FOUR

KAINE

Those lips begged me to kiss them. 

All hope was lost the moment I touched her face. Her warm, soft, porcelain skin was too flawless to resist. And knowing there was more to explore with my hands and my mouth drove me wild with an insatiable hunger. 

It was like touching her awoke a feral, primal instinct that had been suppressed by years of strict discipline and constraint. I wanted to leave my mark on her perfect skin, to claim her and taint her innocence. 

The devil disguised himself in many forms. Was it he who looked up at me through thick lashes and wide hazel eyes, sending all my dark desires into overdrive?

Or was he in me, about to sink his selfish, lustful claws into this young, lost girl?

Maggie's eyes were shy beneath her lashes as they softly fluttered closed. Her rosebud lips parted and her head tilted. Our breath mingled in midair. We reached the point of no return and I leaned in, thinking of nothing but tasting that sweet mouth. 

"Holy shit, can you believe every goddamn business on this block is closed?!" 

Maggie's eyes shot open and she jerked away from me, startled by Angie's voice echoing down the empty street. 

"Well it is one in the morning," I answered, trying to act like I was on the verge of doing anything but kissing her friend. 

"Still! I had to pee in the goddamn bushes like a homeless person!" Angie's heels clicked angrily down the pavement as she returned to us. 

Maggie had gone frigid, wrapping her arms around herself and looking everywhere but at me. She put a wide distance between us again and I wanted nothing more than to erase it. Preferably with my arms around her. 

Angie noticed and glared at me accusingly. I underestimated how observant she was, or maybe she was just that protective of her friend. 

"What the hell happened while I was gone?" she demanded.

"Nothing," Maggie and I said in unison. She shot a glance at me with a bite of her lip. I almost groaned to voice my desire but caught it in my throat. 

"Bullshit! I told you not to mess with my friend, creep." 

"He really didn't do anything, Angie," Maggie insisted more loudly. 

I unclenched my hands, not realizing I was so tense. Secretly I was grateful to Maggie for not throwing me under the bus. Young women seemed to have a pack mentality and it would have been easier to go along with Angie's accusations. 

But I could already tell that Maggie wasn't one to fall in line with what other people did. She preferred marching to her own drum beat and I liked that. 

“Fine, whatever.” Angie removed me from the spotlight of her death glare and returned her attention to her friend. “Want to try finding another bar? It probably won’t be as nice but there’s gotta be some place in this town that will let us in.” 

Maggie chewed her lip and glanced at me. I could see her answer as clear as day in those eyes. No.

Neither one of us were willing to say goodbye. Something passed between us that Angie was oblivious to. Something intangible and yet as strong and electric as lightning. 

“Hey girls, look,” I said, thinking quickly and perhaps a little desperately. “If you two are that determined to get wasted tonight, I have an idea.”

Angie fixated her glare on me again but waited for me to continue. 

“I’ll get you the booze and you can crash at my place.” 

“Like hell we will!” Angie cried. “We don’t even know you! At best you’re going to try for a threesome, at worst you’re going to chop us up into little pieces.”

“I realize you don’t know me but I promise you that’s not the case.” I withdrew my clergy ID from my wallet and gestured to my cross necklace. “I’m a church pastor. You’ll be a lot safer with me than walking around at night looking for some seedy bar.”

Angie opened her mouth either in surprise or to protest, but it was Maggie who spoke first. 

"He's right, Angie. The odds are a lot better for us if we stick around with him than wandering around in dark alleyways." 

I could tell they were about to get really into it so I held up a hand for silence. 

"Look, I'll let you girls talk. I'm gonna walk down to the liquor store and get what you need. If you want, I'll hand it over with no strings attached and be on my way. Consider it my good deed." 

Without waiting for a response, I turned and started down the pavement. The closest liquor store was a good three blocks away and I needed to clear my head from Maggie's intoxicating lips and flowery scent. 

I should've been grateful that Angie came back right then. She cockblocked me at the perfect moment. Maybe she really was an angel in disguise doing God's work. But was it my soul she was saving or Maggie's?

Either way, I needed to keep my dick in my pants and my hands off every nineteen-year-old on this side of the Mississippi. And clearly, I didn't have the self-control to do it without someone intervening.

So why the fuck are you inviting two of them to spend the night at your place to get lit, as kids are saying these days? 

A part of me felt truly and honestly concerned for their safety. Should they attempt to find another bar that allowed them in, the likelihood of getting drugged would be extremely high. Not to mention since they were young and inexperienced drinkers, they didn't know their limits and didn't have enough experience to develop alcohol tolerance. 

Honest to the Lord above, it would not sit right with my conscience to let those two stumble around alone in the dark like two newborn fawns. I had to offer an alternative solution. 

But I could not deny the part of me that was frustratingly human, and therefore full of sin and error. I would never take advantage of a drunk woman but a part of me longed to see Maggie's porcelain skin flushed with crimson after a few drinks. To hear her giggle and to listen to her with lowered inhibitions. 

I've never outright condemned drugs and alcohol at any of my sermons, to the frustration of some of my most pious parishioners. In all honesty, I believed some of the most divine experiences recorded in the Bible were under the influence of something. That's not something I could tell my congregation but maybe Maggie would've liked to hear it.

I finally reached the liquor store and headed straight for a handle of Tito's vodka. It was cheap enough but not too harsh tasting whether you shoot it or sip it. Just some ice and a dash of lime juice and it became the perfect nightcap. 

The store didn't have fresh limes so I settled for a small bottle of lemon juice along with a bag of ice. As the clerk rang me up, I grabbed a box of condoms and dropped them on the counter. 

Just in case. 

The clerk never even gave them a second glance but added them to my total. I must have felt ten times more awkward than he did. It had been years since I bought or used condoms. 

My mind flashed to the moment I felt the foil wrapper in Rachel's purse and it all clicked into place. Being secretive with her phone, working late, the rapid decline in intimacy.

The signs had been there for months. I just chose to ignore them. But the condoms were the one thing I couldn’t ignore. 

After paying, I shook my head of the memory, took my items and left quickly with a definitive ding-dong of the door chime. 

Even if Maggie and Angie were gone, my money was not wasted. 

They'd learn about adulthood in due time. 

The truth was, I needed a drink way more than they did.