Unholy Desire: Sinful Natures 3

1. Ezra

1

EZRA

The plane’s speaker crackled to life, announcing our descent into Philadelphia’s airport.

The woman in the cramped seat beside me shifted awake, rousing another waft of strongly-scented rose perfume to clog my throat. Grimacing, I blinked at the sand in my eyes, my focus coming to rest on my worn loafers cramped beneath the seat in front of me.

No matter my exhaustion from the twenty-plus hour flight to the States from the Ukraine, adrenaline had kept me wide awake.

I would touch American soil for the first time in fifteen years. I would get to sit in church and rest, to soak in sermons I hadn’t studied to preach. I would see the people I’d left behind in my drive to fulfill the Lord’s calling on my life and serve Him.

I hadn’t meant to emotionally distance from loved ones and family back home, but after meeting Sofiy, falling madly in love—

Cutting the thoughts off that had sagged my shoulders and left my face haggard since her death, I focused on my future.

My best friend since childhood, Phillip Weston, had offered me his spare bedroom until I decided what my next step in life would be. He’d been diagnosed with Parkinson’s close to eight years earlier, but the previous three had shown a serious decline in his health.

Guilt twisted my stomach over not being there to help and support Phillip, but even worse, his son Aaron had moved back home to care for him.

The memory of the leggy boy who had tagged along at my heels once he’d learned to walk always brought a smile to my face. And he’d been the reason for the steady release of excitement through my blood since having the freedom to return home.

Aaron had been nothing but skin and bones last I’d seen him. At twenty-nine, I expected—hoped for his sake—he’d grown a bit. I also hoped once high school had ended the bullies he’d seemed to attract no longer attempted to make his life hell.

He’d never shared why he got beat up or why he’d come to hate school and his peers.

But he had his dad, he had me, and the three of us had spent more time together than not. And summers? They held some of my best memories of fishing, hiking, and camping in the woods of northern Pennsylvania.

I wondered if he remembered the life we had together once upon a time, if his own smile made an appearance with the fond recollections.

I’d lost touch with my friends due to Sofiy’s selfishness, only sharing a call with Phillip for the first time in years after she’d passed. The regret of allowing her control over my life for so long pained my heart—especially given his poor health.

A flight attendant walked past my aisle seat with a plastic trash bag, and I dropped in my emptied water bottle with a forced smile and “Thank you.”

Letting out a shuddered sigh, I tipped my head back and rested my eyelids once she shuffled past.

Returning home a newly widowed man, I should have been wallowing in grief, not looking forward to living without restraint like I’d done due to Sofiy’s depression and manipulative ways.

The crumpled note in the back pocket of my chinos burned clear through to my skin, radiating an ache bone-deep that caused my head to hang whenever I thought too long on my dead wife.

Longing to escape the shame of the words she’d scripted in shaking ink always made me cower wherever I went, but I couldn’t go without its presence—reminding me of my failure. The need to do better. The many questions her words had roused in my head.

Ones concerning my dogmatism and drive.

Ones of eternity.

Ones of life.

The plane’s wheels jolted on the ground, making for another burst of adrenaline through my system.

Phillip. Aaron.

God had gifted me new beginning, and we would be the three musketeers again.

Once the plane taxied and the passengers exited ahead of me, I slung my old bag’s long strap over my head and shoulder, leaving it to cross my chest. I’d kept my passport, a few books and other papers, as well as my Bible inside, only packing two large suitcases with everything I didn’t want to leave behind in the Ukraine since I had no plans to return.

The Bible I had yet to open since I’d seen Sofiy pale and cold on our bed a few weeks earlier. I used to find my peace and comfort inside its thin pages where passage after passage had been underlined and highlighted.

But no longer. I didn’t understand why—and the Holy Spirit I trusted to intervene for me at my lowest didn’t give me peace either.

I stepped off the plane, sending up an automatic prayer of thankfulness to God for seeing me safely across land and ocean.

Home.

Since Phillip was wheelchair bound due to his disorder, he’d said Aaron would pick me up.

The first sense of life bubbled up inside me after too many days to count. Would he see me as an old man since my hair and beard had taken a liking to gray? Would he notice the lines around my eyes, the fact the shoulders he used to perch atop weren’t as wide and strong as they once had been?

