The truth is that I’m a mean, tired, furious bunny—a little supplicant turned apostate and unbeliever—and I’m not hiding because I’m scared. I’m running from him because if he catches me, I will kill him.
I will scratch out his eyes while reciting passages from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, I will hum Latin hymns while I bite his heart out. I don’t care what kind of god he is, he is a dead god to me, and I will build a temple to bitterness out of his bones. He will be my burnt offering and I will send that smoke all the way to heaven. I will char the world with the pride he stole from me.
Stay away, Church.
Don’t you dare.
I duck down the hallway, but I know Church and I know he’ll follow me right back to the kitchens if he has to, and so I set my tray against the wall, accept the annoying possibility that Martin might upbraid me later, and then scurry through a narrow door that spits me back out into the Great Court. And then I jog into the exhibits, pushing past the scattered gala-goers in Egypt and Greece until I get to the empty stairs, and I can climb up to the deserted upper galleries to wait him out. There’s no one up here, and my footsteps echo loudly on the wood floors as I move from Ancient Levant to Ancient Mesopotamia.
I think I lost him.
Thank God; it would be extra awkward to explain to Martin why I abandoned my champagne-slinging duties and also murdered a guest. Hart would lose its catering contract with the museum for sure, and I’d probably be fired. You know, after the trial for homicide.
I stop in front of a case displaying a cuneiform tablet, and I allow myself to breathe all the breaths I couldn’t earlier. I stare blankly at my pale reflection in the glass, not bothering to absorb either the smudges under my eyes, or the tight, scraped-back ponytail I have to wear for the event, or even the clay tablet itself. I just breathe and will my heart to stop hammering against the walls of my chest.
I don’t have to kill Church. I don’t have to see him.
I don’t have to remember all over again why I fell in love with him.
Slowly, too slowly for comfort, my pulse begins to slow and the adrenaline begins to dissolve in my blood. Exhaustion takes its place, and tears sting pointlessly at the backs of my eyes. When will it end? When will I be free? I suddenly wish I had left London four years ago like I made him think; I wish I’d fought harder to get Jax and me back to America so I’d never have to see or think or feel about Church Cason ever again.
Hot tears start rolling down my face, and I hate them, I hate the wet slide of them, I hate how I’m weak and angry and empty and it’s from the mere sight of him. The mere presence of him.
Dammit.
I swipe at the tears and suck in a shuddering breath—and that’s when I hear his low, furious voice.
“Hiding from me, little supplicant?”
Chapter Two
Charley
Five years ago, I’d been a baby museum volunteer, tasked to shadow one of the docents giving a private tour of the Mesopotamian and Levantine galleries. Except said docent suddenly took ill—the kind of violent, stomach-cramping ill that can’t be endured anywhere except on a toilet—and I was stuck giving the tour with no training and barely any detailed familiarity with the objects on display.
The added joy? The tour group was a cluster of visiting history professors. You know, the exact group of people who would notice I had no idea what the hell I was talking about.
But I made the most of it. We’d had a section on Mesopotamia in my Neolithic Revolution course the previous semester, and so I faked it pretty well, adding in a few jokes and dimple-buttoned smiles to make the most of my sunny Americanness. By the middle of the tour, everyone seemed charmed, except for a lone, scowling professor in the back. Church.
I found out later that he’d drawn the short straw in his department and was tasked with babysitting the out-of-town colleagues while they were in the Big Smoke for a conference. For a reserved man like Church, not only was spending the day with a group of strangers nigh on unbearable, but subjecting him to a tour of a British Museum gallery was akin to subjecting Vermeer to a primary school art class. Church had dug things out of the ground that now resided in the museum; they’d consulted him when reworking their Religion and Belief narrative. There was nothing a second-year undergrad could tell him about the galleries that he didn’t already know so well he could put the actual curators to shame.
It was near the end, when I was pleasantly bluffing my way through a description of a Babylonian tablet depicting a naked, winged goddess, when Church finally asked a question.
“Why?” he asked in his low voice.
I paused my bullshitting, my brain stuttering at the interruption. “Pardon?”
“Why,” Church asked, putting a hand into the pocket of suit trousers too expensive for a professor to be wearing, “did the Babylonians do this? What was the instinct that drove them to mold Ishtar onto this tablet? Why do you think they needed to depict her—or any deity for that matter?”
It was an unfair question to ask any volunteer docent, no matter how seasoned, and the other professors seemed to know it, shifting uncomfortably and starting to make noises like they were going to answer on my behalf.
Except I found myself answering before I could think better of it. “I think that’s a reductive question. Sir,” I added, so I wouldn’t seem too rude. But really. It was a stupid question, on top of a mean question, and it was clearly designed to embarrass me. It didn’t matter how well this scowling jerk wore a suit or how narrow his waist seemed under all that sleek, tailored wool. Or how devastatingly sexy that scar looked running down his chiseled cheek.
Nope. Not having it. Not even from the embodiment of every dirty professor fantasy I’d ever had.
