“Are you okay?” Lucy asked me at my side.
I cleared my throat softly, nodding and willing my thoughts to linger on anything but the man who stood liturgizing behind a pulpit at that very moment.
“God would ask that we remember our neighbor in times like these—that no man or woman is a stranger, but another one of God’s divine souls in need. It is in these times that we call on our faith most ardently. With free will and passion and wholeheartedness, we strike down sin and cast ourselves in His noble light. His light here on earth.”
Father Bastien paused, gaze traveling over the small group of parishioners one last time before he turned, closing his Bible, and returned to the small chair provided him. He settled the golden filigreed book in his lap before heavy, hooded eyes picked across the pews, then landed on mine.
Without expression, our dark irises tangled together in some unspoken dance.
It wasn’t often that I caught him looking at me, but I had.
Maybe more often than a priest should linger on a parishioner.
Or maybe not.
I didn’t know Bastien in any other context outside of the four walls of this holy brick building.
But that didn’t stop me from fantasizing.
Nothing could stop me from that.
I swallowed, Bastien’s eyes finally releasing their grip on mine, a violent rush of air filling my lungs as I felt freed from his invisible bond.
Surely, he knew the hold he had?
The fantasies I had featuring Father Bastien were my most vivid.
I had half a mind to think it was that very sense of warm charisma that landed him in this vocation.
I wondered if he’d always been so aloof or if what I mistook for aloofness was really barely veiled restraint. Maybe the way his eyes cast around the room at anything but me was his attempt at control. Maybe it was his very unattainable nature that fueled my desire.
Or maybe it was simply that he listened.
I’d never been around a man long enough to say for sure, but I suspected they didn’t all have the compassionate shoulder Father Bastien did.
Maybe I’d fallen in love with his kindness.
Maybe it was as simple and as sad as that.
Within minutes, the parishioners were shifting out the front doors, pausing for long moments to shake the hand of the man who guided them. Lucy and I filed along, chatting quietly as I did my best to keep my mind off this man. It was impossible not to be drawn to him, but missing him…that was another form of torture entirely because I had no right to him at all.
The idea of loving an unavailable man caused my heart to throb with the profound sadness of it.
I thought of my mother, so many years spent working double shifts and then collapsing on the couch, lonely, bottle in hand and chip on her shoulder. Her utter lack of love for so many years acted as a slow undoing. I vowed I would never live so isolated. Maybe star-crossed love was out of reach, but friends, family, neighbors, anything was better than sitting alone night after night.
“Thank you for coming, Lucy.” Bastien’s thick baritone jerked me into the present. “I hope you’ll join us Wednesday night.”
Bastien cast his eyes over her shoulder and met mine with a pleasant smile.
I nodded, forcing a brave smile while my stomach churned with anxiety, anticipation, arousal—a mixture of all three.
“I hope so too, Father.” Lucy smiled.
“And, Tressa, would it be too much to ask if I keep you a little late this morning to discuss some things relevant to the day care?”
My eyes widened, brain dissecting all of the possibilities.
What was there to discuss? Maybe he was displeased with something. Or had an idea to implement something new. Or maybe he just wanted to see me alone.
My hands clammed up, lips pressing together as I tried to control the forbidden fantasies surging through my head.
Bastien moved closer, warm hand hovering at my back as he turned, guiding me back through the main doors of the church.
Back into his realm.
“Is Lucy getting along okay? What’s your professional assessment?” he asked as soon as we were out of earshot of anyone else.
“Professional assessment?” I laughed him off.
“Well, you’ve taken more counseling classes than I have.”
“I’m dozens of classes away from anything like that. But what’s my feeling? I think she’s better than she was. I think stability was the best thing we could have offered her.”
“You offered her that.”
I nodded, thinking about the morning after she’d arrived and I’d asked her, all but insisted, really, that she stay with me in the small, two-bedroom cottage next to the rectory. “I gave her a key last night. She’s so quiet, it’s almost unnerving.”
“She mentioned siblings at one point.” I remembered the very conversation, a tense look crossing her face when the word family came up at all.
“I don’t think she’s in touch with anyone, or even wants to be.”
“I shudder to think of the burden some of God’s children are asked to carry.”
I frowned, a twinge of righteous indignation pulsing through me. “How do you do that?”
“Do what?” Bastien paused, large body hovering over me, one foot resting on the step of the chancel. I did the first thing I thought to do and collapsed under the oppressive heat of his presence, my ass finding the cool wooden chair he’d been sitting in just minutes ago.
I vaguely thought this was probably a holy chair, one that my very unholy ass probably shouldn’t be desecrating, but locked in his gaze as I was, things like ambulatory movement paled in comparison.
“How do you stay so…faithful in the face of so much sin?”
He nearly barked out a laugh, one hand rubbing over the already dark shadow of his jaw and then hovering at the white collar at his neck. “Faithful, huh? Most days, I feel anything but.”
“Oh?” I grinned. “Tell me more about that.”
His eyes flicked from my face, down the line of my neck, and then up again, as if catching themselves on the path to sin. “Faith is a practice, Tressa.” His throat moved as he swallowed, as if tamping down something uncomfortable. “Even for me.”
