Holding myself, I pressed the head of my cock against her clit, brushing down past her entrance to her ass. She shivered in a way that told me she had no objection to that either, and I’d have to add that to the things I’d bitterly regret never having. I moved up, again grazing past her opening and up to her clit. She gave me an agonized expression and I wanted to kiss it right off her face—or come all over it, either one. After a few more passes, I couldn’t wait any longer, I had to do it or I might actually die on the spot.
I leaned my forehead against hers, both of us looking down to watch as my tip pressed against her and slowly slipped inside. I stopped when the crest of my cock was in her, and then froze, muscles quivering.
Both of us just stared down at it, this impossible sight: me inside of her, a priest tasting the forbidden fruit and barely able to keep himself from eating it all.
“How does it feel?” she whispered.
“It feels…” my voice was barely more than a gasp at this point. “It feels like heaven.”
She was so tight, her cunt squeezing my tip, and there were no words to describe what that wet, slippery skin was doing to me, because it was rewriting my mind and my soul, my future and my life. It was a sensation so base and primal, so delicious, that I would have killed to feel it, I would kill somebody right now if it meant I could have my dick inside this woman again.
One and a half inches of damnation, and all I could think about was sinking deeper into hell.
She rocked forward the tiniest bit, unable to help herself, greedy lamb, and I grabbed her neck, my legs shaking with the effort not to come from that single little movement alone. “Stay the fuck still, or I’m going to come before I want to, and if that happens, then I will take you over my knee and spank your ass until you learn how to listen,” I said sternly.
My command had the predictable effect of sending goose bumps rippling up her arms. Her breathing was loud and harsh sounding in the small kitchen. “Fuck,” she whispered. “Fuck. I—this—this is the hottest thing I’ve ever done.”
It was possibly the hottest thing I’d ever done too, and I’d done a lifetime’s worth of hot things to many hot women—but none of them had been like Poppy.
Red-lipped and blue-blooded. And fuck, the horniest woman I’d ever met.
“I want to feel you come around me,” I said, my forehead still against hers, our eyes going back to the place where we were joined. I would never forget this as long as I lived, I knew, and I didn’t want her to forget either.
“That won’t take long,” she said and then gave a little husky laugh that made her clench around me. I hissed, grabbing the countertop to keep myself from losing it.
“Sorry,” she whispered, and in answer, I slid a hand over her leg to her clit and began rubbing.
“Stay still,” I reminded her as we watched my large hand, tan and calloused from all the odd jobs I did around the church, pressing into her soft pink flesh, as we watched her quiver around the tip of my dick.
“I’m trying to stay still,” she murmured, and I could tell she was, I could tell she wanted to see herself come around me as much as I did. I increased the strength and tempo of my fingers.
“Filthy girl,” I whispered. “So dirty to let me stick it inside of you. Do you like this, being spread open and used this way? I bet you like being called dirty names too.”
“P-please,” she moaned.
“Please what, lamb?”
She could barely talk now, her head lolling back against the cabinets, her arched back shoving her breasts closer to me. “Names,” she got out. “I like…the names…”
Fuck. She was really going to kill me. Death by turn on. Death by perpetual erection.
“Are you a slut, Poppy?” I bent my head down and sucked on a nipple, loving the feel of it furling on my tongue, stiffening as I sucked. “You’re sure acting like a slut, making me act this way. You’re making me break all sorts of rules, and I hate breaking rules.” I moved to her neck, kissing and biting. “You’ll take it anywhere you can get it, won’t you?”
“I’m—” She inhaled, unable to finish, but she didn’t need to because she was coming now, her body undulating as if to chase the waves of pleasure that rolled through it. Again and again, her pussy clamped down on the head of my cock, squeezing and pulsing, and just knowing that I could make her come with only the shallowest of penetrations made me nearly wild.
She slumped in my arms as she came down, resting her head on my shoulder. “Your turn,” she said against my skin.
