Sweetest Sin: A Forbidden Priest Romance (2 page)

Desires
.

Now or never.

“When you speak
with me…” I said. “It’s like there’s more to your words.”

“Do you believe I’ve
misled you?”

“No. I think you say
exactly what you mean. What you want.”

“Which is?”

“Something neither
of us can have.”

Father Raphael
breathed deep, solemn. “You speak of sins we’ve never committed.”

“Yes,” I said.

“Words we’ve never
spoken.”

“Yes.”

“And a touch I’ve never
offered.”

“Yes.”

He smiled. “So
what exactly is it you have imagined. What are you feeling?”

“Why would you
make me say it?”

“Why would you
confess here, with
me
, if you did not wish for me to hear it?”

What did he want
from me?

I’d come to accept
responsibility for the thoughts and feelings that threatened my soul. Now? I’d
never forgive myself for getting tangled deeper in his web.

But, even as I
squirmed, even as the truth tightened around me…I savored the sound of his
voice.

Father Raphael
awaited my answer. I had none.

“Honor, you came
here tonight because you wanted to speak with me about these feelings. You
sensed the danger, and yet you came to me. Was it for protection? Absolution?” He
exhaled, his voice lowering, quiet and dark, only for me. “I know that’s not
true. Be honest with yourself. Be honest with me. Tell me how this makes you
feel.”

“How
what
makes me feel?”

“Confessing these dark
and terrible sins to me.”

I shuddered so
hard everything inside of me clenched, tight and waiting. “I don’t understand—”

“How brave of you
to sit in my confessional, trapped in this little cage while you reveal these
sins that have bound you in desire for…how long has it been, my angel? Days?
Weeks? Since the first time you met me?”

I had wanted him
from that very first instant when we were introduced. I stayed silent.

“I remember when I
first saw you,” he said.

“So do I…” I
swallowed. “You were giving Mass.”

“You were one of
the few who
listened
.”

And look at the
trouble it caused. “I was taught to respect my priest.”

“And yet you do
not believe me when I say how beautiful you are. How
special
.”

“No, Father. It’s
the opposite. I do believe you. Every word.”

“And that is a
problem?”

“Maybe.” I edged
closer to the screen. “The first time we met…what did you see in me?”

His words edged,
hard and forced. “In you, I saw my damnation. It flashed like a prophesy in my
mind…before it turned to fantasy.”

A shiver claimed
me, but I didn’t fear it. It delighted me with a tickled warning.

Don’t let this
happen.

“I should have
imagined you with a halo, draped in golden light,” he said. “That’s what you’d
prefer to hear. But I’ll always be honest with you…especially about this.”

The tension would tear
me apart. I knew it. I had felt it. This wasn’t playful flirting.

This was something
far more dangerous.

My whisper was too
loud for the silence of the church. “Father, we can’t speak like this anymore.
We can’t meet anymore. No matter how innocent we once thought it was…now we
know the truth.”

“Which is?”

“I’ve wanted to be
alone with you, too many times for all the wrong reasons.”

“You have not
sinned.”

“I will not give
it a chance.”

He sighed,
speaking softly with his infinite patience. “Tell me why you are really here,
Honor. What sins have you committed?”

I bowed my head.
The confessional was too small, too claustrophobic, too near him. I edged to
the screen, not knowing if I sought forgiveness or the chance to feel his heat,
hear his breath…to imagine his touch.

Just a graze of
his fingers.

A slide of his
hand.

The gentle brush
of his lips against mine.

My mouth dried,
but I feared the soothing flick of my tongue over my lips.

“You are a priest,
and it’s wrong to expose you to these feelings. You could lose the church. Your
vocation.”

“My angel, those
are not your sins. They are mine.”

“They’re shared.”

“It is not a
transgression if we speak after Mass, or if you help me carry supplies for the
youth group, or if we stay late to clean the nave. These are not sins—unless
you have succumbed in another way…”

I swallowed.

I
had
surrendered to something worse. Something damning.

Something amazing.

“Bless me, Father.
I
have
sinned.”

The confessional
creaked. His voice warmed and chilled, lashed and comforted. He understood, and
yet he demanded more from me.

I closed my eyes. “My
thoughts and actions have not been…”

“Pure?”

No one’s thoughts could
remain pure around Father Raphael. He was a man who’d convert an unbeliever with
the confidence of his smile. The sincerity of his words could bless even the
most pious. He feared nothing and no one, and even his confidence was shadowed
in humility.

He was good. He
was holy.

He was completely
forbidden to me.

Why did I want him
so badly?

“I’ve had impure
thoughts.” I stared at the floor, the scuffed wood from too many formal shoes
bowing before the window. I hadn’t knelt. I didn’t trust myself to fall to my
knees before a man like him. “And…sating those thoughts hasn’t eased the
desires.”

“
Sating
?”
His words echoed in a hidden smile. “How have you attempted to
sate
these
thoughts?”

He could imagine
it.

And, at the time,
I hoped he had.

Last night was the
worst of my sins. My needs had become the most
insistent.
My hands had
slipped within my panties before I cast them away. Every silken motion ripped
through me.

I had never been
touched by a man, and I tried to deny my own immorality, but nothing eased that
haunting, demanding,
desire
.

