Lust Is the Thorn by Jen McLaughlin

enough to try and hide his worry from me. “Just trying to get all that glitter off your face. You look like one of those vampires in those movies everyone watched and picked teams for.”
    Snorting, I flicked water at him because I was totally Team Edward. It splattered across his cheek.
“Twilight.”
    “Yeah, whatever.” He gave me a once-over, and something in his gaze darkened. Deepened. It stole my breath away. “You look like a drowned rat.”
    “Thanks. You sure know how to make a girl feel pretty.”
    “That’s not my job.” His lids lowered, and if I hadn’t known better, I’d have sworn he was admiring my tits. “I can clean your soul for you, though, if you’d like.”
    Only
he
could make such a statement sound so
dirty
.
    I turned away, because if I kept staring at him, I was going to melt into a puddle of fluid at his feet. “My soul is perfectly clean, thank you very much.”
    “Are you so sure about that?” he asked.
    “I might not be above unholy thoughts, and I might think about sex and boys a lot, but I’m
allowed
to have those thoughts in my head, unlike you.” I ran my tongue over the inner side of my lip ring. “Just like I’m allowed to have those boys in my bed, whenever and however I want them, if I so desire.”
    His grip on my hair tightened, tugging it just enough to sting a little. “Do you have lots of those?”
    “Thoughts?” I lifted my lashes. He was watching me as if…as if he wanted to be one of those men I thought about. Little did he know, he starred in almost all my fantasies. Even when I was with another guy, he was usually on my mind. “Or boys?”
    His jaw flexed, and he leaned in slightly. “Both.”
    “What’s it to you?” I asked.
    He didn’t answer.
    “There’s been thoughts. Lots of them. Some about boys I’ve had. Some about boys I wish I could have, but can’t.” I glanced at his mouth, but forced my attention upward again. “You know how that goes, though, I’m sure.”
    He studied me, his eyes burning with the heat of a thousand suns. “Why would you say that?”
    “Well, you can’t have sex.” I bit my lip. “Surely you have thoughts you can’t act upon once in a while. I mean, I know how much you enjoyed sex before….”
    “You never should have known that.”
    “Well, when you consistently have sex on the porch of my house…”
    He shook his head, not turning my way. “I’m sorry I did that. I was a different man back then. A boy.”
    “No need to apologize. I liked it. I used to love watching you light up a cigarette afterward. You’d be so calm. So relaxed…”
While I’d been eaten up with jealousy because that girl wasn’t me.
“Does that make my soul
dirty
and
unclean
?”
    He swallowed so hard his Adam’s apple bobbed. “Do you really want me to answer that?”
    I pushed his dark hair off his face. It was damp from my splashing him, so it looked almost black against his tan complexion. He stiffened, his jaw hardening. “No. I guess not.” I lowered my hand, and he visibly relaxed. “Though I’d love to find out if you have dirty thoughts that tarnish
your
clean soul.”
    “Ladies first.” He cleared his throat. By this point, I was 99 percent certain that I wasn’t imagining the way he was watching me. It was as if he wanted to rip my shirt off and finally get this thing going, like I dreamed about almost every night. “What boys can’t you have? Seems like a girl as pretty as you could have anyone she wants—preferably one who doesn’t want to hit you when he drinks too much. I don’t think that’s aiming too high.”
    I lifted a shoulder. “Some are…off-limits. You know?”
    Like you.
Especially you.
    “Why?” he asked again. “Are they married? Because if so, you’d best back off. That’s a sin you don’t want on your soul.”
    “Why, Father Thorn, are you—?”
    “Still not a priest yet,” he said drily.
    I reached out and yanked on his white collar, ignoring his interruption.