“Lilah!” I yelled and threw open the shower door, turned off the water, and dropped to my knees. Lilah was soaking wet. I checked her over with my eyes, not seeing any blood or injury.

“Lilah? Talk to me!” I ordered.

“I cannot get up,” she whispered, her head still down.

I moved forward and searched her legs—nothing.

“Why can’t you get up?”

Lilah’s head lifted and she looked right at me. Her face was pale, she had red rings around her eyes from crying, and her wet waist-length blond hair was stuck to her cheeks.

“I… I began to cleanse, but I kept thinking about what happened just now, the guns, Mae… No more Order… everything, and I dropped to the floor. Now I cannot get back up.”

“Baby…” I trailed off and ran my finger down her cheek. My stomach clenched as I looked at her. I had this overwhelming need to protect her. My insides were almost tearing apart with the need to hold her, to fuckin’ have her close, to stop her shaking, to stop her fear.

“I… I cannot move,” she hushed out and dipped her head. “And I am indecent… I am bared to you. I am sinful, weak…”

Ignoring her self-loathing, I picked up Lilah's body in my arms and carried her out of the bathroom, my bitch still curled up in a ball. Her nose tucked into my neck, her left hand lifted and settled on my cheek. I glanced down, shocked by the action as her finger began tracing the shape of my lips.

I’d killed, in cold blood, more people than I could count. I’d faced death laughing, been shot, stabbed, and sliced… but I’d never felt fear like I was feeling at this moment as I looked down at the most stunning bitch that ever existed, fear that I could’ve lost her, fear that I could lose her still.

Sitting on the bed, I kept her in my arms, pulling the blanket off the end of the mattress and wrapping it around her wet skin.

“You cold?” I asked, my voice sounding way too low.

She shook her head, her hand still on my face, her eyes still fixed on mine. “You saved me,” she whispered, and my stomach flipped. “You… jumped in front of a bullet for me.”

“Yeah,” I rasped, looking on her face, water shining in her eyes.

“You saved me… You saved my life.”

Shifting at the too-high emotion between us, I held her tighter, feeling her bare warm skin in my arms. “Ain’t no way you were dying on me, sweet cheeks.”

Lilah’s finger left my lips to stroke down my chin. “Why am I so important for you to save? I am a burden thrust upon you.”

Gripping her finger, I brought it to my lips and kissed it, my chest almost exploding as I confessed, “Because I fuckin’ love you, Li… I’m fuckin’ insane over you. You ain’t no burden.”

Lilah sucked in a deep breath and her eyes widened. “Ky… why?”

I huffed out a laugh. “Stupid fuckin’ question, sweet cheeks,” I replied. “Like asking me the impossible. I just do. I fuckin’ love your crazy pilgrim ass.”

Lilah stared at me for the longest time before she wet her lips with her tongue, dropping her gaze to my lips. My cock hardened and her eyes shot up to mine, her cheeks blushing scarlet red.

“Really fuckin’ love you,” I added.

Lilah reached up, and with tears filling her eyes, pressed her lips to mine. My hands fisted in her long strands of hair, and I deepened the kiss, my tongue lapping against hers.

My hand left her hair to slowly skirt down her bare arm and over the blanket to grip the back of her thigh.

Our mouths clashed with more fury, and my dick grew harder, so hard it was painful. Lilah pulled away, her eyelids half-mast, fuckin’ punch drunk from our kiss. We were both panting hard and I was working on calming down, but with her tight body squirming on my lap, it wasn’t really going as planned.

“Ky…” she moaned, and I brushed my cheek against hers.

Her breathy voice almost undid me, not to mention I could feel her warm pussy getting wetter over my boxers. “What, baby? Tell me what you fuckin’ need.”

Titling back her head, her big blues bored into mine and she said, “It is wrong, sinful, and depraved of me. But I want to feel you… all of you. I want to feel you join with me. I want you to show me how it feels to be joined with you… in every possible way.”

And that’s when my breathing stopped.

Chapter Fourteen

Lilah

Ky’s eyes widened, and I felt his hardness pulse against my bare behind through the thin material of his undergarment as I spoke those forbidden words out loud. The elders and Prophet David would have declared me a harlot, but right now, it was a title I was content to own.

Ky stared at me, an expression on his face I could not decipher. All his features were sharp and tense, his kissable lips firm, his head of long golden hair wild and untamed. Ky’s hand drifted down my face and his rough but gentle touch was almost transcendent, trancelike.

My cheek instinctively nuzzled into his warm hand as I awaited his answer, drifting on the blissful wave of his affection. Curling my head into the bare skin on his chest, I nervously pressed my lips against the flesh of his shoulder, over his colorful tattoos, mesmerized as it shivered and jerked beneath my mouth.

Ky’s hand raked through my hair and he took in a long, ragged breath. “Lilah…” he hissed softly, his fist tightening in my wet hair. I risked a glance at his face to see his head tipped back, his eyes squeezed shut, and his teeth running over his bottom lip.

Hands shaking at the enormity of what I was about to do, I found the edge of the blanket without breaking my gaze on Ky and pushed the thick material to the floor, my naked body revealed and out on full display.

Hearing the blanket drop, Ky tilted down his head, his beautiful blue eyes opening and flaring with unmistakable passion when he drank in the sight of my bareness.

I combed my hand through his long blond hair and fixed my stare on his bulging arms, the muscles taut and defined. Carefully lifting my legs from his lap, I managed to stand on shaky feet, my back to Ky.

Smoothing my long hair over my left shoulder, the damp strands lying over my left breast, I sucked in a fortifying breath and slowly turned, keeping my eyes firmly to the ground, obeisant and meek, as a woman must be toward a man.

I had not been fully bare to any man but Brother Noah before this day, and it was taking all my strength not to run away and cover my flesh. My mind and heart warred over the protection of my virtue. Scripture raced through my conscience. Flee from sexual immorality. Any other sin a person commits is outside his body, but the person who sins sexually, sins against his own body.