I’d thought of
him. I’d imagined him.

I’d wished I had
stayed in the church a little longer, talked a little softer, stayed by his
side just for a moment longer.

And it had been
wrong
.

“I prayed last
night, Father. Alone and in my bed. The only name on my lips was yours.”

The silence
crackled, a tumult of quiet and judgment. I counted the seconds, my breaths,
the soul-destroying memories of the pleasure I gave myself in dark shame.

Father Raphael
breathed deep, a ragged and masculine breath that might have rattled the
sanctuary’s stained glass windows if it hadn’t vibrated through me first.

“Do you understand
temptation, Honor?” he asked.

Now I did. More
than most people.

He continued, his
voice low. “It is a powerful force—more powerful than greed, envy, hatred.”

“And I failed,
Father.”

“No, this is my
failure. I haven’t prepared you. I am your priest. I am the man who should
protect you from this lust.”

The word tumbled,
shattered, and crashed within the small confines of the confessional.

Lust
.

That’s what it
was.

Dark and terrible,
forceful and wild.

We
lusted
,
and I feared our only escape was surrender to that conquering force. Arms
entwined. Legs spread. I imagined myself naked, exposed, and waiting with stolen
words and false modesty as Father Raphael
protected
me from the sins of
lust.  

It hurt. Sin
hurt
.
And that made sense, but I never knew it’d be a physical pain. It was real.
Clenching. It twisted deep in my core, pulsing in a quiet rage that tore through
me in a quick sweat and parted lips. Everything tingled and warmed, including
my chest and the tightening buds hidden beneath my prim and proper blouse.

I wore the only
shirt I owned that was able to be ripped open. I wished I hadn’t thought of it
while dressing this morning. I wished it was simply the only blouse I had which
matched my black skirt. But I’d planned it, down to the exact detail. This
skirt was the easiest to accidentally slip up my leg where it would reveal too
much.

What was wrong with
me? I shouldn’t have imagined him tickling my thighs, kissing my skin, or
savoring the heat pounding the secret I hid with crossed legs. The thoughts
overwhelmed me.

I sighed,
trembling and hot.

This was all
wrong. No matter how many times I practiced the confession in my mind, nothing
compared to sitting so close to him, separated by only a thin cherry wood wall
and a mesh screen sculpted with tiny Celtic crosses.

He was there. I
could feel him. I could sense him.

And I wished we
had touched.

The shame overwhelmed
me, but I wasn’t a woman who hid from rightful punishment. I accepted my
responsibilities and actions. Still, no penance could be worse than speaking
this confession.

“Father, I can’t
let this happen again. I can’t go to bed tonight and think of…”

“Of what, Honor?”

“Of
you
.”

“Do you assume I
have not thought of you?”

“Father, stop.”

“You think I have
not suffered the same desires? Wanted the same darkness? Craved just a moment
of indulgence—”

“We can’t speak
like this.”

“Honor, it is temptation,
nothing more.”

“And I have failed
to fight it,” I said.

“Then I will guide
you. I will help you.”

My heart beat too
fast. I couldn’t hear anything over the rumbling authority in his. His words
burned through me.

He’d guide me.

He’d help me.

But I couldn’t
trust myself to let such a man cleanse me of my sins.

Even if he
admitted to the same feelings. The same thoughts.

Father Raphael
shared my secret. He’d said he imagined me in the dark of night, when prayers
faded and holy thoughts were overwhelmed by solitude’s fantasies.

What had he done
when the need overwhelmed him? Had he fought it?

Or did he share
the same weakness as me? What would he look like trapped in the throes of his
own temptations?

I shifted against
the bench. The skirt inched higher against my hips. The air conditioners breeze
whipped through the confessional, so cool and surprising against my bare legs I
hadn’t realized how desperately my body had betrayed me.

The sin slickened
me. It heated and throbbed and craved inside me, eager to fill an emptiness I
never knew existed before I met Father Raphael.

I felt his touch without
his fingers, tasted his lips without his kiss.

I had to leave. It
wasn’t a confession if the penitent panted, wetted, and wanted the very sins
she admitted.

My body trembled.
Too tensed. Too desperate. I’d have committed every sin in the world to
distract myself from the ache within me.

And I’d have
committed just one to ease that desire.

Did he know? Could
he tell?

Why did I torture
myself with thoughts of him?

As if he sensed my
distress, he whispered with a calming command.

“Absolve yourself,
my angel.”

I trembled. “How?”

“What will ease
that temptation? What would give you clarity of thought, heart, and spirit?”

At least we were
finally honest now. “
Nothing
, Father.”

“There is
something.” His words growled, ragged. “This is my sin. I have forced this
temptation upon you. Relieve yourself, and then we’ll banish this desire.”

“There’s only one
way to do that, Father.”

His breath raced,
a rasp that belonged to a man on the edge, straddling a line of good, evil, and
sheer indifference to anything beyond the agony of our flesh.

“Do as you did
last night, my angel. Pray, and whisper my name.”

“But—”

“I want you to
indulge this temptation. Then I will teach you how to confront this, how to
defeat it.”

“Father…”

“Now, Honor.”

As if I could
resist his demands. As if I
wanted
to resist.