I started to pull out but she grabbed my hips and stopped me. “No,” she said. “In me.”
“Poppy,” I started.
“I’m on the pill.” Her jaw set as she looked up at me. “I want to see it spilling out around you. I want it where it belongs—in me. Please, Tyler. If this is the last time, give me this one thing.”
Tyler. She’d never called me that before. And it was there at the base of my spine now, fueled by her dirty words—what woman begged for this? What woman was turned on by it?
But frankly, I would have agreed to anything, no matter how dangerous, so I nodded, my jaw clenching.
She leaned back against the cabinets, bringing her heels up to the counter. The change in her position didn’t move me any deeper inside, but it made her flex and tighten around me, and my climax clawed closer. She slid her hands to the undersides of her breasts, running her thumbs along her still-stiff nipples, pressing her breasts together and moving them apart, highlighting how fucking luscious they were and nearly blinding me with lust at the same time.
God, I needed to pump.
Needed to thrust.
Needed to fuck.
Then her fingers went to her clit and she started getting herself off again, her other fingers going up to slide in and out of her mouth and I was fucking transfixed, those lips, that wicked mouth, the mouth that had gotten my cock from hard as fuck to harder than fuck by the fireplace earlier. And then—naughty girl—she moved her hips ever so slightly, bucking them just enough to push me in and out of her the smallest bit, so wet, so tight, and there it was, stabbing through my balls and up my cock, and we both watched as it happened, as my hips jerked and my stomach muscles jumped and then I ejaculated. My legs could barely support my weight and I could barely breathe as it ripped through me, my first climax in a woman in years, but I forced myself to stand stock still because I wanted to memorize this moment forever, the semen dripping and her pussy so wet and her legs spread in hallowed welcome. The pulsing finally, finally slowed, and she laid her head against my chest, making this happy, contented little sigh, and my heart twisted inside my chest, demanding everything that it wanted now that it could be heard over my rampant lust.
“Shit,” I mumbled, leaning forward and pressing my face into her sweet-smelling hair. “What are you doing to me?”
We stayed that way a long moment, neither of us wanting it to be over, but then the air conditioning kicked on, blowing cold air over us, and Poppy shivered, still naked. I had her stay on the counter while I got a washcloth and cleaned her with warm water, and then I helped her find her clothes and walk to the door.
“So I’ll see you at Mass tomorrow?” she said.
“Poppy—”
“I know, I know,” she said with a sad smile. “Tomorrow, we’ll start fresh. Chaste. Clean.”
“Good, but that’s not what I was going to say.”
Her brows furrowed. “What were you going to say?”
I leaned in and brushed my lips against hers. Last time. Last kiss. “I wanted to say thank you. For the Scotch and for…what just happened.”
She blinked up at me and then her eyes fluttered closed as I deepened our kiss, tasting every inch of her mouth, licking into her as gently and lovingly as I had done ferociously earlier. I never wanted to move from this spot, I only wanted to taste her and breathe the air that we were sharing and feel her body warm against mine—and also pretend that I wasn’t waiting for a tsunam
i of guilt and a lifetime of penance.
“Goodnight,” she said against my mouth.
“Goodnight, little lamb,” I said.
Stepping away felt like stepping onto shards of glass, and I couldn’t help myself, she was so wide-eyed and so open to my love, and it was instinct more than anything else that led to trace a small cross on her forehead.
A blessing.
And hopefully a promise to do better.
My phone buzzed violently on my counter.
It was Monday, two days post-not-really-sex, and I was thinking about how I was meeting Poppy in just a few minutes for lunch. I was cleaning the counter and remembering what the view had been from this exact location two nights ago.
I didn’t even try to puzzle out what the text said. It was from Bishop Bove, and my boss was not only terrible at texting but also really insecure about his terrible texting, so I knew he would call right after he sent the text to make sure I got it (and then translate it for me.)
