This was wrong. Not because of him, but because…I was watching. Still watching, even as his large hand ran up and down his covered cock in a way that had me biting hard into my lower lip. The chains he wore around his neck swayed against his chest with every stroke, Alessio’s head falling back slightly from what had to be sheer ecstasy.
But he never broke eye contact.
He watched me watching him, and that seemed to get him off even more. The hand he wasn’t using on his cock slapped flat against the window to steady himself, and the picture he made had me inadvertently reaching down to touch myself. I didn’t even know I was doing it until a small smile curled Alessio’s lips and he shoved the band of his briefs down to reveal his dick.
My breath caught in my throat at the sight of him. I’d once been so intimately familiar with every inch of Alessio, including the nine between his thighs. I could remember how thick and hot he felt under my tongue, how his arousal would bead along the slit and I’d eagerly lick it up, unable to get enough.
Those talented fingers of his wrapped around the base of his dick, presenting it to me like an offering—one he began to jerk, slowly at first. His movements got faster, though, and I found myself rubbing my own erection through my pants. My heart was pounding, sending all the blood down to my cock. It was begging for release, for me to join Alessio and take what he was giving me. Even after pushing me away, he still wanted me, and God help me, I wanted him too.
A light flickered in my periphery from somewhere outside, sending a sudden shock of panic through me. Sucking in a breath, I stepped back from the window as reality hit me cold in the face.
What was Idoing? It felt like I’d been in a trance, like Alessio and I were the only two people that existed. But he’d bared himself in a window where anyone could see, and I…
I looked down at the state of me, the button of my slacks somehow undone and a very obvious erection from Alessio’s actions. From imagining more. Wanting more.
Desperatelyneedingmore.
My hand flew to the lamp, my fingers shaking as I turned it off, plunging my room into darkness.
Had anyone seen me? It was bad enough that Alessio had, that he’d watched me give in to him even after I’d told him I didn’t want this. He’d told me to leave, hadn’t followed through with taking what he so easily could have, and I hated the way part of me wished he hadn’t stopped.
More than part of me, if I were being honest.
But no. We couldn’t do this.
I looked back up at him, his brow creased, his hand still wrapped around himself even though it was no longer moving.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered as I drew the curtain shut, erasing him from my view.
I stood there in the dark, my body aching, and my mind at war with itself as I wondered who exactly I was apologizing to.
Alessio? Myself?
Or God?
16
RAFAEL
ICOULD STILL feel him.
Shutting the curtain last night to block him out had done nothing to stop the way Alessio invaded my very being. I’d tossed and turned all night, unable to sleep and wondering how I would manage to stand up in front of everyone the next day and give them the homily I’d prepared.
The one that mocked me now as I stood at the pulpit, white-knuckling the podium and speaking words that felt directed at me.
“Temptation is not a failing,” I said, my voice carrying easily through the nave from the microphone I wore. I didn’t know how the words came out steady when my insides were running wild. “Scripture tells us that we are not tempted by the world alone, but by our own desires. By what draws us calls to us.”
I flipped the page. “St. James writes that we are ‘drawn away and allured’ by our own longing. That wanting is human, but it’s what we choose to do with it that defines us.”
Hypocrite. I was a walking, talking hypocrite, something I’d never been. Could they all see right through me?
I scanned the faces of the many parishioners who’d come for the sermon this morning, so many of them squeezed into thepews to make room for everyone. Their expressions were open, thoughtful as they listened, not one of them looking at me in disappointment.
Shame had me looking back down at the written word.
“Our faith does not demand that we be untouched,” I said. “Only that we be vigilant. As Christ himself said in Gethsemane: watch and pray, that you may not enter temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
My knees felt like they were going to give out under me as those words sank in, and I had to take a deep breath to get myself under control. “And yet St. Paul reminds us that no temptation is unique. None of us are alone in it. God does not promise a life free from desire, but He does promise that we are never tested beyond our strength.”