“Well, what do you do when you feel like…” I didn’t have the words. I didn’t even know what exactly I meant to say, but I knew I wanted his answer.
Silence hung heavy between us, my eyes darting around like a pendulum, unsure and unsettled.
Finally, voice lowered an octave, he spoke. “Some days, practicing faith is a matter of avoiding temptation. Some days, it’s all I can do.”
I couldn’t process his words for the chaos swimming in my ears. My heart rattled my rib cage, fighting its way out of my throat, tingles cascading over my nerves, skin on fire. “That sounds…”
Bastien’s warm eyes darkened. “Hard?”
“So hard.”
Bastien moved closer, one fingertip grazing the shell of my ear and trailing down the soft hollow of my throat.
Oh sweet Jesus.
Was I making this moment up? Had I fantasized it into existence?
Or was this a hallucination?
Either option seemed equally plausible.
My eyes darted below the line of where his belt would be behind the sacred vestments he wore during Mass.
I swallowed the ball of pain settling at the base of my throat, crushing my thighs together like a vise as I willed every sinful thought boiling over in my rebellious brain to cease and desist.
Cease and desist, for the love of all that’s holy.
I blurted the first rational thought to cross my cerebral cortex. “If I had any sense of avoiding temptation, I would leave St. Michael’s and never look back.”
The words filled the air with tension.
Tension unspoken, but tension felt in every bone of my body.
“Oh?” His dark eyes widened, arousal simmering to compassion before he dropped to his knees and p
ressed a hand on either of my thighs. “If being with me makes you…”
He tore his eyes from mine, jaw clenching into something harder than marble as an inner battle waged behind his eyes.
“If just being in my presence has even half the effect on you being around you does on me…”
He cleared his throat, as if suddenly aware his hands were on me and that his touch alone violated some ancient vow between man and woman.
“Well, Tressa, I couldn’t bear to think, through any fault of my own, that I had any sort of…” His eyes scanned mine, searching for something deeper. “…pull.”
I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t find a single coherent word.
All I could do was sit awestruck, Father Bastien kneeling between my thighs, his eyes clinging to mine like a life preserver.
Did I want to leave?
I could hardly bear the thought.
“I-I wouldn’t want to leave Lucy so soon,” was the lie that fell from my lips.
Father Bastien’s gaze blinked me away, one palm giving my knee a soft squeeze, so soft I could have imagined it, before he stood. “I see your desire to save people, Tressa. I see it because it’s in me.” He slipped his fingers around my wrist, pulling me gently from my place in his seat until my body was hovering just out of reach of his.
Focused on his breathing, I counted the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest, willing my heartbeat to align with his.
“That desire to save people, Tressa—” his thumb skated along the underside of my wrist, a tsunami of arousal swirling in my bloodstream with just his scant touch “—it’s a blessing, and it’s a curse.” He leaned in closer then, lips whispering just out of reach of my ear, close enough to arouse me with his breath. “And it says more about you than you know.”
FIVE
Tressa
My footsteps echoed on the wooden floors as I wound my way through the hall and down the last Stations of the Cross. Moonlight slivered through stained glass as snowflakes swayed on the wind outside. I pushed my hands into the sleeves of my bulky sweater, warming my skin from the outside in.
A gust of air made the vestibule doors shudder, chilling the tip of my nose and quickening my booted feet. Father Bastien was usually around before now, locking the adjacent outer doors just after the sun went down. Maybe he’d gotten caught up with work tonight, though.
He’d been spending a lot of time in the tiny office upstairs, desk and lamp and boxes of church records at his feet.
I wasn’t sure what he was doing, exactly, but whatever it was, he did it with all of his focus.
He’d walked like a ghost around the rooms, my eyes only catching his long enough for a brief nod before he was on his way. It wasn’t a bad thing, so much as I’d become accustomed to a more cordial-leaning friendliness over this…cold war.Could it be called that?
I didn’t think so.
Not when it was only my heart feeling the chill.
Pushing through the vestibule doors then, I found the outer doors cracked open, Lucy’s sneaker wedged deftly in the doorway to prevent it closing.
“I didn’t realize you were out here.”
Lucy whipped around, eyes big in the soft moonlight.
A dark shadow over her shoulder moved away, icy eyes piercing my gaze before skittering off. “Is that someone you know?”
Lucy nodded, pushing the door closed and ducking around me.
“Do they need help? We have plenty of blankets and food if—”
“No, he doesn’t. I don’t even know how he found me.” Her voice was just above a whisper, some chill buried deep inside echoing through my bones.
“He? Was he bothering you?” I ventured softly.
She shook her head quickly, but her chin trembled, betraying her brave face. “He’s from my high school. I hadn’t seen him for a few years until we ran into each other at a party a few weeks ago. We spent time together, but then we lost touch. Until lately. Lately, he’s been finding me more. Tracking me down, and I’m not easily trackable.”
“Has he ever threatened you or…?”
Lucy’s dark eyes narrowed, then she looked down at the floor, head shaking. “No.”