Sure enough, my phone rang a moment later, The Walking Dead theme song echoing in my kitchen. Normally I would hum a couple of bars, normally I would be more than happy to talk to the gruff, principled man who was reforming our diocese and fighting for reform alongside me, but today, I only felt a prickling trepidation, as if he knew somehow what I had done last night. As if he would guess it the minute he heard my voice. “Hello?”
“Are you going to the Mid-America Clergy Convention next year?” Bishop Bove asked, skipping straight to business. “I want to put a panel together. And I want you on it.”
“I haven’t decided yet,” I said, and I realized my palms were actually getting sweaty, like I’d been called to the principal’s office or pulled over or something. Shit. If I felt this nervous on the phone with him, what would I do when I saw him in person?
“I think this is finally the year we’ll get the panel we want in there,” the bishop said. “You know how long I’ve pushed for it.”
The panel we want…the panel on abuse. Bishop Bove had submitted proposals to the continuing clergy education organization for the last four years and had been shot down every time. But the leadership within the organization had shifted, younger organizers were in charge, and I knew that Bove had been told privately that he would finally get his controversial panel.
But how was I going to sit in a hotel ballroom staring at a sea of priests and presume to lecture them on the perils of errant priest sexuality? I glanced down at my countertop, where I’d slipped inside Poppy. Not all the way. Not all the way, but enough to come. Enough to make her come. I rubbed my eyes, trying to block out the sight.
Could a vow be not all the way broken? Could a sin be not all the way committed?
Of course not. And even if no one ever knew about it, I realized that I’d destroyed my legitimacy with myself, and maybe that was worse than my public legitimacy being destroyed. What had I gotten myself into? Was I ever going to be able to let myself speak about—preach about—the things I cared the most for again?
“Tyler?”
“If you get the panel, I’ll be there,” I mumbled, still rubbing my eyes. I was seeing sparks.
Better than seeing my sins.
“I knew you would. How’s St. Margaret’s? How’s Millie? She gave the diocesan bookkeeper hell last week for misplacing your quarterly tithe reports. I heard she reduced the poor man to tears.”
“Everything’s good here, everything is going really well,” I lied. “Just gearing up for all the fall youth stuff.”
And you know, halfway fucking hopeful converts.
“Good. I’m proud of you, Tyler. I don’t say that often enough, but the work you’ve done in that town has been nothing short of a miracle.”
Stop, I begged him silently. Please stop.
“You are doing Christ’s work, Tyler. You are such an example.”
Please, please stop.
“Well, I’ll let you go. And the panel—I’ll text you the moment I hear.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“Fine, I’ll call. Goodbye, Tyler.”
I hung up and stared at my phone a minute. I had woken up telling myself that yesterday was my starting over day. My being chaste day. And that today would be even easier. So why did I feel like my sins were still haunting me? Still dogging my steps?
Because you haven’t confessed them, Tyler.
I was an idiot. I should have done this at the very beginning. I sat on one side of the booth every week—why hadn’t it occurred to me to seek out the other side? To seek out the absolution and accountability that every person needed?
Next week. I would go down to Kansas City next Thursday to visit my confessor—a man I went to seminary with—and then I would have dinner with Mom and Dad and everything would be so much better.
I felt a little swell of relief at this plan. It was all going to be okay.
Poppy had come to Mass yesterday morning and sought me out afterwards to arrange our lunch plans for today. I’d wanted to have lunch with her right then—or have her for lunch, I hadn’t been sure—but she’d ducked away the moment our plans were figured out, and then I’d been swarmed by the usual crowd of after-service lingerers. Was she trying to keep her distance? And if so, was it because she wanted to? Or as a perceived favor to me?
The thought that this would be how we would behave around each other from now on—businesslike and abrupt—made me acutely miserable.
Which was stupid, because it was what I had wanted—no, what I should want—but I didn’t. I wanted both lives—the life where we were believer and priest and the life where we were man and woman—and every moment that passed without my mouth on Poppy’s skin, more and more of my willpower bled away, until I was left with the uncomfortable knowledge that I would endure whatever guilt or punishment I had to in order to touch her again.
