Free The Preacher's Son #1: Unbound by Jasinda Wilder Page A

to believe it, but you pay your dues and pretend, like everyone else.
    I picked that church because it was a cute little building, white clapboards and three cracked concrete steps and a steeple with a black iron bell. There was a cemetery out back behind it, all ancient headstones from the civil war and before, surrounded by a tall wrought-iron fence. Farther back still was a little knoll crowned by a spreading oak tree, complete with a rope swing. I pictured myself on the swing, just kicking my heels in the humid air, and that was it...that was the church I'd go to.
    Oh my Lord, how little did I know what that decision would start. 
    Sitting there, listening to the pastor's booming, stentorian voice, I felt the dark-haired young man watching me, trying gamely not to stare, and failing. I liked his eyes on me. I felt sexy, just sitting there, with his chocolate eyes straining for a glimpse of my breasts. 
    He was maybe twenty-one, twenty-two, and he had the tan skin and lean muscle of a man who spends all his time outside, working hard and playing hard. He had a thin white scar along his jaw, and I wondered how he'd gotten it. His hands were toying with the crease in his khaki pants, and I wanted, so badly, to feel those hands on me. That wanting him to touch me, it was a sudden desire, springing up in my belly and taking hold. It was silly, cause I was turning thirty-four in a few weeks, and I'd just gotten shut of a man, yet here I was, wanting this sexy beast of a guy, just out of his teens. 
    I was twisted in the pew, sitting sideways with my legs crossed, a casual enough position, but one carefully thought-out to let me look at him, and to give him a good eyeful of my thighs and my breasts. I'd dressed in the nicest clothes I had, which I realized as soon as I walked in were too nice, too revealing, too expensive. 
    The sermon dragged on forever, and the entire time, he and I were making eyes at each other, trading I-wasn't-staring glances away. When the old woman sat down at the piano and dug into a horrific rendition of "Oh What A Friend We Have In Jesus", I bolted. I mean, I nearly ran out of that church. I clicked down the steps in my too-high heels, stretching my legs as far as my too-tight skirt would let me. 
    He wasn't far behind, although I didn't dare look to see. I could feel him, though. His eyes were on my ass as I climbed the hill, and I gave my hips an extra sway on my way to the swing. The ropes were scratchy, fuzzy, generations-old hemp, the fibers sticking to my palms as I gripped them, and the weathered, gray wooden plank seat was rough, small, and hard under my bottom. I kicked my heels gently, giving me a little momentum. I kept my knees pressed together as he approached, a life-long habit of a woman who's spent her life in skirts. 
    When he made it up the hill and stood staring at me, mouth open a little as he hunted for words, I let my knees go apart, just a touch. I had to make myself do it though. My mind and my libido wanted me to let him get a glimpse, just a teasing look, but physical habit wanted me to keep my knees together.
    My libido won. 
    His eyes darted to my thighs, to the little triangle of darkness between them. His zipper bulged out slightly, and I let my knees part a bit more. He was still looking for something to say, and I could see his hands shaking a little. Looking at him, then, I realized he wasn't just another congregation member; he had the same jaw and the same long nose as the pastor, the same towering height, although he was still lean and fit, where the pastor was running to two or three spare tires around his middle. This was the pastor's son. The preacher's kid. My own father had been a preacher, before he died of a heart attack the year I left with my Dan. I knew what PK's were like: sheltered, sequestered, kept innocent of the world and its wicked ways. Kept away from women like me.
    I took pity on his awkwardness. "Hi," I said, sticking out my hand. 
    "Hi."