“If you ever want to… Well, I’m here. For anything at all. Okay?”
Lucy nodded, littlest of smiles turning up her lips.
She’d never looked so young, despite the few short years that separated us.
“I’m going to grab my jacket and go back to the house.”
I nodded, sighing as I watched her small form retreat down the last Stations of the Cross.
Something about her soul struck me as sad, still healing, in need of so much love.
I hoped I could help raise her up to the woman she could be.
The bells high up in the tower chose that moment, the top of the hour, to chime, echoing around the old stone walls and sending vibrations through my nerves. That calming, soothing sensation I hadn’t known I’d missed. My mom had moved us in and out of so many houses that this, this sound, this feeling filling me right now, felt more like home than anywhere else ever had.
I settled down into the nearest pew, my body melting into the cool, glossy wood.
I sucked in soft breaths, fingertips shuttling across the bottom edge, shoulders sinking down into the ancient wood before I let my body go, straightening my legs and shuttering my eyes closed.
Serenity seeped into the depths of my soul.
I might not believe in the dogmatic order of this way of life, but I did believe in the magic of moonlight dancing in stained-glass windows, decades of frankincense steeped into all the nooks and crannies, a community with a heart so big you could feel it inflating your own wounded chest.
The entire sense of this place moved me in a way few things ever could.
That feeling of home was the reason this had been my last resort.
St. Michael’s.
“Tressa?”
Him.
I gulped, eyes fluttering open and studying the high-ceilinged beams of the nave. “Yes?”
Bastien settled in the pew ahead of mine, beautiful smile coming into my view and making a thousand currents of feeling gush through my body.
Bundled in an oversized sweater, dark leggings, and boots, I suddenly felt so naked.
“Feeling okay over here?”
Razors fought to clog my throat as I resisted the urge to press a hand to my neck to remove the elephant that must be sitting there.
He, as if hearing my mind’s words, trailed his eyes over the hollow of my neck, skating quickly down my body, offered up for sacrifice on his holy pew.
“I’m f-fine.” I swallowed, then said, “I was praying.”
Bastien’s eyes widened a moment, stubbled grin deepening as he set his prayer book and holy oil aside. “Praying, huh? Am I to take it as a sign you’re ready to confess?”
I followed his gaze and realized it probably did look like that, considering I’d lain down right near the confessional.
“That might be a leap too far.”
He only shook his head, soft chuckle rumbling its way through my already sensitive body like a freight train.
Did he realize that, with a single glance, he set every atom that made up my body on fire?
That some days, my heart felt like a frigid, empty cellar, his very presence the warmth and light my soul craved.
“You might find adventure good for the soul.”
I slammed my eyes shut, nipples puckering so tightly, they seemed to scrape against the otherwise soft fabric of my shirt.
“I’ve never been opposed to adventure,” I husked.
“No?” His voice lowered, tone sending my arousal spiraling. “Seeing you like this…you don’t know what it does to me.” His words echoed in the charged air between us. “Touching you. Not touching you. It’s torture.”
My hands, anxious with pent-up energy, smoothed the soft wrinkles in my sweater, floating across my hips before settling over my pubic bone. I resisted the urge
to move my hips, circling and seeking his forbidden touch.
The touch that would never come.
Me, chasing the love he could never give.
Bastien’s eyes hovered at my folded hands, so close to pleasure, yet the look in his eye impossibly far away. His jaw clenched tightly, teeth gritting together as he sucked in a soft huff of air through his flared nostrils. Tension braided his shoulders, knuckles nearly white as he gripped the honeyed wood of the pew, softly curved like a bone.
Logic warred with my eyes to look away.
Something long dormant seemed to waken, a new fire lit behind his passionate irises. Something primal surging uncontrolled in his veins.
Bastien leaned closer then, one arm crossing the distance between us before the corner of his frown twitched in stubborn pleasure. “Every fiber of my being is begging me to pull you into that confessional, and every fiber of your being here tells me you want me to.”
The pad of his thumb whispered down the hollow of my throat, the soft neckline of my shirt pushed aside by the flesh of his fingertip stroking my skin. Streaks of fire cut through me, his touch, his words, leaving scars far deeper than either of us could have dreamed.
Scars that would far outlast our time here.
“Tressa…” Arousal thickened his accent, his other hand slipping out of view before the gentle moving of his hips clued me in that he was touching himself.
Oh God.
Father Bastien was pleasing himself, his other hand—no, a fingertip—on me.
A quiet groan escaped my lips, embarrassment immediately reddening my cheeks before Bastien’s eyes flashed open.
A soft boom ripped us from our silent bubble, Bastien’s eyes widening as he glanced to the stained-glass window above us then to my lips. He gnashed his teeth and bolted from the pew.
“Forgive me. I can’t even begin to apologize for my behavior.” His tall frame was already retreating from my vision.
“No,” I uttered.
But it was too late.
He was already gone.
His smile.
His warmth.
My very sun and stars, vanished.
SIX
Tressa
A mushroom cloud of dust rose up around me as I plopped a half-full box of files on an old card table.
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