Church’s lips had parted the tiniest bit at my challenge, and then he’d drawn his lower lip between his teeth for the barest instant at the word sir. Like hearing me say that word was enough to make him hungry and ever so slightly unsure at the same time.
I managed to drag my stare from his mouth to his eyes as I decided to say more. I wasn’t a total dumbass about this shit, and also fuck him. “What comes first, deity or depiction? Depiction forces us to manifest the god into reality. Trying to diagnose the why of depiction misses the better question of how—how did these gods actually become gods? How did the Mesopotamians leapfrog from faceless pillars at Göbekli Tepe to the fully realized form of Ishtar here on this tablet?”
The other professors murmured in approval, but Church seemed to notice them not at all. He stepped forward, blue eyes alight and mouth twitching at the corner. Not quite like a smile, but like—well, like he was enjoying himself a little. I got the feeling he was surprised by this, that he was planning on being both disappointed and vindicated in his own superiority by my answer, and the fact that I hadn’t just rolled over and given him an easy victory was . . . pleasing.
But his intense stare and cruel mouth made it very clear that he would have a victory from me of some sort. And boy if that didn’t make my lower belly flutter just the tiniest bit, if it didn’t make the Attenborough in my mind notice how primed I was to receive his mating display of intellectual feathers.
“So, Charlotte,” he said, reading my name off the tag pinned to my blouse.
“Charley,” I corrected with my dimples out, partly to goad him (he didn’t seem like the type to indulge in nicknames, not for himself and not for other people) and also partly because I wanted him to know. I wanted to hear him grate it out against my neck while he fucked me. I blushed a little at this realization, which he noticed.
The corner of his mouth twisted even more; the fox had just seen how little self-preservation this bunny actually had when it came to asshole professors.
Hell, the bunny was only just now realizing it about herself too.
“Charley,” he said, letting his rough voice linger over the syllables as he watched me lick at the corner of my mouth.
“Yes?” I whispered.
�
��That was a very pert little answer you gave me. But you answered a question with another question, and I don’t allow that.”
“We’re not in your classroom,” I said, a bit fuzzily. His stern “see me after class, you bad girl” voice was really making it hard to think clearly. Or remember the actual tour group now ping-ponging their attention between Church and me as we talked.
“I’m not finished yet, Charlotte.”
His refusal to use my nickname let me know that I was at the end of his indulgence. Mmm, I wonder what happens at the end of his indulgence. Spankings?
He said, “I want you to answer your own question.”
My own question. Uh, what was that again?
Oh right. The how.
From the rapt gazes of the tour group, I knew I’d get no help from that quarter, and from an intuition that—aside from recent revelations about the state of my panties in the presence of scarred, argumentative men—never failed me, I knew I was in choppy waters now. I didn’t know enough, hadn’t thought enough about this to discept ancient iconography with him.
But when I looked at him again, I could see something almost fascinated in his expression, and I didn’t want that fascination to go away. Not because I pussed out on a hard question.
“I think cultural advances drive religious advances,” I hedge.
“Most people would say it’s the other way around,” he countered before I could finish. “Göbekli Tepe predates the agricultural revolution, suggesting that religious practices were already transitioning before the prevailing way of life changed.”
I shook my head. “I think living religions respond to the time they’re in, and so it’s impossible to say that the complex at Göbekli Tepe meant the same thing to the people who built it as it did to the people who worshipped in it generations later. And I think the invention of cuneiform writing meant, for the first time, gods could be described in detail and these descriptions could survive and take on mimetic life. I think the invention of papyrus and paper meant these descriptions could reach people farther away than ever before. The increasing efficiency of weapons, war, and administration meant that religion was no longer localized but nationalized. Imperialized. All of these things forced deities and philosophies to evolve in complexity and depth in a way they never would have if our technology never moved beyond carving ivory or stone.”
Church stared at me for a long minute after that, and then he nodded. The effect of his nod was like having him cup a hand between my legs.
“That’s a good answer,” he said. “You’re still wrong. But it’s a good answer nevertheless.”
I couldn’t help it, I laughed. And when I laughed, everyone else laughed too—except for Church, who was looking at my mouth like he wanted to bite it.
Everyone chimed in then, talking about whether or not it was even fair to compare a pre-pottery temple complex with the pinnacle of Babylonian cultic expression, and then I managed to move the tour on and finish it out without any more pointed questions from Professor Midnight Eyes.
And then after I walked them down to the Great Court and not-so-subtly pointed out the places where they could spend money on scones and scarves and soap shaped like mummies, Church stayed by my side as the rest dispersed to go buy mummy soaps.
“Am I correct,” he said, studying my face, “in assuming you’ve never given that tour before?”
My cheeks burned again, but he took my hand, enveloped it in his large, strong ones. Calluses in contrast to his cool, suited demeanor stroked rough against my skin.
“You did brilliantly,” he said quietly. “No other tour guide would have been able to answer me like that, not even one who’s been doing this for years. You should be proud.”
“Thanks?” I said hesitantly, going all fuzzy again from the touch of his skin on mine.
“Are you in school?” he asked with sudden urgency.
“University,” I said. “I—um. Second year.”
