Page 37 of Where the Dark Knelt (Worshipped by Darkness #1)

I was still crying when he took my hand, holding it so tightly it almost hurt, pulling me away from the chaos of the market. The vendors pretended not to see. No one called after us. No one helped. The world just kept turning, indifferent.

We reached his motorcycle, sleek and black under the summer sun.

Without a word, he pulled off his ridiculous helmet with cat ears and slipped it over my head.

The visor darkened my vision and I blinked up at him through the tinted glass.

He was beautiful… impossibly beautiful… I stared shamelessly, dazed and trembling.

Shock, I told myself. This is just shock. I’ve never been so scared in my life.

My whole body started shaking again. He noticed, his brows furrowing as he pulled me into another hug, his chest rising and falling in deep, calm breaths. Tears began dripping down the visor of the helmet until he gently lifted it up, exposing my face to his.

“Ashpetal, don’t cry…” he murmured softly, brushing a tear away with his thumb. “I didn’t kill them.”

“Yes…” I stuttered, my voice thin and broken. “I’m not crying because of them… idiot…”

“Hey, bad girl,” he chuckled softly, a strained awkwardness in his smile, “calling me names when I just saved you from those idiots…”

And before I could respond, he scooped me up by the waist like I weighed nothing, lifting me effortlessly into the seat in front of him. My thighs pressed uncomfortably close to the engine and my hands fall on handlebars, I was trapped between his muscular arms.

My mind screamed to get away.

My heart screamed to stay.

“I-I don’t… I don’t know how to drive, what are you doing?!” My words tumbled out in a rush of panic, my voice muffled inside the helmet.

But he just laughed, deep and amused, the vibration of his chest rattling against my back as he swung his leg over the motorcycle and settled behind me.

His broad torso pressed firmly into me, so close that I could feel his heart beating, steady and unbothered, while mine fluttered in terrified spasms.

His t-shirt was damp from my tears, drying in the hot wind and leaving faint white traces of salt across the black cotton. I could smell myself on him. It was… awkward. Intimate in a way that made my stomach twist with shame and confusion.

Then he shifted slightly, his hips pressing tightly against me and I felt it. Hard, insistent, undeniable. Heat flooded my face and I shrank down, snapping the visor over my eyes to hide from the world, from him, from myself.

God… was he really… that aroused right now?

But the worst part wasn’t him. It was my own body.

My traitorous, trembling body that hadn’t been touched in so long…

and after yesterday, it was a body that burned under his closeness, that pulsed with an ancient, aching need I had buried under layers of prayer and duty.

This attention from a man – this raw, unhidden desire – it was strange. Wrong. Forbidden.

I didn’t even finish the thought before the motorcycle roared to life beneath us, jolting forward so fast I screamed, clutching the handlebars and pressing myself back into him.

“Hush, hush, babe,” he whispered, his voice curling around my ear like smoke. “Don’t be afraid. I’ve been driving for so many years… longer than you could ever dream.”

My eyes locked onto the rushing blur of the road ahead. The landscapes flew past in streaks of colour and shadow, dizzying and beautiful and terrifying all at once.

We sped through the city like a bullet through glass, every breath ripped out of my lungs and replaced with cold adrenaline.

But then… slowly… something shifted inside me.

The fear curdled into something warmer. Something thrilling.

My chest tightened in a different way as my body began to vibrate in time with the growling engine between my thighs.

Every thrum of the machine pulsed straight through me, sending lightning up my spine and pooling deep in my core.

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to fight it, trying to pray it away. No. No no no. God, what am I doing? But my body didn’t listen. It moved of its own will, leaning back into him, drinking in the heat of his chest, the solid strength of his thighs bracketing mine.

He seemed to feel my body burning from the inside out, every nerve alight with unbearable desire. Without a word, he moved his hips, rolling them against me so I felt everything again – every inch of his hard length pressing into me, sending shockwaves through my trembling body.

A moan slipped from my lips before I could stop it, sharp and desperate, echoing softly between us. I knew he heard it – how could he not, when my entire body was betraying me so openly? But he didn’t say anything. He didn’t tease or gloat or smirk. He just pressed himself closer.

Heat rushed up my chest and flamed across my cheeks, making my face flush so hard it almost burned. God… he was too hot, too overwhelming, too everything.

