Sinful Secrets Box Set: Sloth, Murder, Covet

by James, Ella

  He laughs at that. “Are you serious?”

  “Do I look like I’m joking?”

  He steps closer after pulling on his boxer briefs. He runs his finger over my breast, tweaking my nipple. “You look like I want to get back in bed.”

  I wave my hand. “Go pursue your sport.” I scoff teasingly at the last word, prompting his dimpled smile. “And don’t speak of me. Remember we’re the Catholic sort, despite some of the men’s foul mouths. And although you’re a gorgeous, charming sports star, you’re an outsider. What we’re doing would be beyond frowned upon. I could suffer for it.”

  His face tenses, and he runs a hand back through his hair.

  “It’s not hand-worthy.”

  “What?” He smiles a little, bringing out a dimple again.

  “Don’t go grabbing at your hair, Carnegie. Just don’t speak of me. And hurry back.”

  As it happens, he’s gone until near four o’clock. He returns with a nice, sloppy grin and heavy eyelids, reeking of liquor and cigarettes, craving my body. He throws two blankets on the living room floor and urges me onto my hands and knees. Then he lies on his back below me, suckling my breasts until I’m so wet between my legs, I’ve started trembling with the need for release.

  “I can’t take it…” I laugh, a soft quaver.

  Declan shifts his lower body so he’s lying directly beneath me. Then he unfastens his pants and lowers me atop him, rubbing his sex against mine through my panties till he’s groaning and I’m clawing at him.

  I feel him palm his sex. “Ah, hell. I need a condom.”

  I reach down and smile to find his steel-hard sex is weeping. “I adore this.” I paint the illicit slickness down his vein-striped shaft, making him rumble low in his throat. Then I drag a fingertip over his taut balls.

  “Ohh, fuck…”

  I smirk as I reach atop the coffee table, where I stashed a condom in a bowl. Declan’s jaw is taut, his eyes aglow with desire as I roll it over him.

  “Someone’s randy when he drinks.”

  I squeeze his thick tip, and he groans as if my touch is torture. I do it again. This time, he whimpers.

  “Sit on my dick.” His eyelids slit open as I cup his balls. “Please…ride me.”

  He’s so stiff, his condom-covered sex is lying near-flat on his chiseled belly. I pull it away, wrapping a hand partway around the base, and he groans loudly.

  “Oh fuck. Finley, please. I wanna be inside you.”

  I climb over him, my own sex piqued and dripping. I take just his tip inside. My legs tremble with need to stuff myself until I’m stretching.

  “Oh God. Fucking hell, Finny.”

  I sink slowly down atop him till I’m so full, for a moment I can’t get my legs to hold me.

  He thrusts. “Oh fuck. I love you.”

  Then he flips me over, thrusting with such force, he has to hold onto my arms to keep me locked in place beneath him.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Finley

  For the first time in a week or two, we climb into the tub together after. I rub his feet, marveling at his flawless arches as he reclines with bubbles kissing his pecs and his head against the tub’s rim.

  “This is how I found you—loafing, you’ll recall.”

  I see a flash of dimples before he’s panting as I tour the pressure points on his foot.

  Afterward, he gives me back as good as he got, rubbing my feet as I perch on the bed’s edge, wrapped in a towel and a blanket. He’s kneeling on the rug, and Baby’s looking at us both. I can’t help laughing.

  “Do you want to throw something? Er, pottery…” I laugh.

  He stands, looking tired. “How about I watch you?”

  “Of course. If you’d like to.”

  A while later, I cast a glance from my hands to his face and find he’s nodded off, standing with his broad back against the home’s external wall. His cheek is on his shoulder.

  “Declan,” I whisper. His eyes peel open.

  “Dearest. Go inside and rest.”

  When I finish, though, I find him knitting on the couch.

  “Who is it for?” I inquire coyly.

  “Who do you think?” I can’t see his eyes. They’re focused on his hands and my bamboo needles.

  “For Baby?”

  He snorts. “She’s got a built-in wool scarf.”

  “Could it be…me?”

  He glances up for a moment, his lovely lips pursed in mock mysteriousness. I kiss his forehead and go wash my hands.