Today these thoughts still clouded my head when I gathered my things and walked the two blocks to the nearest winery. I had expected to see Poppy by herself but was pleasantly surprised to see her chatting animatedly with Millie in the wine garden, an open bottle of something white and chilled on the table.
Poppy waved me over. “I invited Millie—I hope that’s okay?”
“Of course, it’s okay,” Millie interrupted before I could answer. “This boy can barely tell time, let alone budget for a major project.”
I mock-frowned at her. “I’ll have you know that I’ve got a very organized pile of Post-It Notes and bar napkins in this bag.”
Millie huffed, as if I’d confirmed every one of her darkest fears. I glanced over to Poppy, some immature part of me wanting to make sure that she had laughed and then wishing I hadn’t once I took in how marvelous she looked. She wore turquoise skinny jeans and a nowhere-near-loose enough t-shirt, a soft thin cotton that reminded me of the shirt she wore Saturday night…the shirt I’d sucked her nipples through. Her hair was in a messy braid thrown over one shoulder, and her eyes were more green than brown in the sunlight filtering in through the vines covering the pergola, and her lips were back in their trademark red, and why did she have to be so fucking sexy all the damn time?
“Sit, my boy, before the Riesling gets warm,” Millie told me. “Now, Poppy, tell Father Bell what you just told me.”
I pulled out a wrought iron chair and settled in, already sweating in the early September heat. Millie poured a third glass of cool wine and I accepted it, grateful to have something I could stare at other than Poppy.
“Well,” Poppy started, “to start off, I’m not familiar with what you guys are doing for fundraising or what you have done in the past, so I don’t want to step on any toes or anything.”
“You won’t,” I promised.
“But tell me if I do. This is your project after all.”
“It’s the church’s project,” I said. “And since you’ve been coming to St. Margaret’s, I’d say that makes it your project too.”
She flushed a happy little flush, as if this pleased her, tra
cing circles around the edge of her iPad as she talked. I remembered my thoughts about her during our meeting, that she was a born volunteer, someone who loved to help. I saw it in her eyes as she talked, the excitement and the purpose. “I’ve noticed that Weston has a huge number of seasonal festivals, which isn’t unusual for a bed and breakfast town,” she was saying. “And I noticed on the church website that you advertise that you keep your doors open for visitors during these festivals—have you ever done more?”
“Not really,” Millie said.
“And how many visitors do you usually get?”
I tried to remember. “Three? Four?”
Poppy nodded, as if I’d proved her point. “I think a festival is a perfect opportunity to bring in more donors, if we take advantage of it the right way. This building is over one hundred and fifty years old—and that kind of old charm is exactly what people are coming for. That and booze. So you set up on the sidewalk, you give away local wine and whiskey from the distillery, but you stay away from the usual church sale fare. They’re not coming in to buy recipe books or rosaries—they are coming in to see. And you give them the booze for free, so they feel unconsciously obligated to you.”
I could see the Business Poppy right now as she layered through her points efficiently and easily, rolling her stylus through her fingers as she talked. I saw the wealthy boarding school girl, the Dartmouth grad, the woman engineered for large boardrooms and corporate victories.
“So anyway, you make the church a destination for the people wandering around. That’s step one. But more importantly, you reach out to the local newspapers and the Kansas City television stations. You turn St. Margaret’s into a local interest news story, the kind that goes viral on Twitter and Facebook. The church is about preserving Midwestern tradition—you emphasize the things Millie says you are planning to do—keeping the original windows, restoring the original hardwood floors and repairing the old stonework. People love that stuff. And then, step three, which is really step zero because you do this part before you do anything else, you make a Kickstarter for the renovation, so that when the stories air and the posts get reposted, there’s an easy link for people to follow. You’ll increase your fundraising footprint from the Weston area to the entire Kansas City Metro—and possibly even farther out than that.”
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