Unholy Yearning: Sinful Natures 2

1. Zeke

1

ZEKE

“We no longer have to be slaves to sin!”

Hundreds of the people packed around me in the mega church, shouting out amens at Pastor Welker’s words from where he stood on stage.

“We are new creations!” he continued, jumping onto his toes with excitement, his voice booming from speakers in surround sound.

More affirmatives rose along with hands and fists, repeated by the church leaders seated behind where he paced back and forth delivering God’s words for the day. Like a pep rally, the crowd rolled with their spiritual leader’s preaching. Emotionalism at its best, drawing everyone to their feet.

I stood like an easily led lamb, but I didn’t get caught up in the high as I’d done all those months ago at the rock concert I never should’ve attended.

Memories hit me like flashing stage lights, taking me back to that night.

Sensual bass.

Writhing bodies.

The stranger with bewitching green eyes.

His ass in my hands…our groins grinding together, the yearning I’d seen on his face mirroring my own—

Don’t go there.

Teeth clenched, I reminded myself of where I was—in a damn church—and what I stood for: God, His word, and living a holy life.

The Spirit moved through the congregation, but my hands rested on the back of the seat in front of me while I fought off my desire to accept the bisexual label I’d felt on a deep level for as long as I could remember.

I’d chosen to be a man of God, and that life didn’t include s****l perversion.

If only I experienced what the rest of Pastor Welker’s flock did.

Not so different from the mega church I’d attended as a kid once my heathen parents found God, Simply Grace Church’s attendance reached upwards of a thousand. And thousands more supported the nonprofit community by monetarily providing for dozens of missionaries and paying for Christian schooling and Bible-based counseling. I’d been hired for the latter to labor alongside others wishing to help souls struggling to find God’s will for their lives.

My good friend Aaron stood beside me, also quiet and still as our pastor stirred up his flock. He, too, appeared unmoved, blue eyes hazed over while staring ahead, but the burden of being the sole care provider for an invalid parent sometimes overwhelmed him to a brain fog mode where nothing broke through.

Not even an amped up sermon about accepting and living in the “new man” in Christ and choosing His way in one’s daily walk of life could lift Aaron’s shoulders to straighten him to his full six-foot height.

The praise and worship team hurried on stage at the pastor’s bidding at the end of the seemingly rousing sermon. Voices rose along with various instruments, deafening to the point I cringed rather than rejoiced in the salvation freely given that everyone sang about.

I believed in God and got on my knees before His throne countless times a day, but I never felt the Spirit move like the church’s attendees did.

My dedication, my determination to live the way I did stemmed from heartache and the stubbornness Mom claimed I had always carried like a badge of honor.

Said stubbornness had helped me escape the type of trial almost two years earlier a counselor would hope against and pray to avoid during his career. I’d dug my heels in, determined to advise the couple I’d counseled when I should’ve handed over the reins at the first red flag.

But in my desire to help the troubled couple, I’d pushed.

And the wife’s true colors had shone through when she’d snuck into my office unannounced and shed her trench coat, revealing nothing but flesh and curves beneath.

Declining her suggestion of a hard f**k over my desk had come easy since nothing about the woman had tempted me. But she didn’t understand the meaning of the word no and continued in her pursuit.

I’d filed for a restraining order the following week and ended up pressing charges when she wouldn’t relent in her stalking.

Denise Foster had landed in the psych ward, and her husband filed for divorce.

A f****d-up mess God had allowed—for His glory. I accepted that truth shortly after the entire affair quieted.

I had accomplished what my old pastor should’ve done when I’d been a teenager. Stood firm in his faith.

Pastor Hardy had fallen in love with a woman he’d counseled, and his transgressions broke up two marriages. His son Braden, my then best friend, suffered the worst, and the fallout also included a split in the Boston church we’d grown up in.

While hurt and disappointment in the one man I’d placed on a pedestal would’ve sent most teenagers into a spiral of sin like it did his son, the incident had settled my future in my heart.

I would prove that a man, regardless of his sinful nature, could say no in the face of temptation. I would be the role model that youngsters needed to look to for spiritual leadership. I would stand strong and choose right so that people like Braden wouldn’t pay the price of other’s sins.

That stubbornness led me to Bible college and additional classes to get my master’s in Christian counseling.