Heaviness descended over me again, and I trudged on tired legs with the other passengers into the baggage claim area. The clack of moving belts, the murmurs of voices filled my ears.

Phillip had said Aaron would meet me there, and I scanned the area, looking for messy brown hair and big blue eyes hidden behind glasses, but didn’t see him.

I followed the other passengers toward our conveyor, hanging back a bit since everyone else crowded in their rush to claim bags and escape the airport.

Tingles slid over my left cheek like a brush of a dove’s feather, and I turned, knowing who watched me before my eyes found him.

Aaron Weston.

Without glasses and sporting a short-clipped beard of his own…far from the young boy I imagined when thinking of him.

My facial muscles remembered how to full-out grin, how to crinkle the lines around my eyes in happiness all thanks to how the sight of him buoyed my heart.

He held my gaze and strode toward me as though on a mission, his sure steps causing my feet to do the same.

Both our arms extended as one, and we fell into each other, laughter wanting to rise up inside me.

He’d grown close to six feet, putting us almost eye to eye, but the feel of Aaron beneath my arms and hands…

All man, he’d filled out with hard muscle and plenty of it.

The sense of actually being at home returned with force, and I clung to him, eyes clenched shut as the scent of soap and dryer sheets I remembered all too well expanded my lungs.

For the first time in countless years, someone held me, their arms seeming to cherish me for me—Ezra the man, not a pastor, missionary, or man of God.

My throat threatened to swell shut, and I forced myself to pull back the slightest bit. I kept my hands on his shoulder and neck, needing to know Aaron stood in front of me for real.

“Aaron,” I whispered and leaned in to kiss his forehead as I’d done hundreds of times in the past.

His slow exhale ghosted hot over my throat, sending an unnerving, strange shiver down my spine.

I dropped my hands from him and stepped away fully. “You look good, young man.”

He grinned, those blue eyes lighting up with a mischievous glint I’d often thought about—and had missed. “It’s great to finally see you again, Ezra.”

And with that one sentence, the reason for my return slapped me across the face in harsh reality.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” Aaron stated quietly as though he knew why my happiness at seeing him had dimmed.

“Thank you,” I murmured, flicking my focus toward the conveyor and readjusting my bag’s strap across my chest. Most of the crowd had dissipated.

Aaron cleared his throat and moved closer to the carousel, and I pointed out my two bags. He slung them off the belt as though they weighed less than a sack of groceries, and my eyebrows lifted. I’d packed them both full, paying the extra fee for them being overweight.

Another smile tempted my lips upward.

“What?” he asked, side-eyeing me with that twinkle in his eyes again.

I shook my head. “You’ve changed.”

“My growth spurt hit not long after you left.” Aaron pulled up the first case’s handle while I did the same with the second. “I packed on a little muscle weight in college too.”

I glanced down over his wide shoulders, the tapered V of his waist, and the bulging thighs beneath his shorts. Even his calves appeared like he enjoyed his spinach a ton more than he had as a kid. One of my eyebrows raised. “A little?”

He chuckled and led the way toward the glass door, leaving me to follow.

The slider opened ahead of him, letting in a blast of hot summer air and bringing the scent of his soap to my nose once more.

That same shiver licked at my spine, and I frowned, wondering at my body’s reaction to him.

Not exactly comfort like it should have been…and definitely not peaceful.

Perhaps I’d gone too long without physical touch and his hug had cracked open a need inside me I had smothered for many years. Sure the strange feelings would subside once I got used to affection again, I strode ahead to walk beside him.

We traversed the path toward the parking garage, my face once more tingling. Glancing over, I found him peering at me, the warmth in his eyes smoothing my frown. More than mere happiness resided in his blue orbs, something I couldn’t name, but…

Suddenly parched, I flicked my tongue over my lower lips looking for moisture, and Aaron’s focus dropped to my mouth.

Want—beyond platonic friendship.

That was the feeling prickling to life inside me, what filled his eyes.

Unsure how to pray or what to say, I turned my attention forward, falling back a step in order to follow Aaron again.

I’d never felt drawn to a man before, never once considered studying the body of the same s*x to find attraction.

But young Aaron Weston had definitely woken up something inside me I didn’t know what to do with, some unholy desire.

I needed to put a stopper on whatever it was he’d brought to the surface of my old sinful nature, or I would find more trouble for myself than the truth of Sofiy’s final attempts at manipulation in my pocket.