Sweetest Sin: A Forbidden Priest Romance (21 page)

His kiss overwhelmed
me once more, and a shared shudder rolled through our bodies. It demanded forgiveness,
a peace, a
sanctity
only we could give each other.

“Meet me here
tonight.” His words were a solemn command. “Midnight. Promise me, my angel.”

“We can’t.”

“You will meet me
here.”

“Why, Father?”

“Because tonight…”
He looked upon me with such adoration, such fierce possession, I feared what
would happen to my own sanity if I denied him this wicked meeting. “I will
restore you, Honor. Tonight…I will show you how truly holy you are.”

All of our sins
were committed in the dark. Why did my angel shine brightest during the night?

She entered St.
Cecilia’s, slipping through the vestibule and into the sanctuary which awaited
a service just for her. I locked the church behind her. She tip-toed to the
altar. The door to the nave closed behind us.

And we were alone.

Honor turned,
lingering before the altar as though she thought she would be cast upon it.

Not yet. But soon.

She studied the
work I had done. Candles lit the sanctuary, bright and flickering. The light
reflected from the stained glass and bounced in dark hues of reds, blues, and
greens over the white linen folded over the altar. The incense teased in the
air. Dusky. Sacred.

It was the first
time I felt comfortable in my own church in a week, and it was because I
dressed it for my angel.

“Father?” Honor
wore only a soft dress, modestly hugging her curves. Her eyes widened. “What
are you doing? This is…”

Blasphemous.

And it was meant
to be.

The thoughts
tortured me for too long. The guilt became a constant burden, and the shame an
unrelenting companion.

And so I let it
go.

I let too much of
myself go.

I reached for her,
my fingers tangled in my rosaries. I brushed my finger first over her lips to
silence the questions.

“If I am to sin…”
My words blessed and cursed us both. “I would celebrate it, just as I celebrate
my faith.”

I kissed her,
delighting in the honesty of those words.

 I could take her.
I could have her. We could be together, if only for this moment, if only in
this one declaration of complete and total spiritual anarchy.

I’d give of myself
to join with another. And I’d lose my soul for a single moment to taste, touch,
and feel the gifts of her body.

What was mine
would be lost and damned if only so I could praise her.

Her lips quivered,
soft and hesitant. She murmured soft words against me. A prayer.

“What’s happened
to you?” she whispered.

I tangled my hands
in her hair, across her curves, along her softness. Nothing compared to the
press of her body against mine.

This was a sin
worth reverence.

“I want you,” I said.
“Here. Tonight. I need to make you mine in every way—our bodies, our souls, our
hearts. I want to own you.”

“I do too…” Honor
brushed her fingers along my cheek. She wasn’t meek or mild, but she was just
as gentle. Too gentle. It’d only make me take her harder. “But you don’t belong
to me, Father. I can’t let you destroy yourself. This is a sin.”

“Then it is the
sweetest sin.”

I kissed her
again, trapping her against me, losing myself in her candied apple scent and
silken touch. She was smaller than me. Fragile. Beautiful. She closed her eyes as
I touched her and surrendered with my kiss.

She had always
been mine. Tonight I’d prove it.

“Take off your
dress.” My command rolled a shudder over her body. “Kneel before me.”

Her fingers teased
the straps of her dress, silken material that marked the end of something
righteous and the beginning of our own destruction.

The dress fell
away, and her panties slid to the floor. My Honor stood before me, naked,
trembling, and gazing over the church with a bitten lip.

“
Here
,
Father?” She looked over the church. “Are you sure?”

For weeks I’d
struggled against my desire. Harsh and vile and all-consuming.

I’d prayed. I’d
fasted. I’d sought comfort in old books and exercise and charity. None of it
helped. Nothing eased my desperation to take her, rut her, seize her within a
display of utter sacrilege.

If I was to
violate her, then I would violate myself and everything that made me. My
desires would not save me, and so I would worship the object of my lust.

Honor drove me to
madness.

Only my angel
would save me, sating those perverted desires with her own sacrifice.

She knelt before
me, naked and
beautiful
. Every curve dark and rich. She shivered. Not
fear, but in lust. Desire. The same heat and passion which tore through my body
and mind.

I stood before
her, savoring the
power
coursing through my veins.

I didn’t remove my
cassock. This night wouldn’t honor the man beneath the collar, but the one who
wore it. The last of him. A baptism of sin as I felled an angel with me.

I left it on and
unbuttoned just enough to expose my hardening cock for her. The rosaries
dangled too close. She kissed them.

Honor stared up at
me, her eyes wide. Her lips already parted for that sinful offering, a body I
wished for her to consume.

“Are you
frightened?” I asked.

She swallowed. “I’m…nervous.
We’re in the
church
, Father.”

I guided my cock
to her with a confident hand. She waited upon her knees and took me in her
mouth without protest, without complaint.

She
submitted
.

She mewed a
gracious
sound and savored me. The softness of her lips, the heat of her mouth, and the
devotion of her tongue wracked me in pleasure, but I hadn’t realized she would
enjoy it as well.

“Do you know the
story of Saint Teresa of
Avila?”
I twisted a hand in her hair. My head fell back, and she welcomed me deeper.
“She was a nun in the sixteenth century…and she was granted visions from God so
powerful, so intense she would be wracked with pains, pleasures, and
overwhelmed in religious ecstasy.”

Honor opened her
eyes. She did not take my cock from her mouth, nor would I have permitted it. I
shuddered, deep and heavy. Everything tightened within me already.

Too soon. Not soon
enough.

“She claimed an
angel had visited her, one with a golden arrow he used to pierce her body again
and again. Every thrust dragged through her in great pain. But she whispered
stories. Said the sensations were so great, she was forced to moan. She did not
wish to be rid of that feeling.”

