Free Taken by Storm by Angela Morrison

the bench, hooked under her left. Then she puts her foot back down. Her hand drifts toward the door handle—no—back to the steering wheel. Yes.
     
    i need to feel that she’s warm and real. Solid. My hand slides down the seat back and picks up her free hand, the one i hurt. The calm from Sunday night returns. i examine her cuts, curved to fit my fingernails. “How is it tonight?”
     
    “Okay, I guess.” Her clear eyes fill mine. “How are you?”
     
    “Better.” My voice sinks low. “Thanks for letting me come out.”
     
    “If you want to talk about it—”
     
    “Naw.” My voice is husky. i press her hand.
     
    She draws it away. “I’ve got to go. I can’t—” The other hand is back on the door handle.
     
    No. Please. i edge closer to her. “What did you do at church tonight?” i whiff her hair. “Burn incense? Talk to more angels?”
     
    “Incense?” She leans toward me. “Mormons don’t do incense.”
     
    “Not even the hippie kind?” i flip the fringe on her jacket, keep a couple pieces to play with. “No angels, either?”
     
    “If you have to know”—she watches me twist her jacket fringe together—“they just showed the Sex Lady video again.”
     
    “At church?” Maybe Mormons are hipper than i thought.
     
    “It’s about abstinence. Very churchy.”
     
    i drop the fringe. “So you’re totally brainwashed?”
     
    “Taught the truth.” She untangles the suede strips, combs the rest flat with her fingers.
     
    “That’s why you have that rule?”
     
    “You mean: ‘do not go into a house alone with a member of the opposite sex’? That’s only the beginning. My whole life is a list of rules.” She pulls a card out of her pocket and hands it to me. i can’t read it in the dark.
     
    She sits forward, stares out the front window. “Keep both feet on the floor. Never go into a guy’s bedroom. No parking. No necking. No petting. No fornication. No tongue.”
     
    “No tongue?”
     
    She drums the steering wheel with her fingers.
     
    “Seriously, you can’t even French-kiss?”
     
    “It’s not like I can’t. I have a tongue.” She licks her lips. “I just choose not to use it.”
     
    “Fornication?”
     
    She nods, won’t face me. “That’s the biggie.”
     
    “Lightning bolts fall from the sky?”
     
    “Something like that. Painful confession, eternal salvation put on hold, and it would break my dad’s heart. My mom would strangle me.”
     
    “You’d tell your parents? That’s sick.”
     
    “I wouldn’t tell them, but when you’re guilty of major sin—”
     
    “Guilt? Sin? Are you for real? How can you love someone without actually loving them?”
     
    “With your heart.”
     
    “It doesn’t work that way.”
     
    “You’re an expert?”
     
    “Just been there.”
     
    She doesn’t reply.
     
    It’s too dark to see if her face is red again, if her cheeks are hot. Mine are. In the cold car, in this cold country, i feel hot all over. “So, you’re, um, saving yourself?”
     
    She nods. “This is where you shake my hand and drive off into the sunset.” She’s the Ice Queen again. Guarded. Distant. i don’t want her like that. i want her to melt. Maybe we can thaw together.
     
    “What about regular kissing?” spills out of me in that husky voice.
     
    Leesie takes a deep breath and reels off another perfect answer. “The problem with kissing is it builds desire but doesn’t satiate it.”
     
    i slide close to her. “Are you quoting the Sex Lady?”
     
    “No. A prophet said that.” She studies the steering wheel. “Kissing leads to frustration or sin—”
     
    “i can live with frustration.”
     
    She finally turns to face me. “Michael—you shouldn’t—”
     
    i stroke her cheek. It is warm.
     
    i can do this, want to do this, need to try. i’m not sure if it’s wrong or strong. i just want my arms around her slim body, her heart making mine beat, her full lips pressed to mine.
     
    “If i