When she started to reach out to touch him, he almost lost control. Hell, he almost let her! But they were in church! She was reaching for his erection in church while dozens of friends and acquaintances, not to mention the church minister, stood only a few feet away from them, blocked only by a door and a wall.
"Come to my place and you can touch me all you want," he promised, holding her wrist to keep her from grabbing him. He could just picture her, rubbing her palm against his erection. Hell, he could even see her down on her knees and …
"Damn it!" he snapped and pulled her back into his arms. Kissing her seemed like a safer idea than letting her explore his painful erection. But "safer" was a relative term.
After several more minutes of that torture, he lifted his head. This was no longer a need, it was now an emergency to find some privacy. "Come on," he growled out, surprised that he could even speak any longer. Pulling back, he grabbed her hand and dragged her out of the church. He didn't care who saw him like this now. He needed her alone. He needed her to himself so that he could rip off her clothes and explore every inch of her beautiful, soft body. And maybe, just maybe, he would let her touch him. Probably not. He wasn't sure he had that kind of self-control.
Everyone had left the sanctuary by this point, but Mike still took a moment to calm himself down, holding Halley's hand as they made their way to the back of the church again.
Out in the sunshine, he looked around. The minister was still conversing with the various stragglers, which meant more than half the congregation was still standing in the morning sunshine. He looked around, spotted his truck and Halley's, and made the snap decision that his truck was closer. Calculating the distance, he figured he only had about twenty yards to walk. He could do this, he swore to himself. Looking back at Halley, she still looked confused. Her lips were swollen from his kisses and she had an enticing blush to her cheeks. He'd done that to her, he thought with pride. He'd made her so flustered that she didn't realize what she was doing, or even where she was!
Hell, his body was starting to react again. He took a deep breath and tried to calm the pounding lust that was still surging through his body.
"Sheriff!" the minister called out.
Mike groaned. Turning to face the minister, he suspected from the look on the other man's face that he'd just been trapped.
"What's up?" Mike asked, with as calm a tone as possible under the circumstances.
The minister's eyes twinkled with mischief as he waved Mike and Halley over to their group. "Ms. Bevins has some ideas on that road construction scheduled next month," he said. "Oh, and we were thinking about a big fundraiser next month. Joan suggested that you might be able to build some of the booths."
Halley stood beside Mike as the conversation swirled around them, her hand held in his as she listened to the group discuss various booths that needed to be built for the upcoming fair. It took her several moments for the buzzing to abate, but then reality slowly started to sink in. She'd just about made love to Mike! In the church closet, no less! Good grief, what had she been thinking?!
She hadn't been! That was the crux of the issue. With Mike, she couldn't think! She was irrationally drawn to him and she couldn't think when he started touching her. Common sense eluded her, which was why she was standing here, docilely waiting for him to finish his conversation with the team of ladies who were asking him to build … something. She had no idea what. But Mike was good with his hands.
Ugh! She couldn't think like that. Mike and his hands needed to be banished from her mind.
Placing a placating hand on his arm, she pulled her hand out of his, breathing a sigh of relief when he allowed her to step back. "I need to go. You finish your conversation. I'll talk to you later."
Mike looked like he wanted to argue, but one of the ladies drew his attention back to their issues and Halley breathed a sigh of relief when she was able to escape. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the minister chuckle, but didn't have time to wonder about that. Mike's lips compressed as he glared at Halley, then at the minister, but she spun around, almost running to her car in her eagerness to escape.
She couldn't do this, she thought. She had to get away, to find her spine, which she'd left somewhere that wasn't in her body, obviously.
The whole drive back to her cottage, she shook her head and slapped her forehead, trying to understand why she'd done something so stupid! She'd made out with Mike! In church!
Quickly changing her clothes, she pulled on a pair of jeans and a tee-shirt, whistled for Elf and Midget to join her, gave Bozo a bit of snuggling until the fluffy feline didn't want any more and escaped to the windowsill to get rid of Halley's scent, and then Halley jumped back into her car with the dogs. She drove to the stables at her parent's house and, avoiding her parents, saddled up Tony, her stallion, and rode out, Elf and Midget bounding happily alongside. She didn't know where she was going exactly. She just headed out to the trees, needing some alone time with her dogs. And she needed to avoid Mike.