How could I resist him, when every sinful touch felt like the sweetest heaven?

Sin has never tasted so sweet… damn it… how could something so forbidden feel so devastatingly good…?

My thoughts blurred as his hips ground into mine again, and all I could think was that resisting him felt more impossible with every passing second.

Somewhere between the market and wherever he was taking me, my tears dried completely.

The sobs faded into shaky breaths, and then those breaths turned into quiet, breathless laughter.

A smile curved across my lips before I could stop it.

A smile I didn’t understand, a smile born from pure exhilaration and…

and something darker. Something coiling low in my belly, spreading heat between my thighs until my skin burned with it.

The world felt… sharp. Alive. Colours brighter, wind colder, sensations so overwhelming I thought I might explode from the sheer intensity of it.

“Do you like the ride?” His voice came again, softer than before, almost reverent despite the wicked edge in his tone.

“Yes… I like it.” I swallowed hard, trying to smother the smile rising unbidden on my lips, but there was no point.

My whole body was trembling from the thrill coursing through every nerve.

Two days. Two days and he’d turned my entire world upside down.

Everything I thought I knew, every vow I clung to, every prayer I whispered at dawn – they all felt so far away, drowned out by the roar of the engine, the pounding of my heart, and the blazing, forbidden feeling pooling between my thighs.

I hadn’t experienced anything like this before. Nothing that made me feel so… alive. And God help me… I didn’t ever want it to stop.

“Desmond… is this your real…” I whispered into the rushing wind, unsure if he could hear me, but his quiet laugh told me he did.

“Desmond, yes. Why?” he answered, his voice clear, vibrating through his chest into my back. I smiled despite myself, pressing my lips together.

“My name is Eveline… I don’t remember if I introduced myself to you properly.” I shifted my hips back against him, feeling his hardness press into my lower spine again.

“So I know, Eveline.”

“How do you know?”

“Gentlemen have their secrets.”

“I doubt that gentlemen beat up seventeen-year-olds in the market to the point of… losing their pulse…” I said bitterly.

He just laughed, a deep, amused sound. “They were over eighteen. But that doesn’t change anything – they’re still brainless teenagers. Men that age… their adequacy should be at least a hundred years old by now, but unfortunately, humans don’t live that long.”

A chill slid down my neck. “How do you know their age and… people don’t live that long? What are you, some ancient being? A dragon in human flesh?” I tried to keep it playful, but my voice trembled.

He laughed again, warm and dark and quiet against my ear. “So many questions… But as I said, gentlemen have their secrets, little saint.”

The engine roared louder as he twisted the throttle, the final serpentine stretch unfolding before us, winding up into the cliffs where the monastery stood like an old sentinel against the sky.

My heart tightened painfully in my chest. We were close…

so close to the gates. And for some reason, I didn’t want this ride to end.

Sitting here with him, feeling his warmth at my back, it felt…

right. Like some fairy-tale heroine rescued by her knight from monstrous enemies.

Now she belonged to him, and… God… I understood those heroines.

When someone stands up for you, it feels like magic. Like divinity itself.

Yes… only God had stood up for me before. But not everyone hears His words… and not everyone understands His ways. Not everyone… cares enough to try.

We arrived. The massive monastery doors loomed before us, tall and dark against the pale dawn.

“Well… this is my stop,” I whispered shakily, trying to gather my courage to slide off, but before I could move, I felt his hot lips brush against the curve of my neck.

He exhaled roughly, and his hips rocked forward, grinding his erection hard against my spine.

A tiny, desperate moan escaped my lips before I could swallow it back.

“I hope to see you soon, babe,” he whispered into my skin.

And then he lifted me easily off the bike, his hands strong and unyielding around my waist. He pulled off the helmet from my head and placed it back on his own.

I barely had time to catch my breath before he shoved a thick wad of cash into my trembling hands.

“It’s for the fruit,” he said, his voice muffled now behind the black visor. “Take care.”

And with that, the engine howled, loud and feral, echoing through the silent cliffs as Desmond roared away, disappearing up the serpentine road toward the mountaintop. Leaving me trembling, breathless, and alone before the gates of God.

Chapter Twenty One

Desmond