My skin began to itch, tiny pricks of lightning jolting my legs, urging me to run because all of this was too much pressure.
I’d come to St. Michael’s to escape a disaster of my own making, only to walk myself into an even bigger one.
My vision faded to dark with the realization, heart sinking as my fingers bit into the pew, tears scorching my eyelids.
“It is only when,” Bastien continued from the pulpit, “we walk through the dark night of the soul and face every fear, that we can we truly begin to know ourselves enough to stand strong in our beliefs.”
I sucked in a breath, clutching at the flesh of my thighs to prevent myself from standing.
To run to him or away, I wasn’t even sure myself.
If we’d been alone, no one there to watch us love, maybe then I would have found out. But instead, I was chained.
Chained to the possibility of us.
Anchored to the pain of holding what didn’t belong to me.
Writhing with the agony of letting it go.
“Are you okay?” Lucy whispered at my side.
Bastien’s gaze hung heavy on mine across the pews, jaw working back and forth before I murmured, “I’ll never be the same again, Luce.” I shook my head, tears spiked with helpless rage streaking my cheeks. “Never again.”
SIXTEEN
Tressa
“The dark night of the soul? Mind telling me what that was about?” The sound of the closing echoed through the tight chamber when I slammed it a few minutes after he’d finished his mass.
Bastien remained still across the small sacristy, head bowed as he continued to work quietly, deft fingers sliding thin, red ropes of sacred fabric through his fingers. “I’d rather know what you think.”
Frustration thickened my blood. “I’m your dark night of the soul?! I think you went a step too far.”
“If that’s what you call a step too far, I’d hate to hear what you call indecent.” His body was against mine in an instant, my breasts heaving with shallow irritation and grazing the fabric of his vestments.
This profoundly infuriating man was under my skin like no one else had ever been, and just like a bad tattoo, I’d pay a professional to gouge him out of my soul if I could.
“This, for instance,” he hissed, “is surely a step too close to your precious comfort zone.” His body pressed tighter, the deep ridge of his arousal cutting at my hip and causing my throat to crack and turn to dust. “Don’t trick yourself into believing that you knowyoumore than I do, Tressa.”
His dark eyes glinted in the dim light, my heartbeat vibrating in my ears the only noise in the room. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
I couldn’t catch my breath, his fingers crawling their way past my wrists, grazing the underside of my elbows before his thumbs dug in and he was as far deep inside my own heart as he could possibly go.
“You like the dance, dove, but just when things get intimate, you pull away.”
His scathing truth cut like a hot blade.
“No,” I squeaked.
His soft chuckle was his only reply, my eyelids already glued shut in opposition to his words.
“My sweet dove…my greatest temptation. I have already dishonored my God and broken my vows of faith with you in more wicked ways than I care to admit. I’m a fallen priest, and yet I can’t bring myself to repent.” Bastien’s thumb danced across the arch of my brow. “You think you only show me the side of you you want me to see, but I see more than that, sweetness.” His eyes flicked down to my lips, hips working softly against mine, and then harder. “Don’t you understand? When it comes to forbidden love—bitterness will always taint any sense of sweetness. Surely you’re not foolish enough to believe there is a light at the end of our tunnel. I’m trained to see the broken parts you’ve spent a lifetime hiding. I’m trained to be your light in the darkness, Tressa. But all that darkness—” his thumbs worked inside my elbows, swaying me against his body as he gritted out against my neck “—it weighs on me some days…but still, I cannot bring myself to desecrate something so rare and sweet, no matter how much it calls to me.” His cock flexed behind his sanctified robes, my body humming with pure desire for anything more he had to give.
The way he swallowed my space and caused my heart to thrum like a hummingbird was distracting enough, but his skin setting flame to mine was beyond unbearable. “When you fear nothing, you have nothing to fear.”
Bastien’s eyes held mine, the amusement chasing through his chocolate irises giving me enough satisfaction to live on for days. “You’re not fearless, Tressa, no one is, and often what we fear the most is right in front of us.”
I squared my shoulders. “You’re a prisoner to your belief.”
