His thumb traces my cheekbone, and his hands are shaking. “You think I don’t know that? You think I haven’t been fighting this every moment since you walked into my church?”
“Then why don’t you send me away?” My voice breaks. “Why don’t you just end this?”
“Because I can’t.” The confession sounds torn from somewhere deep inside him. “God help me, Charlie, I can’t.”
The air between us ignites.
I don’t know who moves first. Maybe we both do. Maybe we’ve been moving toward this moment since the day he found me with stolen money pressed against my chest.
His mouth crashes against mine, desperate and guilty and reverent all at once. I gasp, and he swallows the sound, his hands sliding into my hair, tilting my head back so he can kiss me deeper. His rosary beads press into my hip as he backs me against his desk, the wooden edge digging into my lower back.
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” he murmurs against my lips, his voice rough with twenty years of suppressed want. His hands find my waist, my hips, pulling me closer. “But where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.”
“Adrian.” His name feels forbidden on my tongue, and that makes it sweeter.
He groans, the sound vibrating through his chest into mine. “Say it again.”
“Adrian.” I thread my fingers through his salt-and-pepper hair, messing the severe cut. “Please.”
His control shatters.
He lifts me onto his desk, papers scattering, his body pressing between my thighs. The cassock is rough against my bare legs, and I can feel the heat of him through the fabric, the hard evidence of his want pressing against my core. His hands slide up my thighs, pushing my sundress higher, and I arch into his touch.
“Lead us not into temptation,” he whispers against my throat, his teeth grazing my pulse point. “But deliver us from evil.”
“I’m not evil,” I breathe, my hands working the buttons of his cassock with trembling fingers.
“No.” He pulls back just enough to look at me, his gray eyes dark with hunger. “You’re salvation and damnation wrapped in vintage dresses and freckles. You’re the answer to prayers I didn’t know I was praying.”
I finally get his cassock open, revealing the white undershirt beneath.
My hands slide under the fabric, finding the hard planes of his chest, the rapid hammer of his heart.
He’s all muscle and heat, and I want to map every inch of him with my fingers, my mouth, my body.
He strips the cassock off completely, letting it pool on the floor like discarded vows.
His hands find the zipper of my dress, and he pauses, his forehead pressed against mine.
“Tell me to stop,” he says, his voice ragged. “Tell me this is wrong.”
“It is wrong.” I kiss him again, harder. “But I don’t care.”
The zipper slides down, and my dress follows his cassock to the floor.
I’m wearing simple cotton underwear, nothing fancy, but the way he looks at me makes me feel like I’m draped in silk and diamonds.
His hands trace the curve of my breasts, my waist, my hips, like he’s memorizing me through touch.
“Beautiful,” he murmurs. “So fucking beautiful.”
The profanity from his mouth sends heat straight to my core. I reach for his belt, and he helps me, his movements urgent now, desperate.
When he’s finally naked before me, I take a moment to just look. He’s older, yes, but his body is hard and scarred and perfect.
He pulls me to the edge of the desk, his hands gripping my thighs, spreading them wider.
When he enters me, we both freeze, the sensation overwhelming. He’s big, stretching me, filling me completely.
