And what do you know?
We were free in four.
36
ALESSIO
SUNDAY MORNINGS WERE for sleeping in, breakfast in bed, or making slow, lazy love to the man of your dreams.Notfor getting up at six o’clock to get ready for first mass at St. Andrews at seven.
At least, they hadn’t been until the man ofmydreams—a certain former priest—was the one I was trying to make love to. But no matter how persuasive I’d thought I was being, on this day, at this time, He won out. And since I was an amiable guy, I decided that this was the one thing I could give Him.
Rafael had picked me, after all—I didn’t want to piss off the Big Guy any more than I probably already had.
“There, how’s that?” I said as I stared in the full-length mirror at the tie loosely knotted at the base of my neck.
Rafael stepped in behind me, tall and elegant as ever in his black slacks and blue shirt. “It’s very…you.”
I looked at the unbuttoned collar of my shirt and shrugged. “I feel too constricted when it’s all buttoned up.”
“Of course you do.” He slid his hands around my waist, pulled me back into his arms, and placed a kiss against my temple. “But if you don’t want to wear one, you don’t have?—”
“It’schurch,” I said, and shook my head. “If there’s one thing my parents drilled into my head, it was how to dress appropriately when stepping into God’s house.”
Rafael’s lips twitched as I reached up to straighten the tie. “So you’re the reason for your brothers’ Sunday best at midnight confession?”
“I wasn’t going to let them show up in any old thing.”
“So much respect from a man who claimed to hate the establishment.”
I turned and wound my arms around his neck. “I didn’t hate the establishment. I hated what it took from me. But you know what they say: if you love something, set it free.”
“If it returns, it was meant to be.” Rafael lowered his head until our foreheads touched. “Guess you’re stuck with me, then.”
“Never been happier to be stuck anywhere.”
Rafael swept a sweet kiss across my lips. One I felt through my entire body. It warmed my heart, healed my soul, and wrapped around the two of us, solidifying our bond.
This was forever. Rafael was my forever, and it was only now I was truly starting to believe it.
“You ready?” he said, taking my hand and leading me out through the living room.
“Ready as I’ll ever be.”
“Oh, come on, it won’t be that bad.”
“Easy for you to say. St. Andrews is your church.”
“Yours too.”
“Yeah, but it’s yours in a holy way. It’s mine in an I-stole-their-priest kind of way.”
“So in anunholyway.” Rafael ran his eyes down over me and licked his lips.
Seriously?How was I supposed to sit through the next hour with the memory of that look in my mind? “If you don’t walk out the front door, you’ll see just how unholy I can be.”
“Promise?”
I pulled open the door. “Go, and never let it be said that I kept you from church.”
