My hands shake during consecration. Actually shake, the wine trembling in the chalice like my body's rejecting the ritual. Mrs.Alvarez notices from the third pew, her eyes narrowing with concern. The homily falls apart halfway through—something about redemption that sounds hollow even to me. I lose my place twice in the liturgy. Father Gabriel, the composed priest, is coming apart at the seams.
After mass. Handshake line. The routine that should steady me.
"Beautiful service, Father," Mrs.Gutierrez lies kindly.
"You feeling alright?" Alma asks, less kind, more observant.
I make the right sounds, shake the right hands, but my attention keeps drifting to the churchyard visible through the open doors. She's out there. I know it without looking. Can feel her presence like a change in barometric pressure, like my body is attuned to hers now.
When the last parishioner passes, I step outside. The October sun cuts sharp angles through the trees. I scan the churchyard. No unfamiliar cars. No men who don't belong. The surveillance from Thursday seems to have backed off, or maybe they really were at the wrong address.
She's by the garden wall, talking to Mrs.Herrera. Jeans that fit like they were painted on, showing every curve. Hair down, catching the light. Coffee cup in her hand.
She hasn't looked at me. She's giving me space. Being considerate. Letting me pretend last night didn't happen.
I am not considerate.
I stare.
Not a glance. Not the quick assessment of a priest checking on his flock. An open, deliberate, hungry look. I devour her with my eyes—the shape of her ass in those jeans, the way her breasts move when she laughs at something Mrs.Herrera says, the elegant line of her throat that I know now tastes like sin. In my vestments. In the churchyard. In front of the entire lingering congregation. I know exactly what I'm doing. I want her to feel it. Want her to know I'm thinking about fucking her right here in God's garden.
She senses it. Of course she does—she's been reading rooms since she was twenty-two and married to a monster. Her shoulders tense first, then her head turns, finding me across thirty feet of sacred ground.
Our eyes meet.
I don't look away. I let her see it—the raw want I've been containing for ten days, the memory of her mouth on mine, the things I did to myself last night while thinking of her. I imagine her naked, imagine my mouth between her legs, imagine the sounds she'd make when I make her come. I know she can see it all on my face because I'm not hiding it anymore.
I watch the effect ripple through her. The way her neck flushes pink, the color spreading down to her chest. The way her nipples harden—I can see them through her shirt, two perfect points. The way she presses her thighs together, a subtle shift that tells me she's wet. The way she breaks eye contact first—looks down, shifts her weight, her free hand going to her chest where Julian's ring hides under her shirt.
The power of it hits me somewhere primitive. I made her wet. With nothing but my eyes. With thirty feet between us and people all around, I made her pussy clench, made her body prepare itself for me.
My cock hardens fully, straining against my vestments. In the churchyard. On a Sunday. Because I made her need me.
"Father Gabriel?" Someone's talking to me. Mrs.Santiago, holding out a casserole dish. "For the rectory."
"Thank you," I manage, taking the dish, holding it strategically in front of me to hide my erection. My voice sounds almost normal. "Very kind."
I excuse myself. Escape to the sacristy, closing the door harder than necessary. My cock throbs, demanding attention. Years of discipline, undone by making a woman wet. I lean against the wall, palming myself through my vestments, biting back a groan.
When I finally emerge, she's gone. But there on the garden wall where she was standing—her coffee cup. Still warm. Black coffee, the way I take mine. And on the rim, the faint pink print of her lipstick.
I stare at the mark of her mouth longer than any sane man would. Then I take the cup. Tell myself I'm just cleaning up. Carry it to the rectory kitchen where I set it on the counter and don't wash it.
It sits there all day. Her lipstick on white ceramic. Evidence that she exists, that she was here, that her mouth leaves marks on things. I think about her mouth. About what it would feel like on my cock. About making her gag on it, watching tears run down her face while she takes it.
I'm so fucked.
Monday morning at the food pantry. She's on a stepstool, reaching for something on a high shelf. Her shirt rides up. Just an inch. Just enough to show a strip of skin at her waist. Smooth. Soft. The curve where her hip begins.
My brain glitches. All I can think about is biting that skin, marking it, making her wear my teeth marks under her clothes. I imagine walking up behind her, pressing my cock against her ass, making her feel how hard she makes me. Imagine sliding my hand into those jeans, finding her wet, fingering her right here in the food pantry while she tries not to make a sound.
I turn and leave without getting what I came for. Lock myself in the bathroom, grip the sink, try to breathe through the need that's eating me alive. End up jerking off standing up, coming so hard I have to bite my fist to stay quiet, imagining her bent over that stepstool while I fuck her from behind.
Tuesday afternoon. She makes real coffee in the parish kitchen. Good beans she brought from somewhere, a grinder, the whole ritual. The kitchen smells like something other than penance for once. She hands me a cup. Our fingers touch—not accidentally, we both know where our hands are. Neither of us pulls away.
The contact sends electricity straight to my cock. Three seconds of her skin on mine and I'm fully hard, grateful the counter hides it. We stand there, connected by ceramic and caffeine and skin contact that rewrites my entire nervous system.
We drink in silence. The silence says everything. About Saturday night. About the way I looked at her Sunday. About the fact that I'm imagining bending her over this counter, fucking her while she screams my name. The coffee tastes like temptation.