  He’s quiet for the next few hours. Markedly so. I read a bit as he knits. The scarf is completed as I dress for Saturday sewing. He puts it on with gentle hands, running his fingers through my hair as he looks down at me.

  “Does it suit me?” I murmur.

  “I think it does.”

  We share a simple kiss, and he helps me into my coat. I toss a spare pair of needles into my yarn-stuffed shoulder bag, and then I’m off, walking quickly to outpace the melancholy that’s begun to bear down on me at odd moments.

  His ship departs in near two weeks…

  I remember, as I take an odd, out-of-the-way trail into the village, that Saturday night means I can’t return to him. My chest aches at the prospect, but there’s nothing I can do. On Sunday mornings, everyone is going to and from church. Were I to walk down from Gammy’s, I’d be noticed in an instant.

  My heart is heavy as I enter the post office through the unlocked front door. On Saturday evenings, the packaging room doubles as our sewing spot. I find Holly, Anna, Dot, Rachel, and Blair sitting in a row of rocking chairs that make us all feel geriatric.

  “Fancy you should join us.” Holly looks up from her cross-stitch.

  I glance at them, each one looking down at their hands. “Meaning?”

  Dot sighs. “We all knocked all afternoon, trying to tell you we’d be starting early.”

  My gut clenches.

  “It’s Aunt Bea’s birthday,” Anna offers.

  “So it is.” My words are soft and slow. My heart is pounding.

  “Where were you?” Holly’s voice is snippy.

  I take my seat in the smallest, creakiest rocker. I can scarcely breathe as I say, “On the slopes.”

  “Did you have business with the sheep?” Blair asks as I bring my yarn out.

  “Rain may be coming. Someone had to redirect a problematic gulch. Who better than me?” I roll my eyes as if it’s quite the headache.

  “I hadn’t heard that,” Dot says.

  “Checked the forecast.” I say a silent—automatic—prayer of thanksgiving when no one contradicts me.

  Soon we’re comfortably lost in our gossip. Blair’s much younger brother, Randy, bit her calf when she stepped on his favorite Hotwheels car. She shows the bruise, and I fuss over it. Anna confides that Freddy’s mother Sheila encouraged her to poke a hole in Freddy’s condoms.

  “It’s Lord God’s way,” Anna quotes. “Can you imagine? The Lord favors lying?”

  We all shake our heads. Those liars, headed right to hell.

  “Wee Kayti’s still so young, and…it’s a risk each time,” Blair says quietly.

  Here on Tristan, pregnancy is never underrated for its risk.

  Before too long, Holly starts fishing for Declan information. When no one offers any, she bemoans his disappearance from the bar. It’s a bit of work for me to keep from smirking like a twit.

  Then Dot reveals she got a kiss from Rob Glass, and there’s the evening. Rob is nearly old enough to be her father.

  “Thirty-eight,” she whispers, her high cheekbones staining red, and Anna nearly falls from her chair. Holly shrieks, which startles Blair, who drops her penguin cross-stitch. Rachel slaps a palm over her mouth.

  “He is perhaps a bit handsome,” Blair whispers. But her eyes are bulging; I can see she thinks it’s mad.

  Dot is quite demure at first, but then she brings us up to speed. They’ve been spending time together for three weeks. By evening’s end, Holly’s n
aming Dot’s unborns, and Anna’s doling out cupid advice. (“If he kisses your lips and slips his tongue in, don’t attempt to duel him. You’ll both choke!”)

  As we slip out into the foggy night, I see Dot hug Holly. They walk off that way—and I suspect I know why. Holly’s feeling left out…as she does.

  Anna walks me partway to the clinic residence, our breath staining the night in puffs of white. Before she turns toward her house, she stops mid-step.

  “Wait—I had an odd thought. Where is Baby?” She tilts her head, as if perhaps Baby will materialize. “Did you put her back out with the others?”

  “No.” I give what I instantly realize sounds like an uneasy laugh.

  “Well where’s she gone to?” Anna laughs, too.

  “Funny story, actually. The Carnegie has her.”

  “Does he then?”

  I nod. “Quite the fluffin lover. Perhaps a bit lonely as well.”

