I shook my head, confused thoughts shuffling through a broken playlist as I searched for something appropriate to say as I dropped my burden on the desk.
“Tressa?” He ducked, melted-chocolate eyes catching mine and hanging there. Suspended.
“Yeah?”
He sucked in a quick breath, that same rebel grin from the picture cocking one side of his mouth. “Lost your thought?”
I squeezed my eyes closed, attempting to force the influence of him out of my mind. “Lost my sanity is more like it.”
He breathed a chuckle, hand grazing down the dip of my spine before landing at my back and urging me at his side. “Find the Holy Grail up in the attic?”
My palms tingled as I suddenly remembered the photos I’d come barreling down the stairs to show him. “A few, actually.”
Bastien’s hand pressed at my back, fingertips dipping lower at my waist and sending tingles in a spray of directions.
“Oh?” A genuine smile lit his cheeks, and my stupid, love-sick heart flip-flopped.
“Some pictures of summer events at St. Michael’s got me thinking. Why don’t we add some winter activities too?”
He nodded, eyes shifting from the desk, his stack of paperwork neatly aligned at one corner, my spray of random photos, smiling faces, and Father Martin covering everything else.
“If Lucy is willing to take over a little more with the younger kids, I can work on planning a few things, check the schedule?”
His hand still hovered at my back, butterflies continuing to batter the cage of my chest. “I’ve been speaking to my nephew Cruz, he’d like to visit and bring his new girlfriend one of these weekends, I’m sure he’d love to help out with any festivities if you need it.”
“That would be great.” I smiled just seeing the smile tug his lips as he talked about his nephew. They seemed to be growing closer as the young man grew up, and Father Bastien made a perfect, well,fatherfigure. “I’d love to meet him someday.”
“I hope for that too. He’s not mentioned a girlfriend to me in the past—she must be important.” His voice lowered an octave before he cleared his throat and turned his eyes back to the desk.
“I also found this.” I slid the old album onto the polished wood, flipping it open, a half-smiling, younger Bastien leaping off the page.
His eyes darkened for a moment, bottom lip cut with his top incisor before he pushed the album closed and shoved it into the desk drawer. “Haven’t seen that in a long time.”
“I almost didn’t recognize you.” I probed.
“I was a different person.”
“You look…” I struggled for the right word.
“Younger?” He looked away, his desire to avoid this conversation coating his features.
“Happier, I was going to say.”
“You mistake happiness for quiet rebellion.”
Fading evening light streaked across the room and highlighted the hard muscle under his black clerical shirt. He pushed the thumb of his right hand to his lips, losing himself in thought before he finally said, “My dreams back then were more about changing the system and less about conforming.”
“I wouldn’t call you a conformist now,” I said, watching as he stalked back across the room, darkness slicing his irises, eating up the energy and causing my own chest to rise and fall with intense feeling.
“You wouldn’t?” He nudged closer, one hand falling at my waist, the pad of his thumb brushing under the hem of my shirt and connecting with the soft skin of my abdomen.
I gulped a breath, feeling his touch fully between my legs.
“Not in the least.”
His broad chest made contact with mine, fire erupting in the once hollow space that’d existed between us. As if sensing my willingness to be so close to him, he swept the rest of his fingers under the hem of my shirt, grazing my skin and setting fire to each nerve.
“Some days, I forget the beliefs I stand for, the reason that…drives me.” He edged closer, lips sliding against the shell of my ear, his breath bathing my skin in arousal. I shuddered between my legs, willing the stubborn need thrumming its way through my body to subside so I could form a single thought beyond the way he made me feel with his hands on me.
