It wasn’t that the guilt had disappeared, however. I zigzagged from fantasy to recrimination, punishing myself with more runs, more pushups, more chores around the church, spending hours in prayer searching for an answer.

Why would God bring Poppy here if I wasn’t supposed to fall in love with her?

Was it truly so terrible for a man of God to have sex? The Protestants had been doing it for half a millennium and they seemed no more hell-bound than the Catholics for it.

And was it so wrong to want both? I wanted to lead this church, I wanted to help people find God. But dammit, I wanted Poppy too, and I didn’t think it was fair that I had to choose.

God didn’t answer. Whatever magic had been lingering in the sanctuary these past couple weeks hid itself from me, and in a way, that was its own answer.

I was meant to figure this out on my own.

I was as restless as a caged animal on Thursday.

I tried watching Netflix, I tried reading. My house was already perfectly clean, my lawn mowed. The only thing I could focus on was Poppy. On seeing her tonight.

And finally, I gave up and went to my room. I sat in the chair by my bed and unzipped my jeans. I had been in a state of semi-hardness all day, and just the thought of jacking off—something I’d mostly denied myself for the past three years—was enough to get me all the way there. I gave myself a couple of pulls until my cock was pointing straight up, remembering how it felt to have Poppy’s wet cunt pressing against me. I leaned back, my jaw tight, finally giving up and reaching for my phone.

She picked up on the second ring. “Hello?” That voice. It was even huskier on the phone. I wrapped my hand around my dick and slowly stroked myself.

“Where are you?”

“I’m at the club.” I could hear her moving around, as if she were walking into a more private place to talk. “But I’m almost done. What’s going on?”

I hesitated. God, this was so fucking crass, but I wanted her voice in my ear as I did this. “I’m hard, Poppy. I’m so fucking hard that I can’t think straight.”

“Oh,” she said. And then, her voice filled with understanding, “Oh, Tyler, are you—”

“Yes.”

“How?” she said, and I could hear her moving again and then I heard a door close shut. “Where?”

“I’m in my room. My jeans are pulled down.”

“Are your legs splayed? Are you leaning back or sitting up?” Her questions were laced with want, with hunger. It made me grip myself harder.

“I’m leaning back. Yes, my legs are wide. It makes me think of when you knelt between them and sucked me off.”

“I want to do it again,” she purred, and somehow I knew that she was touching herself too. “I want to lick you from base to tip. I want to suck you in deep.”

“I want that too.”

“Are you using your whole hand or just your fingers?”

“My whole hand,” I said, and I was jerking myself in earnest now, wanting her to be here so badly.

“Hold on,” she said, and there were a few seconds of silence. Then my phone buzzed. “You have a text,” she said silkily.

I held my phone away from my face and nearly passed out. She’d sent me a picture of her fingers buried in her cunt. “You’re so fucking dirty,” I said. And then another one came through, this one angled so that I could see her black high heel braced against the edge of a desk.

Holy shit.

“I can hear you now,” she said. “I can hear your hand moving over your cock. God, I wish I could see it.”

“I wish you could too,” I said, and I managed to pull up the camera on my phone and turn on the video, all with one hand because no way was I slowing down now.

“I’m so wet,” she confided. “I’m making a mess. I’m in my boss’s office right now—mmm—it’s all so slippery and I wish it was your cock instead of my fingers, I wish it so much. I wore these heels today knowing I’d be digging them into your back later.”

I kept the image of her heels and that perfect cunt in my mind as I let her words work their magic. My climax jolted through me and I thrust up into my hand, groaning loudly as come jetted out of my dick, exhaling a muttered fuck as the orgasm slowly backed down.

“I love hearing you,” came her voice from the earpiece. “Your noises. I thought about them last night in my hotel room while I played with myself.”

“Naughty girl.” I sent her the video. “Now it’s your turn to check your messages.”

There was a pause and then I could hear the unmistakable sound of myself jacking off as she played the video, hear my groan echoing in her boss’s office. “Oh God,” she whispered, and it was clear I was on speaker now. “Fuck, Tyler. That’s so—if I were there, I would lick every last drop off you.”

“If you were here, it all would have gone in your tight little cunt,” I growled.

“Jesus,” she moaned. And then, “Yes,” which was followed by breathy little gasps that made my cock stir back to life. And finally silence, punctuated with a loud sigh and the chair squeaking as she sat up.

I heard the click as I came off speaker. “Tyler?”

“Yes?”

The smile was apparent in her voice. “Feel free to call me any time.”

Somehow, I managed to make it through the rest of the day, running until I couldn’t think, half-heartedly piecing together stuff for Bishop Bove’s panel proposal while I impatiently watched the clock (and tamped down guilt as I gathered notes about sexual sin.)

Around seven in the evening, my phone buzzed.

I’m home. Do you want me to come to the rectory?

I responded right away. I’ll meet you at the church.

Thursday night was the one night a week without any activities, groups or Bible studies going on, so the church was empty. It was still early enough in the evening to be light out, and I wanted the plausible excuse of counseling or budget stuff in case someone saw her walking into the church. Her coming to the rectory alone at night would be a little harder to defend.

I slipped in the back door and practically jogged down the hallway to the narthex, where the front doors were locked. I turned the bolt and opened the door, and there was Poppy in a short red dress and black high heels, lips red and ready for me.

I had wanted to be gentle at first, to share more of those deep sweet kisses that left us dizzy and stunned, but that dress and those heels…

Screw gentle.

I grabbed her wrist and pulled her inside, barely taking the time to lock the door before I pushed her against it and slanted my mouth over hers. I slid my hands under her ass and lifted her so that she was truly pinned between the wood and my pelvis, which I rocked against her as we kissed.

And that was when I discovered she wasn’t wearing underwear.

“Poppy,” I said, breaking our kiss to move a hand down between us. “What’s this?”

“I told you,” she said, trying to catch her breath. “You made me messy today. I had to take them off.”

“So you spent the rest of the afternoon bare?”

She nodded, biting her lip.

I pulled away from the wall, still holding her, and carried her into the sanctuary, using my back to push open the door. She wrapped her legs around my waist, and it was so natural, so right, to have her in my arms that I never wanted to put her down.

“Am I in trouble?” she asked, a bit coyly.

“Yes,” I growled, nipping at her neck. “Lots of trouble. But first, I’m going to bend you over and see exactly how bad you’ve been.”

My plan had been to take her into my office, but I couldn’t wait the five minutes it would take to walk back there; I was barely able to keep myself from unzipping my jeans and thrusting up into her right there and then. I could bend her over a pew, but I wanted her to be able to brace and balance herself. The piano was across the sanctuary, but the altar…the church’s sacred stone table was only a couple of steps away.