The Pastor's Son: A Religious Forbidden Romance

She's never said no to her father. Not once in twenty-two years. The new youth pastor undoes that in three hours.

Eden Mercer unlocks the church every Tuesday at six-forty. Counts the bulletins. Makes coffee nobody likes. Folds her hands when people ask how she is and says I'm fine — and she means it. She mostly means it.

Then Malachi Torren walks in with carpenter's hands and a scar through his eyebrow and looks at her like he already knows she's lying.

He's a pastor's son too. Four generations of ministry. He was never asked if he wanted this life — just told to be grateful. He prays like a man paying a debt. And he watches Eden's mouth when he thinks she isn't looking.

She is.

One Wednesday night. The church is empty. The question comes out before she can stop it: "Has praying you away worked? Because it hasn't worked for me."

What follows happens on basement floors and church altars and in the back of a pickup truck in her father's parking lot. It's reckless and holy and nothing she was taught to want — and she stops apologizing for it.

Her father will find out. That part isn't a question. The question is what she'll say when he does — and whether she'll fold her hands one last time, or finally let them reach for what they want.

Tropes: Forbidden Religious Romance • First Time • Forced Proximity • Secret Affair • HFN

A steamy standalone novella (15,000 words) with open-door scenes in places they definitely shouldn't be. For readers 18+.

If you like your faith tested, your heroes wrecked, and your happy endings earned through exile — this one's yours