  Anna gives an odd laugh as she turns to go. “Fancy that.”

  As soon as I get into the residence, I call Declan and stand by the counter for an hour with the phone’s cord twirled about my finger. He doesn’t say much but that he’s feeling a bit poorly. I regale him with tales of my night, and then I offer to come to him. I could sneak back to the village for tomorrow morning’s mass if I departed quite a lot before sunup.

  “Nah. It’s okay.” But he’s quiet, and my heart tugs a bit when we hang up the phone.

  I call back after a hot shower. His voice is gruff when he answers.

  “Were you sleeping?”

  He snorts, and I shake my head. “Take your tincture and drink your tea, Carnegie.”

  He chuckles—and I note he doesn’t promise he will. Silence spins across the line.

  “You okay?” he asks.

  I give a small sigh. “I miss you.” It’s the fourth Saturday since I realized I need to stay away if I want to attend mass on Sunday morning. It’s important that I engineer perception, but it feels so horrid—being separated. It makes me think of July. When I do, I feel near frantic with fear and confusion.

  He interrupts my musings with a husky whisper: “What part of you misses me?”

  I close my eyes and lean against the counter and confess my craving. He whispers a wicked incantation. Till I’m on the floor. Till I’m shameless, with my hand between my legs. He says he’s touching his sex as well. My flesh throbs with envy.

  * * *

  Declan

  I lie in bed until I can’t keep lying there. Then I put on boots and a jacket, fill a thermos with some of that tea. As I’m going out the front door, Baby darts up out of nowhere.

  I crouch down to rub her head. “You wanna go?”

  She presses her warm, fuzzy self against my legs. I swallow hard. “Okay.”

  I know she’s an ewe, and sheep are great on rocks, but I feel weird about taking her up somewhere with such an epic drop-off. I tie a rope around the collar Finley made her and use that as a leash. I’m pretty sure Baby thinks I’m nuts, because as we follow the trail up to the plateau, she keeps looking back at me.

  “I’m sorry.” My throat’s so tight, it sounds raspy.

  I’m glad Finley isn’t here tonight. I’m grateful for church, just this once. I’m fucked up today. Just woke up feeling…dark. Then at baseball, some guy slapped me on the back, right near my neck. I spun on him. Went to grab his collar, but I stopped myself in time. I think the mayor saw it go down, though.

  Afterward, Freddy invited me to get some beers down at the bar. People kept buying me bottles to say thanks for coaching them, and I kept putting them away.

  I said sorry to back-slap guy as I took off, and we shook hands, so I think it’s all good now.

  I can feel how drinking the beer wasn’t good, though. Since I’ve sobered up, I feel like I’ve sunk a little lower than before the bar. It’s that real bad, heavy, anxious, apathetic feeling. Fucking mess.

  I stop at the back edge of the plateau. Hold my breath and then release it. It’s darker tonight. Darker than the last time I was up here. I sit down beside some bushes, draw my legs up to my chest. Baby—fuck, she’s such a good girl. She sits right beside me…like she knows. I want to hug her, but I’m sort of scared I’ll hurt her. I wrap an arm around my knees and try to smooth my breathing out.

  “I’m the princess, you’re the prince.”

  I’m not. I’m not the prince. That’s why I called my agent earlier…before I got in bed. Told him what happened with the taper meds and asked if he could get me out of here early.

  There’s a ship coming—right now. The Celia. Left from Cape Town yesterday, will be here the night of the twentieth. She’s a research vessel. Not too many people on board. I’ve got a ride back on her, departing the twenty-first.

  “It’s too much for someone like me. Because you’re leaving, see? And I’ll be here without you. And I know how that works out, you see. It doesn’t work out pretty.”

  With steady hands, I untie Baby’s leash and stand up. Walk slowly across the plateau. I hear myself swallow, louder than the tide. It’s pretty calm tonight, and quiet. No sunlight to turn the squiggle of the waves above me golden. But it’s nice and dark. And peaceful.

  She would never get over it.

  You’d drown, like her parents.

  Those thoughts make me feel like I should really do it.

  Take yourself out. Piece of shit. If you can’t do this right, you can’t do anything. You already failed at living real life every time you tried.

