Page 75 of Deliver Me

“You could come and chase her away,” Mia mumbled. She wanted to argue the point, but she knew he was right. However much her father wanted to give the woman another chance, Mrs. Newberry made the rest of them miserable every chance she got. Maybe it was time they started thinking about the implications of that.

“I’m sorry.” He shuddered, his body rocking with the force of it. “I know I’m failing you.”

“You aren’t.” Maybe it would have been easier if he’d shown up and glared at Mrs. Newberry until she ran right out the front door, but was it really his battle to fight? “But even if you were failing me, you wouldn’t be the first person or the last. What if I fail you? What if we fail each other and we keep going anyway because we’re too stubborn to quit?”

“That does sound like us.” He reached for her, tugging her into his arms and resting his chin on her shoulder. “I don’t know if I can start with church, but I’ll try harder to learn how to liveoutside the apartment,” he said. “You know I love you, don’t you?”

“I know,” she said. There was still so much that they needed to work out but now that she had calmed down, her body reacted to his proximity as it always did—with want. She could feel the gentle fan of his breath on her neck and the solid muscle of his arm beneath her fingers.The urge to connect, to reaffirm their feelings in the face of their conflict, had her tightening her grip to pull him closer.

“Gabriel …”

But he had already noticed the change in her breath and the way she leaned into him, and he was lifting her before she could tell him what she needed, carrying her to the bedroom with his mouth on hers. He’d made this walk countless times and he didn’t need to see to know where he was going or to find the edge of the bed and lower her onto it.

They’d become practiced and efficient at shedding the layers of their clothing, both of them eager to have the hot slide of skin on skin as quickly as possible, and Mia tugged his shirt over his head in a single smooth motion.

He leaned back against the pillows; his eyes locked on her as she explored the parts of him that she wasn’t yet familiar with. She knew what this part of him felt like inside of her, but his hands fisted into her bedsheets as she discovered the taste of it. Her tongue glided over him, learning the texture and the slightly salty tang of his skin. It filled her mouth as well as it filled the rest of her and the sounds he made when she closed her lips around him sent heat curling though her, molten desire turned to fire under her skin.

She lacked the skill to tease him properly and she was probably clumsy, but he didn’t complain as she worked her mouth over him, discovering the rhythm and speed that he seemed to enjoy the most. She’d learned enough by now to beable to roll the condom on by herself, a point of pride as she smiled up at him and traced his body with the tips of her fingers.

He helped her line up their bodies so she could sink down onto him, her body opening to take him deeper than she thought he’d ever been. It was thrilling to be filled like this and a roll of her hips told her how much he enjoyed it, too, his eyes fluttering shut and his fingers digging into her skin.

She kept her eyes on his face as she rose and fell above him, each rocking movement met with a thrust of his hips. He’d said she was beautiful but right now, with the thin light of the moon on his skin and his dark hair curling against her pillow as she rode him, she thought he might be the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. He’d been worth every minute of waiting, every second of worry and when she tipped over the edge into ecstasy with him buried inside, she thought she’d been right after all.

Maybe his dick really was worth the damnation that Mrs. Newberry kept threatening her with.

Chapter Thirty

Fall

“You don’t have to come in,” Mia said, tapping her fingers in the steering wheel and staring out the windshield at the doors of the church. Gabriel had been working hard on trying to get out of the house more for weeks, but she’d still been caught off guard when he’d announced he wanted to come to church with her for her father’s birthday celebration.

“Did you tell them that I’d be there?”

“I said youmightbe there, but I wasn’t sure if you’d change your mind, so I didn’t make any promises.”

He was silent for a moment as he looked out the window at the small building with its faded brick and old windows. He smiled, faint and ghosting across his face so quickly she almost missed it. “This doesn’t look anything like the church my mother took me to as a kid, or the place Richard preached when he wasn’t at the school with us. This place looks comfortable and those were big and cold and impersonal. Hundreds of people in expensive clothes hoping to pay their way to forgiveness.”

“We don’t have any of that here,” she said with a shrug. “I’ve seen videos of Richard preaching and it looked more like a football stadium in there.”

“It did,” he agreed, and she knew he was acknowledging that on some level things were different here than what he’d feared. “I don’t know that I’ll ever believe what you do, but I’m coming with you, at least this time.”

“If it gets to be too much—” she began, but he leaned across the console and caught her mouth in a quick kiss.

“I’ll let you know,” he said simply.

“Okay.” She tugged him in for another quick kiss before she opened the car door, trying to show as much of gratitude and love as possible in a few fleeting seconds. There would be time for more later, but for now that would have to do.

He was pale as he followed her inside, but the hallway was empty as she led him past the entrance to the chapel with its tidy rows of pews and then the little kitchen where they did their preparations for picnics and parties like this one. She paused by the meeting room and brushed a dark curl off his brow. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure,” he insisted. He was clearly fighting the urge to bolt, and his hand was cold and clammy where it gripped hers. “I can do this for you.”

She pulled him in for a quick kiss, her lips brushing his as more of a suggestion than a caress as guilt of kissing her boyfriend in church warred with her desire to comfort him. Somehow knowing what they did when they were alone in their apartment seemed worse when he was with her than it had in the all the time she’d been coming here alone.

“We’ll do our best to make sure you’re comfortable,” she promised.

He nodded and gave her a ghost of a smile as he followed her into the room. Heads turned but he stayed by her, holding her fingers in a death grip as she searched the crowd for her father.

They found him talking to a small group of parishioners and bouncing a toddler on his hip.

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