“Tell me what you want. You want me to take it from you?”
Her eyes caught mine, blinking once. My cock flexed.
“You want me to desecrate and defile every sweet inch of you?”
A soft hiss of pleasure as she rocked against me.
“We’re bound together, Tressa. I won’t let you forget that anytime soon.”
Rubbing the roundness of her backside with my palm, I pulled myself from her body and teased at her entrance, enjoying the way her hips sought a release only I could give.
Tressa, desperate and needy for me, a notion so satisfying and sweet I could roll around in it for a lifetime. Breaking every vow was worth it to be with her, as was committing every sin my soul’s newfound purpose. Anything to own her, take her, make her mine.
“Patience isn’t your strongest attribute. You may want to think about working on that next Lenten season.” I landed three slaps on her rounded backside.
She jumped, unable to rub at the quickly growing pink handprint on her bottom. I stroked my new mark on her perfect skin, enjoying playing her body like an instrument, attuned to her every movement and need.
“And maybe you can give up celibacy next Lent.” The sarcasm in her saccharine words brought a grin to my face.
“So wet and filthy. I’ve got just the thing to keep that mouth busy.” I spanked her twice more on the other ass cheek as punishment. Pushing a hand up the arch of her throat, I slipped my finger past her lips.
She gulped down another moan, a series of pleas falling from her lips that had me slamming so hard and so deep, I thought I might break her myself.
She’d already broken me.
For so long, I’d tended my flock obediently, never a misstep, hardly a stray thought. But with her, I was the wolf. She needed protecting from me. I wanted to claim her, cage her, force her on her hands and knees, and fuck her seven ways from Sunday. With her, I was nothing but a beast. A man under her thrall, willing to confess at the heart of her altar.
“I thought about using my belt, but I like feeling you, knowing how to hit you with just enough pressure, knowing I can only hurt you as much as I can hurt myself.” I slipped my palms up the undersides of her arms, enjoying the way a trail of goose bumps popped up in my wake.
I released her bindings then, needing to feel her hands on me, to know she was right here with me, of her own will. Our demons played best flesh-on-flesh, scorching sin against damp skin.
I pulled her up to my chest, and she wrapped her arms around my neck and rode my hips. Her soft cries and the tensing of her thighs around my body told me she was crashing over the edge, her hot body sucking me farther in, coaxing my own release from the base of my spine down to the tips of my toes. With tremors of pleasure rippling through us, I emptied into my very own holy grail, tasting life and touching God from the inside out.
I watched her come undone, every carefully held morsel slipping away like drops of holy water, leaving behind a pure and primal shuddering creature of need. The rebirth of two broken souls uniting as one. Kissing her reverently, lips and hands and limbs entwined, I whispered the words I’d buried down deep.
“I kept my days busy when I was without you.” The loneliness of all those moments haunted me even still. “So I only missed you when the sun went down. When I ran out of things to distract myself, I always found you. I can’t begin to express what you gave to me. That time of my life plays in my memory like a sweet dream.”
She hung her hands around my neck, eyes locked and shimmering with warmth and tenderness in the dim light.
“Oh, Bastien.” She ran two soft fingertips over my cheekbone.
Dropping my forehead to hers, lips grazing, I murmured, “You and I were always poetry, captivating, sweet, and over far too soon.”
And then I buried myself inside of her again, needing the physical reminder that she was real, she was here, and she was finally with me. Just like we were meant to be.
TWENTY-FIVE
Bastien
“I can’t tell you how long it took me to work up the balls to come here.” She sat propped against my simple headboard later, sheets tucked under her arms. I lay at her side, unable to help the rogue grin, one arm thrown over her belly as my scent clung to her skin.
“How did you find me? I’m sure the cardinal had the file sealed for all eternity.”
She huffed. “He was useless.”
I laughed at her bold statement of one of the holiest positions in the Roman Catholic Church.
“I tried to ask where you’d gone once Luce and I returned from the hospital, but he was as smug and tight-lipped as ever. So I started searching the name of every priest under his order. I didn’t get anywhere for months, and I wasn’t even sure I should be trying at all. I didn’t know what I’d do with the information even if I had it.” She stopped, eyes animated with her retelling. “But then, finally, a few months ago, a newspaper in Havana uploaded some of their older archives online, and a Father Martin popped up. I didn’t know if it was the one I knew, but it mentioned the cathedral in Pinar del Rio, and without even knowing what the hell I was thinking, I started searching for flights to Cuba.”
