“It’s not like that. The Jesuits have a practice—”
“I don’t care about thegoddamn Jesuits. If you only saw yourself through my eyes, if you loved yourself as much asIlove you.” Her eyes broke with emotion. “Then you wouldneverraze your own flesh.”
And that was all it took.
With those few words, she pieced a broken man back together. Stitched my heart whole, assembled my soul to a capacity fuller than it’d been before. Like a sorceress, she used her magic to expose all the unseen parts of me. The parts I’d been hiding from myself.
“You are a good man, Bastien Castaneda. No number of lashings could make you any better in my eyes. Tell me, how much good can you bring to the world if you’re ravaged and beaten and bloody on this bed?” Her gaze was accusatory now, reason rearing its ugly head. “Don’t you think all the beautiful gifts you’ve brought to this world far overshadow the few moments of unbridled passion you’ve allowed yourself?”
“That’s not what the Church would say—”
“Fuck the Church, Bastien!” She pressed closer to me, up on her tiptoes, our noses hovering just out of reach, her lips right there. “You contaminate and condemn the most beautiful and complex love of my life, and you think I want to know what God would say? I want to know whatyouwould say.”
My mind warred, good and evil, pleasure and pain, sin and sacrifice, all battled fiercely before she did the one thing she could do to calm the chaos.
She kissed me.
TWENTY-FOUR
Bastien
“I missed you so fucking much.” I confessed on her lips.
She grinned, mumbling against me. “This rugged holy man thing you’ve got going on works well on you.”
She tugged at my overgrown stubble as she teased. I captured her wrist, pulling her down onto the bed beside me. “If you like it, I’ll keep it.”
“Ha!” She laughed, and just like that, we fell back into that thing we did so well together. “Giving up your power already?”
Her banter almost brought me to tears.
I’d missed her more than I’d allowed myself to admit.
“I left all my power in your hands.” I could hear the lusty frustration lacing my own words, my hands greedy as they traveled her body, stroking her curves and lifting the layers of loose clothing she wore.
I gulped when her body was bare and gleaming in the moonlight, damp skin already hot with anticipation as I caged her in my heavy arms. Collapsing on top of her, I melded our lips, tasting her, touching her, getting reacquainted with my favorite everything all over again.
“I don’t know how I stayed away from you.” I kissed her deeper, not allowing a response or even a breath, our bodies working up a feverish rhythm before my fingertips were touching the wet skin between her legs and sheathing themselves in her warmth for the first time.
Again.
I groaned, her fingernails raking across my shoulder blades as she clung to me, our lips rarely disconnected as we rediscovered the love in our formerly hopeless love story all over again. All the misaligned pieces of me fell back into place as if pulled by an invisible magnet, the very force she held over my true nature incomparable to anything else in my life.
Love.
What a funny little emotion.
“Bastien?” Her lips grazed my ear and sent a thrill down my spine, grounding me in this moment. In her.
“Say it again.” I sucked at the sweat trickling down her neck, collecting at her throat, driving me wild as it beaded between her breasts. I sank into her body, thrusting with deft strokes as we fucked and kissed and touched the livewire that’d always throbbed hot and needy between us.
“Say what?” Her laugh made me crazier for her.
“My name.”
Her grin fell a notch, warmth pooling in her eyes as she cradled my jaw in her palms. “Bastien.”
My lips glided along hers, smile lifting farther as I kissed and teased at the delicious little bow. “You are music to my ears.”