Relief flooded his expression, followed by something else I didn’t understand. “I should go,” he murmured, and to my eternal disappointment, he dropped my hand. “Goodbye, Charlotte.”
* * *
***
* * *
Except it wasn’t goodbye.
The next day I was shadowing yet another docent through a private tour of Ancient Greece when I became aware of a lean, suited predator stalking my steps. As the tour moved into the next room, Church cupped a hand around my elbow and led me back into the deserted Nereid Monument room.
“Come back for more clay tablet debate?” I teased, a bit breathlessly because oh my God, he was so unbearably sexy and severe. And tall. And nice-smelling—something that reminded me of incense—woody and smoky and rich. Like he really was a church, like he was a temple. A shrine to classical masculinity.
“No,” he said. “I came back for you.”
Chapter Three
Charley
“I’m not hiding from you,” I tell Church all these years later, as I spin to face him. “I’m hiding for you. So I don’t murder you.”
I expect Church to have some kind of riposte for this because he always had a riposte for everything, but instead he goes completely still, looking like someone just kicked him in the chest. Too late I remember the tears on my face, my missing piercing, the weight I’ve lost. The eternal bags under my eyes. I don’t look like the happy, freckly coed he was going to marry once upon a time; I look like someone who works two jobs and has a full-time internship at How to Parent a Damn Teenager, Inc.
“Christ,” he whispers, his eyes tracing me all over. The cheap shoes, the borrowed uniform, the blond hair scraped into a short, stubby ponytail. The fingernails ragged from tearing open boxes at the supermarket. “Little one.”
Which is when I see he looks nearly as bad off as me.
His face—always rather forbidding—has grown leaner. Harsher. His body too, which used to be gracefully clad in muscle, now seems hardened and ruthless under his tuxedo, as if he’s spent the last four years trying to push-up his demons away. A permanent line has carved itself between his brows, his mouth looks like it’s never known a smile, and his eyes are the bleak blue of the coldest, deepest oceans.
He looks . . . empty. Grim and hollow and past all hope.
God, what happened to him?
And why does seeing him like this hurt as much as seeing him, period?
“No,” I say, to him and to my traitorous heart, taking a step to the side. Towards Ancient Levant and the staircase. Towards not-murder, and also towards not feeling all these terrible non-murdery feelings. Feelings like I missed him, like I want to trace the pale scar on his cheek. “Don’t little one me. You lost that right four years ago.”
He takes a step to match mine but goes no farther. He’s not close enough to touch me, but he’s close enough for me to see the pulse in his neck, the tic of his jaw as he works it slowly to the side.
“You said you were going back to America to live with your mother’s family,” he accuses softly. “I looked for you everywhere.”
“Well, I lied,” I say, taking another step back. The overhead gallery lights mean his long eyelashes cast shadows over his eyes, which must be why they look so haunted right now. Why he looks like he’s in pain.
“Why did you lie?”
Oh fuck him. “Why did you leave me in a church, asshole?”
He takes a step closer. “I don’t want to talk about it right now.”
“What does it matter? It’s not like I’m going to show up in your classroom and beg you to finish what you started, it’s not like it can make a single bit of difference. It’s over—”
His eyes flash at that, and suddenly he’s close, too close, close enough that if he wanted, he could slide those strong, archaeologist’s hands around my hips and yank me against him. Yank me up so I could wrap my legs around his waist.
Just the thought of it has heat flushing all over me, tightness twisting between my thighs.
&nb
sp; Scared of my body’s reaction to him, I stumble back and away. He lets me, but he doesn’t stop prowling closer and closer, stalking me until I’m literally backed against a wall.
He stops, just out of reach, and stares at me like I’m a virgin chained to his altar.
“It’s not over,” he says with so much raw determination that I almost believe him.
“It is,” I say, for myself as much as for him. “It is, and you’re the one who ended it.”
He sucks in a breath at that, closing his eyes for a single moment, before opening them again. “Why are you working here?” he asks. “You should be in a doctoral program. You should be in the field or the lab or in your own classroom. Not as a—” he makes a vague gesture at my uniform, like even the act of articulating the word server is beneath him.
“You gave up the right to know what I’m doing with my life at the same time you gave up the right to call me yours.” I fold my arms over my chest and try to muster my best glare while my face is still wet with tears.
Tears that seem to horrify and fascinate him all at the same time. My depraved Church, my angry god—
No. Not my Church.
“Let me kiss you,” he says abruptly.
I stare at him like he’s a lunatic, and he has to be, because there’s no way in hell . . .
He steps forward, close enough that our shoes bump, and I can smell him. I can smell the incense scent of him and I can count each individual eyelash fanning above his lapis-colored eyes. “No,” I say, a little distractedly. “You could have had a kiss at the altar, and then every day after that. You have any idea how often I would have kissed you if I’d been your wife? You called me a supplicant before, but I would have been a zealot for you. I would have kissed your throat every morning and your feet every night, and you would have been anointed hourly by my mouth. You gave that up, Church, not me.”
Naughty Brits: An Anthology Page 49