His broad, sun-bronzed hands covering mine. The rugged cut of his chiseled jaw, tiny laugh lines crinkling the skin at his temples, the way he undressed me with his eyes, cutting to the core of me.
“The pressure is nearly unbearable for any red-blooded man. You make me ache with desire in ways I care not to admit, and then I want to punish myself for the unchaste thoughts.” His lips edged closer to my ear, “do you know what the punishment is for sins of the flesh?”
“No…” I gulped, the points of my nipples cutting against the fabric of my shirt, his gaze holding mine suspended with painful precision. Inches away, his dark jaw was faintly out of reach of my fingertips. A quiet shudder rolled through me when my hand acted on its own and slid over the expanse of muscle dividing his abdominals through the fine threads of his black shirt. Adrenaline swelled in my stomach like a tidal wave when his fingers dipped below the waistband of my pants and caressed my skin.
“It would be wrong of you to assume I don’t sin, Tressa.” He rocked his hips closer, the ridge of his thick arousal pressing into my abdomen. My fingers trailed down the coarse fabric of his dark pants, my fingertips hovering at the cool leather of his belt, heart thumping in my ears as every fiber of my body begged to be just a few inches closer.
Boom.
Echoing footsteps drove us apart, his fingertips still dusting my wrist when the door swung open and a man in crimson vestments swallowed the tiny room. Cardinal Lovello was standing across from me, eyes taking in Bastien and me, shoulder to shoulder behind a closed door. Did he register the flush on my cheeks? The shallow breaths and wild heart thundering in my ears?
The cardinal’s gaze crawled up my torso with slow precision until he finally landed at my lips and spoke. “I hope my visit hasn’t inconvenienced you.”
The fact that the cardinal was looking at every part of me except my gaze sent cold terror through my veins. When minutes before, my heart had thundered for Bastien’s touch, now it thundered for fear we’d been caught.
Was the cardinal here because someone had seen something?
Had we been reported?
The memory of the bang outside the church doors the night I’d nearly succumbed in a pool of delirium under Bastien’s gaze filled my mind. We’d dismissed it as the wind, but perhaps it was someone. Someone who’d reported our inappropriate…Inappropriate what?
Had we engaged in inappropriate behavior?
“I’m glad you stopped by, actually. I’ve been putting together a report for a proposed budget shift over the next quarter, but looking at the history of the account, there’s some suspicious activity. I’ve got a few receipts here I’d like to show you. They’re all made out to the same person, a woman by the name of—”
The cardinal swiped the small stack of yellowed receipts from Bastien’s hands, eyes cutting across the space to meet mine for an instant.
Finally.
I busted a weak smile.
His ice-blue gaze hardened.
“This sounds like a private matter.”
Bastien’s helpful smile faltered before he crossed his arms and shook his head. “Tressa’s been doing some accounting for me. I trust her.”
The cardinal’s lips creased into a thin line before he spoke. “I would encourage you to avoid any rabbit holes, Father Castaneda. Join me for a moment in the sacristy?”
The cardinal pressed a hand at Bastien’s shoulder while stuffing the small bundle of papers into the deep pockets of his red robe.
I pressed my lips together, wondering what information the papers held that’d brought that annoyed look on his face.
Bastien opened the door then, gesturing the cardinal out into the narrow hallway, following him back down the way he’d come, while I remained in the office. Old photos were spread out on the desk, the small, neat stack of official church documents still sitting at the corner.
I slid all of the photographs off the desk in one swoop, eyes lingering for extra beats on the paperwork.
Father Martinscribbled at the end of each, his angled scratch barely legible among the lines of longhand. My fingers itched to grab one of the papers and dig deeper. The soft laugh lines in Father Martin’s smile came back to me as I thought over the countless afternoons that bled into evenings here at the church. The feeling that I loved most about it…that it was bustling with pure holiness.
I knew what the opposite end of the spectrum looked like.
I’d spent far too many nights home alone, grainy cartoons flickering on the television, eyes heavy with sleep as I snuggled with an afghan my grandmother had made, a decade’s worth of cigarette smoke lingering in the colorful fibers.
I swallowed down the memory of one night waking up to a stranger leering down at me, whiskey burning up the air between us as I pulled the afghan around me tighter, the oil to power the furnace long empty.
Mom had swept in a moment later, shooing tonight’s bed companion and bundling me in her arms, carrying me off to my own bed and whispering how much she loved me.
That was the thing about Mom; I never knew which her to expect.
