” She trailed off. “He repeated all those things he’d said before—about the kind of woman I am, where I was meant to be. He said he’s coming for me again.”

“He’s coming for you? He said that?”

She nodded and red rage danced at the edge of my vision.

Poppy evidently saw this, because she laughed and put her fingers over mine, where they’d been gripping the mop handle so tightly that my knuckles had turned white. “Relax, Father. He’ll come here, try to woo me with more stories about vacations and vintage wine and I’ll reject him. Again.”

Again…so like last time? Where you let him make you come before you made him leave?

“I don’t like this,” I said, and I said it not as a priest or a friend but as the man who had tasted her just one flight of stairs away from here. “I don’t want you to meet with him.”

Her smile stayed but her eyes changed into cold shards of green and brown. I suddenly appreciated what a weapon she would have made in a boardroom or on the arm of a senator. “Honestly? I don’t think it’s any of your business if I do meet with him or not.”

“He’s dangerous, Poppy.”

“You don’t even know him,” she said, removing her hand from mine.

“But I know how dangerous a man can be when he wants a woman he can’t have.”

“Like you?” she said, and the mark was so ruthlessly and perfectly aimed that I nearly staggered back.

The weight of the overtones collapsed onto us like a rotten ceiling—Poppy and Sterling, yes, but Poppy and me, my childhood priest and Lizzy.

Men wanting what they shouldn’t: the story of my life.

Without another word, Poppy turned and left, her strappy sandals clacking on the stairs. I forced myself to take several deep breaths and try to figure out what the fuck had just happened.

Knock.

Knock.

Pause.

Knock knock knock.

“Stop,” I muttered, rolling out of bed, sleep making me slow and fumbling. “I’m coming, I’m coming.”

Knock knock BOOM.

The deafening thunder and preceding flash of light did nothing to alleviate my disorientation, and I stumbled into the table, the sharp corner burrowing into my hip. I swore, blindly reaching for a t-shirt (I was only in a loose pair of sweatpants) and groped my way down the hall to the living room where the front door was. I was just awake enough that I was beginning to register that someone really was at my door at three in the morning, and it was either a police officer coming to tell me that Ryan had finally rammed his car into a tree while texting or one of the parishioners needing last rites. Whatever reason they had for coming to the rectory, it probably wasn’t good, and I steeled myself for tragedy as I opened the door, awkwardly also trying to tug my t-shirt over my head.

It was Poppy, rain-soaked with a bottle of Scotch in her hand.

I blinked like an idiot. For one thing, after our fight this morning, the literal last thing I expected was Poppy at my door in the middle of the night bearing gifts. For another, she was wearing what I assumed were her pajamas—a pair of dancing shorts and a thin Walking Dead t-shirt—and the rain had thoroughly wetted both. She wasn’t wearing a bra and the rain had made her thin shirt almost transparent, her nipples dark and hard under the fabric, and once I noticed that, it was hard to think about anything else than those wet breasts, probably pebbled with goose bumps, and how that cool flesh would feel against my hot tongue.

And then I came back to myself and for a terrible moment, I warred between two impulses: shutting her out into the rain or shoving her to her knees and making her swallow my cock.

Flee the temptations of youth, we’d read at the Bible study earlier tonight. Pursue righteousness. I should shut the door and go back to bed. But then Poppy shivered, and a lifetime of respect and politeness intervened. I found myself stepping back and gesturing for her to come inside.

Pursue righteousness, the author of Timothy said. But did righteousness carry a bottle of Macallan 12 in her hand? Because Poppy did.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she said, stepping into the living room and then turning around to face me.

I shut the door. “I gathered.” My voice was gravelly from sleep and something less innocent. Predictably, my dick started to swell; despite everything that had happened, I hadn’t seen her breasts yet, and they were more tempting than ever under that wet shirt.

Fuck. I didn’t mean yet. I meant never. I was never going to see her breasts. Accept it, I mentally chastised my groin, which refused to heel, and instead kept sending these painfully vivid sense memories back to my brain, like how it had felt to grope Poppy’s tits when she was bent over the church piano.

Her eyes dropped to my hips, and I knew my sweatpants were not doing a very good job hiding my thoughts. Clearing my throat, I turned away from her to walk over to the kitchen. “I didn’t know you liked The Walking Dead,” I mentioned lightly, sliding my hand over the switch. A pale yellow glow wafted from the postwar-era light fixture, casting angled shadows into the living room.

“It’s my favorite show,” Poppy said. “But I don’t know why you act surprised that you didn’t know. We haven’t known each other that long, and most of our conversations have involved me telling you my darkest secrets—not what’s on my Netflix queue.”

She had come up to me and extended the bottle of Scotch, which I took, moving into the kitchen to search for glasses, trying to piece together a response—any response—but I literally couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

“It’s a peace offering,” she said, nodding towards the Macallan. “I couldn’t sleep and I wanted to say I’m sorry for our fight today and I thought maybe whisky...” She took a deep breath and for the first time, my still sleep-fogged brain realized that she was nervous. “I’m so sorry for waking you up,” she said quietly. “I should go.”

“Don’t,” I said automatically, my mouth operating on instinct before my mind could catch up. A gratifying flush spread up her cheeks, and something clicked in my mind, and now I was fully and completely awake. “Go to the living room,” I said—not asked. “Turn on the gas fireplace and sit on the hearth. Wait for me.”