His eyebrows rose, shock striking him before his face settled into that same well-orchestrated calm he reserved for his parishioners. “You can bet I’m a prisoner, but not for the reasons you think. You may want to ask yourself why you’ve found yourself here, at my church, now.”
The harsh tone of his voice caught me off guard, but not more than the next moment did.
His palms captured my face, thumbs trailing down the warmth of my throat before he smashed our lips together.
His kiss defiled as much as it gave life.
He desecrated me to the depths of my soul without ever removing a strip of my clothing.
“But that’s where my beliefs diverge from the church.” His lips teased at the corners of my mouth before his tongue darted out, tasting the bow of my top lip.
Oh sweet fucking heaven.
“I happen to believe it isn’t living if you’re not breaking a rule every now and again.”
He caught the soft whimper on my lips with his, swallowing it instantly before his tongue pushed past the barrier and he was sheathed in me again.
His taste, far deadlier than I’d remembered.
His cock, sliding against the outside of my clothes, quickening my pulse and soaking my panties with forbidden arousal.
“Despite what my church may believe…” Bastien’s thumbs hooked in my shirt, the warm pads of his fingertips sliding against my skin and cutting through my nerves like hot butter. “I can’t renounce you.”
His palm slid up my naked torso, divesting me of my shirt, while one hand cupped a shiny chalice, drops of wine already making their way between my breasts. Staining the satin bra I wore, pooling in my navel, soaking a rebel river of red along the elastic of my panties in unholy consecration.
“I know the taste of sin, sweet Tressa. I’ve tasted it every night in my dreams. Craving you is a new and deadlier form of hell than the last I’d overcome.” He dropped to his knees, the empty cup slipping to the floor and soaking his white robes in scarlet before his tongue met my flesh in slow swipes, eyes glinting to mine as he held me flush to his mouth.
Soft mewls formed on my lips as my body fell apart in his arms, limbs loose as he worked his way up my body, tongue tasting every inch of the blessed wine from my skin as he went.
“I am very surely a prisoner to you, my dove.”
Finally, his hands reached the cups of my bra, fingers splaying over the round flesh as he breathed against my ribs. “I’m caged to the dream of anointing you from head to toe. My desire to christen the throne you deserve to sit on.” His fingers hooked into the fabric of my bra and pulled, revealing my breasts to him. His irises warming with fire, he shot his tongue out and tangled with my nipple while the fingers of his other hand worked against my breast, kneading gently at first, before the pressure grew harder, more desperate.
“The thought of being good enough for you, to own the very heart of your soul, that’s what keeps me up at night.” His hands worked both of my breasts now, tongue darting out to pay the other attention before he stood to my height, hands cupping my neck and forcing me to look nowhere but him. “You’re not my dark night of the soul, Tressa, you’re my light at the end of the tunnel. When I talk of rebels, I talk of people like you and me. Soul mates, both of us driven to leave the world brighter than we found it. That’s the thing I love the very most about you, always willing to do all the wrong things for all the right reasons. I love your rebel heart.”
I swallowed, emotion ravaging the remaining nerves of my throat before wild tears burst the levees of my eyelids. “If I’m a rebel heart, wouldn’t that make you a rebel saint? My holy man, saving the world one soul at a time.”
His chuckle sent sparks down my spine.
“S’pose it would.” His grin quirked, eyes twinkling. “But love is a rebellious act and rebel hearts change history.”
“Why do people always fall in love with the things they can’t have then?”
A wry smile turned Bastien’s lips. “Because most people don’t know what’s best for them, especially in matters of the heart. Scripture points to the moment Adam took the apple from Eve as the exact sliver in time that humankind took its first bite of consciousness. In that moment, men and women became shrouded in selfish ego. Feelings like shame and guilt and lust and greed flooded the brain for the first time in history. So nothing about this—” the tip of his index finger traced the brown edge of my nipple as he rhymed his own brand of scripture “—is inherently unnatural.”
He ducked his head, sucking a peak into his mouth, eliciting moans of rapture.
“We are love, you and I. Your body can’t deny it’s reaction to me,” his lips grazed my skin with his illicit words, “I can’t tell you how much I love the smell of your arousal on my fingertips.” His words struck all the lonely chords of my heart.
I hated him for that.
The selfish side of me wondered if he knew I yearned to hear his words like an addict searching for the next high.
“You’ve pledged your love to God,” I accused, my broken heart peppering each word with choked emotion.
He flicked his eyes up before he turned back to loop a blood red rope between his hands, gaze fading back to my peaked nipples. Soft, emotion-filled eyes observed me, his actions slow as he began to wrap the braided rope around my wrists, winding the shiny fibers up my forearms before leaving the loose ends hanging.
He drifted his eyes up and down my body once before searing my gaze, then ducking to loop my tied arms over his head.
