Page 150 of Divine Temptations

I knew that posture because I’d lived it.

My father had been a good man, or so people said. A Cuban refugee who worked himself raw trying to keep a roof over our heads. But when the world disappointed him, when life refused to play fair, he took it out on my mother’s patience and my backside.

A harsh father could break something inside you that never quite healed.

And watching Jimmy crumble under that voice, I felt an ache I didn’t expect. Not just lust, but something heavier.

“Yes, sir,” Jimmy whispered, and hung up.

The silence that followed was thick enough to drown in.

Jimmy’s face was pale and tight. His eyes met mine, and for a heartbeat neither of us spoke.

I could see the battle within him—pride versus shame, fear versus longing.

I wanted to go to him. To pull him close, tell him that the man on the other end of that line didn’t get to define him. But I didn’t move. Because if I touched him—just once—it wouldn’t stop at comfort. I’d cross a line I wasn’t sure I could uncross.

And that terrified me almost as much as the need itself.

“I… I should go,” he said finally, his voice shaking.

Before I could answer, a single tear slipped down his cheek.

That was it.

Something inside me snapped. I crossed the space between us before my mind caught up with my body, and then he was in my arms — trembling, and warm.

Jimmy didn’t pull away.

I pressed my cheek against his hair, breathing him in. The scent of fear and something heartbreakingly pure filled my lungs.

His heartbeat thundered against my chest, and mine answered.

Chapter Seven

Jimmy

Lucien’s arms were solid bands around my back, his chest a wall of heat I could lean into or break myself against, and for a second I forgot how to breathe. I pressed my face to the place where his neck met his shoulder and smelled only clean skin with something darker underneath: smoke, spice, and the faintest trace of kitchen grease, which somehow made him more real. The throb of my pulse synced to his heartbeat, steady and thunderous, and the world went quiet except for that sound and the tiny, ragged breaths scraping out of me.

I was grateful. God help me, I was so grateful he’d crossed that room and put his arms around me when I was shaking apart. A minute before, my daddy’s voice had been chewing me up from the inside, and then Lucien’s hold came down like shelter. He said nothing at first. He just gathered me in his arms like he’d been waiting to, like I’d fit there all along.

And I was embarrassed, too—humiliated that he’d seen me like that, weak and small and scared. I never wanted him to think of me that way, as the boy who flinched when a man raised his voice. I wanted him to see the good parts: the music, the patience, the part of me that showed up at the food kitchenbecause I believed kindness was holy. But there I was, clinging to him like a drowning man.

“Hey,” he murmured against my hair. “I’ve got you.”

Something broke open in my chest.

The gratitude spiraled into something else—something hotter, heavier. It started at the base of my spine and streaked forward, a live wire snapping under my skin. I became aware of everything about him at once: the width of his shoulders, the way his breath stuttered, the heat rolling off him like summer pavement. My fingers curled into the back of his shirt and felt muscle under the cotton. He was so solid, filled with promise and danger, and the nearness of him hit me like a storm.

My breathing went ragged. I tried to slow it, count it, hide it, but the more I tried to get a grip, the worse it got. Sweat gathered at my hairline and slid along my temple. My skin prickled like I’d stepped out of my body and every nerve had come alive. And then I realized—mortifying and undeniable—that I was hard. Not just a little. Not just that shy ache I knew how to will away. My dick was straining against the zipper, urgent, a pressure that bordered on pain, and I was pressed against him with nowhere to hide.

I told myself to think of something else. Math problems. Sermon notes. Hymns. I tried to hear “How Great Thou Art,” and all I heard was the steady drum of my pulse. And the feel of his hand rubbing circles at the small of my back, slow, steady, possessive in a way that made my knees weak.

Temptation wasn’t a whisper anymore. It was Lucien.

And then it hit me—Lucien was trembling. Just a little, but I felt it, a fine shiver running through him that set off a matching quake in me. His thigh shifted between mine, and I went dizzy. The world narrowed to the slide of his breath along my cheek and the hot, unmistakable pressure pressing back against me.

Lucien was hard too.