“N.I.V.—it’s what we use in youth group.”

“I won’t let him hurt me. I promised you I wouldn’t. I just have to see him. That’s all.”

“Okay,” he said. “But you’ll come home tomorrow night?”

“Yeah, I’ll come home.”

Wesley nodded and slid off the side of the bed. He started unbuttoning his jeans.

“What are you doing?” she asked as he took off his pants and threw them on a nearby chair.

“Told you. It’s almost midnight. Scoot over.”

He stripped out of his T-shirt and Nora moved over to let him slide in next to her. Turning off the bedside lamp, Wesley gathered her to him. She breathed slowly, relaxed onto his chest and melted into his arms. She didn’t deserve him, didn’t deserve this. He knew she would see Søren tomorrow, and he didn’t hate her for it. She might hate herself, but Wesley would never hate her.

Nora traced his collarbone with her fingertips while Wesley slipped his hand under her shirt and slowly kneaded her lower back. She almost laughed at this foreign sensation—for once in her life she lay in bed with a gorgeous young man, and she had absolutely no desire to seduce him.

“We’re both wearing your underwear,” Nora said after a long silence.

“Could be worse. We both could be wearing your underwear.”

She smiled, knowing that even more than the bath, just having Wesley so close to her made her feel clean and sane again. When Søren touched her she became his. When Wesley touched her, she became herself.

Nora’s hand slid from his chest to his arm. Wesley had twice the muscle she did. He could hurt someone so much more easily than she could, and yet she knew he would never hurt anyone unless he was trying to protect someone else. She’d seen that with her own eyes.

“Wes,” she said as she felt sleep coming for her.

“What, Nor?”

I love you, she thought but didn’t say the words out loud.

“Thanks for the bath.”

CHAPTER 28

Wesley had already gone by the time Nora rolled out of bed the next morning. Morning? she thought and then looked at the clock. It was already after noon. She dragged herself from the tangle of her sheets.

She went to her closet and dug through it. Today she would do something she did only once a year—dress conservatively. She found her only skirt that went past her knees, her only black shoes with a low heel, her only blouse that wasn’t designed to show every inch of cleavage. She even found a strand of pearls she’d received as a gift from her grandmother years ago and put them on. She pulled her hair back and up, taming the wavy mane as best she could and applied half her usual amount of makeup.

Today she was going to church.

As Nora drove she fought off the twin demons of eagerness and fear that this day always visited upon her. Shortly after three she pulled into the parking lot at Sacred Heart Catholic Church. She’d been christened here as an infant, made her First Communion here, and this was where she first saw Søren over eighteen years ago.