This was wrong. I gripped his hair to yank him away just as his fingers spread me wide, the heat of his tongue stretching me as he pushed inside.
I fell back against the altar, a cry leaving my lips that echoed through the vast nave. It encouraged him, and he intensified his efforts, his fingers replacing his tongue.
We had to stop, but I couldn’t stop—not as his tongue laved the bundle of nerves that made me cry out again, not as his fingers found all the same places they had before, those places deep inside me that only he knew. Not now that my body knew exactly how good it could feel.
The raging desire in me had been set free, burning away any shame as I ground against him, the ridge of his nose mine to use. He groaned again—encouragement—and I rocked, chasing my pleasure until the pressure neared its breaking point. The arches of the apse blurred overhead as all thought narrowed to this moment alone.
“Heinrich,” I moaned, my final plea as my legs tightened over his shoulders, shaking as he wrung my orgasm from me, his fingers pulsing with my body until it had nothing left to give.
Finally satisfied, he pulled back, his face a mess of blood. I should have been terrified or disgusted, but sin was a dangerous thing, and all I wanted was him. All of him. I reached for the belt at his waist, tugging him toward me so I could undo the buttons of his gown.
He chuckled, gripping my wrist gently to stop me. “Greed—another sin to add to your list. How will I keep up with your penance at this rate?”
He gripped my face again, and I looked up from the button I was struggling with as I felt my blood smear across my cheek.
“Patience is a virtue, my dove. Now go clean yourself up before someone sees. I’ll do the same.”
He helped me down from the altar, and as my skirt fell, I saw the bright red stain that had wept into the white cloth—a blood sacrifice to a god with far more dangerous appetites.
Chapter 14
Heinrich
Katharina was biting her lip again, trying to concentrate on the passage before her, but she kept looking at my hands. She liked my hands, always had, but now she couldn’t keep her eyes off them. She was easy to rile now, and I loved the way her breath quickened when I leaned closer, ostensibly to point out a verse in the Gospel of John.
“‘Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends,’?1” I read softly, my finger tracing beneath the words. Though my attention was entirely on the tantalizing curve of her neck, the way her skin flushed when I was near.
“It’s about sacrifice,” Katharina murmured, but her voice had gone breathy. She saw through all my games now.
“I’ve always thought it was about devotion. About what we’re willing to risk for what we love.” I let my hand drift from the page to her shoulder, felt her shiver beneath my touch. “Certain things refuse to be contained, no matter how we might try.”
She grinned at that. I traced the line of her throat with my thumb, felt her lean into it despite herself. Three weeks had passed since I’d first had her. Three weeks of learning all the hidden parts of her—the soft skin behind her ear, the small sounds she made when my hands found the laces of her bodice, the way she gasped when I kissed the hollow between her breasts.
We hadn’t crossed the final threshold yet. I was holding back, savoring the anticipation. Savoringher, the way she was blooming under my attention like a red rose in summer.
No, she wasn’t a rose. She was blooming into the flame she had tried to suppress for so long.
I’d noticed it in small ways at first: the set of her shoulders when she walked through the convent now, less hunched, less apologetic. How she moved through her garden without fear, not constantly checking over her shoulder. She was healing more people outside the eye of the Church, the door to the well house constantly swinging.
She was magnificent.
“You’re not paying attention,” she said, and there was teasing in it now. She’d grown bolder with me as well.
“On the contrary. I’m paying very close attention.” I slid my hand to the nape of her neck, fingers tangling in the wisps of golden hair that had escaped her bonnet. “I’m simply not interested in the Gospel of John at the moment.”
She turned to look at me, color high in her cheeks. “What are you interested in, then?”
“You know perfectly well.”
The way she looked at me—consumed by desire—made something hot and possessive coil in my chest.Mine, something whispered.She’s mine.
And I was hers. That’s what I needed her to realize.
I leaned down, meaning to kiss her, but footsteps in the corridor made us spring apart. Katharina’s eyes went wide.
So the fear still lingered in her, even now. My lips twisted as I saw her shrink back, making herself into the small creature they craved.
I would burn that fear out of her, eventually. I would teach her she had nothing to be ashamed of.
