He does, sinking deeper until he's fully seated inside me, and the fullness is overwhelming. We stay like that for a long moment, foreheads pressed together, breathing each other's air.
"This is my communion," he whispers against my lips. "You are my consecration. My undoing."
He starts to move, slow and careful at first, watching my face for any sign of discomfort. But there's no pain now, only a building pleasure that has me digging my nails into his back and wrapping my legs around his waist.
"Faster," I beg. "Please. I need more."
He gives me more. His control cracks open, and his thrusts become harder, deeper, angled in a way that has me crying out with every stroke. His mouth finds mine, swallowing my moans, and one hand slides between our bodies to work my clit in tight circles.
"Come for me," he growls against my mouth. "I want to feel you come around me."
The command pushes me over the edge. I shatter with his name on my lips, clenching around him as waves of pleasure crash through me. He follows seconds later, burying himself deep and groaning my name like a prayer.
Afterward, we lie tangled together in my rumpled sheets, catching our breath. He's traced patterns on my skin for so long that I've lost track of time. The morning light has shifted to midday, and neither of us seems inclined to move.
"I should feel guilty," I murmur against his chest. "I keep waiting for it. The guilt. The shame. But it doesn't come."
His arms tighten around me. "I've spent eight years feeling guilty for things that were never my fault. For not saving my brother. For wanting to be happy. For being human." He tips my chin up so I'm looking at his face. "I'm tired of guilt. I'm tired of punishing myself for being alive. And when I'm with you, I don't feel guilty. I just feel... real."
"What happens now?" I ask the question that's been lurking beneath the surface of my bliss. "You're still a priest. The church is still your life."
"Not anymore." His voice is certain in a way that makes my breath catch. "I've already started the paperwork. Laicization. Ittakes time, but I've made my choice. I'm choosing this. Choosing you."
"Cillian, no." I sit up, panic flooding through me. "You can't give up everything you've built. Not for me. What if you regret it? What if you wake up one day and realize you made a mistake?"
He sits up too, cupping my face in his hands. "I've never believed in anything the way I believe in this. In us. The church was never my calling, Waverly. It was my hiding place. A way to avoid living because I was too afraid of losing again." He presses his lips to my forehead. "You made me brave enough to stop hiding."
I don't have words. All I can do is pull him close and kiss him with everything I have, trying to show him all the things I don't know how to say.
When we finally break apart, he settles back against my pillows and pulls me into his arms. I lay my head on his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart.
"I've never felt like this before," I admit quietly. "Like I belong somewhere. Like someone actually sees me."
"I see you." He presses a kiss to the top of my head. "I've seen you since the moment you walked into my church. And I'm never going to stop looking."
I fall asleep in his arms, safer and more content than I've ever been in my life. When I wake up hours later, he's gone. But there's a note on my pillow in careful handwriting:
I have to handle something. Stay here. Please. — C
I press the note to my chest and smile. Whatever comes next, we'll face it together.
6
CILLIAN
Iwake up changed.
The morning light filters through unfamiliar curtains, and for a moment I don't know where I am. Then I feel her warmth against my side, her soft breath against my chest, and everything comes flooding back. Her apartment. Her bed. Her body wrapped around mine like she's afraid I'll disappear.
I've never woken up next to anyone before. Not like this. The seminary was a place of solitude, and in the years before that, my encounters were brief and meaningless. This is different. This is Waverly's hair spread across my shoulder, her hand resting over my heart, her leg tangled with mine beneath sheets that smell like us.
I should feel guilty. I keep waiting for the shame to hit, for the weight of what I've done to crush me. But when I look down at her sleeping face, all I feel is a peace so profound it almost frightens me.
She stirs, mumbling something unintelligible, and I press a kiss to her forehead. "Sleep," I whisper. "I'll be back."
I slip out of bed as quietly as I can, pulling on my clothes from yesterday. The sweater, the jeans. Civilian clothes that feel foreign after eight years of nothing but black. I find paper and a pen on her desk and write a note, then set it on my pillow where she'll see it when she wakes.
The walk back to the rectory is surreal. The streets are the same ones I've walked a thousand times, but I'm not the same man who walked them yesterday. Everything looks brighter, sharper, more real. I pass Mrs. Delgado walking her dog and nod politely, and she gives me a strange look that makes me realize I'm smiling. I can't remember the last time I smiled without trying.