  I crouch down by the ledge, squeezing my head between my palms. My heart is racing so damn fast. I’m worried I might pass out. Fall before I’m ready.

  Oh fuck. Fuck. I rub my eyes till I see golden shapes. I pull my hair. Why does nothing help me? Maybe I’m not meant to be alive.

  I see the lines of light above me, feel the cold weight of the water. That’s why I came here. Not for her. I came here to sink myself.

  “I can’t go back. I can’t. I can’t…I can’t.”

  I cover my mouth with my hand. Sit back with my legs in front of me. I cover my mouth with both hands. I don’t want to leave her. I don’t want to sink like that. I hold my head as tears roll down my cheeks.

  I’m so fucked up. She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know what it would be like with me.

  I scoot closer to the ledge. I can’t feel anything. I just want to be done with this. I don’t want to feel this way. I can’t be fixed. I claw at the ground. I punch the ground, ripping up my knuckles.

  Something warm nudges me. Baby presses up against my back and…she won’t move. I look out at the stars, so bright and unreal. My ribcage expands as I breathe. Baby doesn’t move a hoof.

  It’s all I need. The crest smooths out. I breathe until my body feels less frenzied. Till my thoughts are coming in a straight line.

  Finley. I just need to see her. Just another couple days…so I should take advantage of them.

  Baby follows me home. When we get there, I feed her and whisper “thank you” in her velvety ear. Then I climb into the bed that smells like Finley, take some of her potion, and sleep.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Finley

  Perhaps I’ve got a sinner’s black, blasphemous heart, for I feel no guilt as I step inside the church for Sunday morning mass. I still pray as if I’m one of the lambs. When it’s time to ponder gratitude, I say a silent thank you for him. If the Lord truly knows my soul, he’ll understand.

  Will I be cast into the fiery pits? Will I truly? I wonder most of the service. I think perhaps it depends on whether I stay and live the life I committed myself to, the one I always presumed the Lord wanted for me.

  But does He, though? What does the Lord want for me? And what of me? What can my heart bear? At this point, that’s the question. Never before—never before Declan—had I given thought to what I needed…much less what I wanted. It simply didn’t dawn on me. I never had a suitor. Never in the schoolhouse. Not for so long.

  We don’t w
ant for happiness here. We take what we have and find happiness in it. This applies to all facets of life, and also love.

  Am I sinful that I couldn’t do that? That I can’t be happy with my lot? I thought of him before he arrived. Before I even knew his face, I wrote him letters, sealed them up in bottles, tossed them to the sea. It was all quite pitiful. I knew that. Silly.

  I suppose I wanted to escape. That was the narrative I knew. Prince Declan. I smile down at my lap as I think of how he behaved that first night I saw him. I was furious—less so with him, more so with my foolish self. And then…

  And then.

  After mass, I chat with Uncle Ollie for a bit, and then with Mrs. Petunia White. I find, by chance, I wasn’t wrong about the weather. We’re due two days of driving rain, starting this evening.

  Father Russo comes to stand by Mrs. White as she asks after Baby. “How is that sweet love?”

  “She’s doing wonderfully. I haven’t put her with the others yet, but it’s in her future. Unless she says she doesn’t want to leave me.”

  Mrs. White chortles. Father Russo’s gray-black eyebrows scrunch, as if he’s never heard a conversation like ours. Then he smooths his face out, unassuming—comically so. He puts his hand on Mrs. White’s shoulder, but his eyes meet and hold mine.

  “Finley. How are you feeling?” Father Russo’s voice is like a bird’s: nasally and so high-pitched it sounds like chirping when he speaks.

  “No complaints, sir. How are you?”

  “I would be better if I understood why you ceased attending weekday masses.”

  My face blazes. I can scarcely form words. “I suppose I have,” I manage.

  “Did I do something to offend?”

  “Oh, heavens no. I’m sorry to cause…questions, sir. Father,” I correct. “It’s just that without Doctor, I’m more occupied with clinic duties. All of that…it takes up quite a bit of time.”

  “Is that so?” His eyes and mouth are round, as if he’s genuinely curious. He’s such an odd duck, I can’t tell if he’s just being odd, or if he’s actually unhappy with me.