And less than one year into a practice my parents had financially supported, I faced what my old pastor had—and proved what I’d set out to do. But my sense of pride churned my guts as much as the fact a marriage had still been ruined.

At least no children had been emotionally damaged.

Braden had spiraled into drugs and alcohol, but God had intervened five years earlier. We’d spoken right before his first semester in seminary began, and I couldn’t have been happier to hear he’d turned his life around. Braden had finally found peace and happiness after the trauma his asshole of a father had caused.

Like me, he’d chosen to dedicate his life to God, and we’d made a pact that day, setting our paths in stone.

However, the second time I’d been faced with a life-changing decision, I’d been powerless to the dominating force of him while hundreds of people danced around us. My stranger who’d ensnared me with one glance. The one who continued to haunt my dreams and left me aching.

Addictive…luscious on my tongue, his fine ass beneath my hands…

Aaron nudged me with an elbow, pulling me from my musings that stirred my blood in a way no message from the pulpit ever had.

Shame had me lowering my head along with the church’s dimming lights, and Pastor Welker prayed God’s blessing over his quieted congregation until we met again.

Another praise song began as the crowd began to disperse around us, their murmurs a buzz of background noise in my ears.

“See you at the gym tomorrow?” Aaron glanced over his shoulder at me as we waited our turn to file into the aisle, his eyes downturned at the corners as always.

“Definitely.” We’d been meeting at five-thirty, five days a week since I’d moved to the Philadelphia area eight months earlier.

“Push day,” Aaron reminded me, and I grimaced. My damn quads still ached from our Friday workout.

“Getting old sucks,” I muttered my complaint, even though I hadn’t yet hit thirty.

“As if I need the reminder.” He rubbed a hand down over his face and closely clipped beard, blinking slowly.

“How’s your dad doing?” I asked, knowing right where his mind had gone—same as it always did whenever we discussed age.

“It’s Sunday,” Aaron said with a shrug.

The one day his dad enjoyed still being alive since he could livestream the church service.

“I’m picking up KFC for lunch, so that’ll keep his good mood around longer,” Aaron continued, his focus flitting over a group of young women—single and glancing his way. He ignored them as though his libido had s**t the bed years ago.

But I didn’t look a second time either.

I followed him up the main aisle behind the women, our progress slow while we waited for those in front of us to exit into the church’s massive foyer.

Sunlight shone through the glass wall along the building’s front, blinding me before we even stepped foot into the lobby. The second a blast of fresh spring air from the propped open doors hit my face, I breathed deep. A good, long run would loosen my stiff muscles I hadn’t spent enough time stretching and rolling after abusing them at the gym.

A lesson learned the hard way, and not for the first time.

We escaped the crowd, and Aaron clasped my hand with his calloused, firm grip. “Have a good one.”

I bid him the same and watched him go, his broad shoulders hunched, head down. He carried burdens I couldn’t begin to imagine, but one, at least, I figured we had in common.

Attraction to men.

We’d never discussed it, and I sure as f**k hadn’t uncovered my sins from that night in Nashville, but I’d never once seen Aaron show interest in the female form. And there were a f**k ton of women at the gym who liked to prance around with more skin showing than covered.

Like me, he hid his s****l proclivities well. Our lusts of the flesh were best left to rot in the grave with the “old man”, our inherent sinful natures Pastor Welker had preached about that morning.

I am a new creation in Christ, I told myself, lifting my face toward the sun, soaking in the warmth of her life-giving energy and the reminder of my truth. And nothing and no one will ever make me believe otherwise.

Stubbornness was good for something, even when my heart and body yearned for more. Riches and crowns await me in glory, I reminded myself, a mansion for my faithfulness to God’s calling.

A burst of light laughter drew my focus off my affirmations and the promises of God’s word. Mr. Astbury, another member on the church’s counseling staff, headed my way, his wife on his arm—and a beautiful, younger version of her a step behind them.

Obviously their daughter, she leaned in to the brunette beside her as they trailed the older couple, the two younger women caught up in whatever they whispered about. Hair like a sheaf of wheat shone with golden tints in the sunshine beaming over her head. Tucked waist and perfect sized breasts…just enough cleavage my mouth watered to mark the smooth skin purple from sucking and biting.

My d**k took interest in a woman for the first time in ages—the first person at all since him.