Her lips dragged
over my shaft, my own golden arrow which would tear through her. The flick of
her tongue stole my breath. I clenched my teeth.

“It’s called the
Devotion of Ecstasy. When the body and soul are connected in sweet pain. When
it happened to her, Saint Teresa would swoon. She’d go weak, faint, and wake in
beautiful tears. She was made comfortable in a passionate union with God.”

I twisted her
hair, sinking her deeper upon my cock. Honor groaned. Her throaty whimper
vibrated along my shaft. I tensed, but I wasn’t ready to experience that
ecstasy yet.

Not when I had
her.

Not when I might
have experienced it
in
her, because of her, drawn from her. My hands
tightened, body strained, and my cock hardened more.

Honor waited
before me.

Madonna or whore
of Babylon? Or simply my angel, my beautiful and pure salvation who offered so
much for me to take and destroy.

I drew from her
mouth, and her shivered gasp nearly had me pump every last drop of my desire
upon those lips.

But I was a proper
Catholic. No sense disavowing all tradition.

I pulled her to
her feet only to cast her in my arms. She tensed as I lowered her upon the
altar. I rested her on the linens, surrounded by the candles, drenched in the
sweet light of salvation.

“Father, this is…”

“The altar.” Where
I had imagined her every minute of every day since she first walked into my
church. “It is where you belong, my angel.”

“This is wrong.
Are you sure you want to do this?”

Nothing would stop
me.

“Do you know what
altars were once used for, Honor?” I circled her, observing her body, her writhing,
the sweet goosebumps which prickled over her flesh as her bared skin
accidentally touched cold stone. “The altar was a place of
sacrifice
.”

“Oh, God.”

“I’m sure He’s
here.” Or would know the instant I fell further from His grace. “You are my
perfect sacrifice, Honor. You’re beautiful. You’re gentle. Innocent. You
possess every virtue I’ve lost. If I have faith in one thing in this world,
it’s the words you speak, the breaths you take.”

“You haven’t lost
your faith.”

I lost enough of
myself to worship my desire. I studied her, committed her to memory. Why had I
ever resisted her?

“I want to
consecrate your body,” I said. “Make it holy before I destroy us in this sin.”

“Father, you’re
not destroying me or yourself.”

“I already have.”

I prepared for
this moment. The oils awaited my hand, and the holy water stilled in a gold
chalice. I needed no prayer for this. Honor was as blessed, as beautiful, as
pure as any woman gracing this earth.

But I could worship
her in my own way. Adore and ruin. Bless and profane.

I sprinkled the
water first, watching as the chilled droplets dripped over her curves. They ran
in tears, rivulets of chill that teased her skin. Her nipples budded hard, and
I followed every rolling bead of holy water as it trailed between her breasts,
over her waist, and finally, dipped to the wonder between her legs.

She shivered.

So did I.

“You are so
beautiful,” I whispered. “I almost hate to defile you this way.”

“You aren’t
defiling me.”

She spoke too
much. I silenced her with a kiss, reaching for the oils we kept under a lock
and key, safe from everyone but me. I reserved only a small portion for
tonight, knowing how precious and rare it was.

“This is a special
oil. Chrism.” I breathed slowly, dipping my fingers into the vial and spreading
it over my hands. “I cannot bless it. It is consecrated only one day a year,
Maundy Thursday, Holy Thursday, and only by a bishop.”

A position
Benjamin wanted for me. A role I would never accept. Not now. Not after this.

“Should you…waste
it?” Honor asked.

“This is no waste.”

I lowered my
fingertips to her body, watching in amazement as she arched to meet my hand.

Was this how it
should have been?

A body arching to
feel a touch?

For so long, I
only knew to fear a touch. I lived because of the instinct to duck, flinch. Pray
for it to pass.

My fingers dragged
over her skin. Down. Over. Forming a cross over her chest. The oil was intended
for foreheads, lips, breast over the heart.

This woman was my
heart. All of her. Quivering. Shaking.

Longing for my
touch.

The oil slickened
her body. She gasped as I blessed every part of her, sliding my hands along her
dark skin, over her breasts, rubbing against the budded nipples that strained
and begged for more than perfumed oil.

I touched lower,
following the holy water. My hands tensed as I studied where her legs parted
for me. She wanted me to touch that sacred mystery of mysteries. Her body
twisted. She licked parted lips and breathed heated sighs.

Just as I had yet
to feel that ecstasy, I would withhold it from her.

For a moment.

Just a moment.

I prepared her for
it instead.

“I don’t know what
I’ll do when I take you.” I warned her with a shamed growl. “Your body is so
pure, so innocent, so fragile. I fear my strength.”

“Don’t, Father.”

“You don’t
understand the urges I have.”

“They’re natural.”

“They’re evil.”

Honor stared at me
as she twisted her hands in the linen beneath her waiting body. “You want me,
Father. You can have me. You won’t hurt me. You won’t destroy me. You won’t
lose me.”

“The things I want
are…so twisted.”

“It’s
passion
,
Father.”

“It’s dominance.”

“Then I submit.”

I laughed. “You
have no choice.”

“I have every
choice, and I choose to give myself to you.”

This misguided girl.
I took her innocence, but she still suffered the delusion. Sex was not the
passionate, loving embrace she imagined.

It was primal.
Wicked.

Meant to
overpower.

I hated the
thought of corrupting her, but I’d shield her from my perversion of faith.

I untangled the
rosaries from my hand and held out the beads. Honor lifted her head, accepting
the gift. It wasn’t right to wear the rosaries as a necklace, but the instant
the chain struck her flesh, the silvered cross lying between her breasts, I
knew it was the most beautiful and sacrilegious and blessed vision I had the
privilege of seeing.