Mr. Astbury called to me, pulling me into the present.

Smiling, I tore my focus off the young woman on his heels. “How are you, sir? Mrs. Astbury,” I greeted, shaking both of their hands.

A few pleasantries along with praise for the uplifting message were exchanged between us.

I could feel their daughter’s eyes on me the whole time and preened just the slightest bit, making sure to keep good posture and show off the pecs I’d been working at alongside Aaron.

Her steady focus tingled the side of my face, and I finally gave her mine, holding out my hand when I realized my co-worker had forgotten introductions. “Zeke Sipe,” I told her.

Eyes like dark chocolate and just as delicious looking flitted down over me, quickly returning to my face. “Lily Astbury.” Husky and low, her voice hit like a shot of adrenaline to my groin.

She slid her palm along mine—and the coolness of metal on her ring finger brought a silent curse to my brain. Turning our clasped hands the slightest bit revealed what I’d assumed.

A small diamond ring sparkled back at me, mocking my d**k and the excitement of finding a woman who turned me on.

It figured. After that night in Nashville, a godly woman had finally caught my eye and she was off limits.

My smile stayed fixed in place as I quickly released her hand and took a step back.

“You haven’t met?” her father asked, giving me a reason to remove my attention from the young woman I would have pursued wholeheartedly if she’d been available.

“We haven’t,” I replied.

“Lily just graduated from college,” her mother said, and I remembered her dad telling me about their youngest daughter.

She’d gotten engaged to her childhood sweetheart over Christmas break when I’d been up in Boston visiting my parents.

With the size of our church and the amount of people I’d met since moving to Philly, I wasn’t surprised I’d forgotten all about her.

“Well, welcome home and congratulations,” I told Lily.

She looked me over again, her eyes twinkling with the kind of interest from a taken woman that made my skin crawl—and d**k twitch, even though her petite curves weren’t meant for my hands.

The little vixen was too damn young, too damn wild with unsown oats to have a tiny rock on her ring finger. I wondered if her fiancé knew that truth or if her beauty just dazzled him into not caring she liked to flirt with other men.

“She and Levi will be coming into the office for marriage counseling,” Mr. Astbury said, “and since I’m her father, I thought it best if you sat down with them.”

Fucking hell.

Red flags, an ignored libido, and the type of suggestive eyes any red-blooded man would respond to?

Pure trouble.

“Perhaps Pastor Jameson would be better suited for marriage counseling?” I suggested the older gentleman in the third and final office of our hallway who I’d only come across a dozen or so times in my months of working at Simply Grace.

“His biopsy came back, and it’s not good news. They’re only giving him six months.”

My lips thinned, and I shook my head.

“Such a shame,” Mrs. Astbury murmured, both her husband and I nodding in agreement.

The two younger girls whispered quietly, not giving a rat’s ass about the counselor who had been with our church decades longer than Pastor Welker.

“I already had Mrs. Vale check your availability,” Mr. Astbury said about our shared secretary, his smile returning. “I had her pencil Lily and Levi in for Thursday at four.”

Annoyance prickled at the liberty he’d taken without speaking to me first.

But if I hadn’t laid eyes on his daughter prior to his suggesting I meet with the young couple, would I have refused to counsel them?

No. I wouldn’t have.

That truth had me nodding as I submitted to the fact God had allowed the events to transpire that put me in a possibly compromising situation.

He’d given me yet another chance to prove myself, but I knew greater temptation lay in wait. Because Lily Astbury called out to my sinful nature, and unlike with Denise the psycho stalker, my desire ran on the f**k, yes side of wanting to bury my d**k in her wet warmth.

“Levi will be home this afternoon,” Lily said, drawing my attention back on her blushing cheeks and smiling, glossed lips.

I remembered her father saying she’d been in Florida while her fiancé had studied at a Christian college in Tennessee.

“You must be anxious for September,” I said, watching her eyes closely.

Her smile widened as she winked. “Terribly.”

I’d meant for her nuptials, but her saucy smirk suggested she meant her wedding night.

Minutes later, I climbed into my car, my head in a constant state of prayer.

Father above, I’m going to need your help with this one.

I hoped her fiancé was better equipped to deal with her, because the temptation to touch, to taste, was very real. Even strong enough to weaken my stubbornness to live a godly life, blameless in the sight of God.