But maybe just one touch, one touch before you give the rosary and say goodbye forever…
I got down on my own kneeler and reached forward, extended one finger, and then, when I was only an inch away from her skin, I murmured my name for her. “Lamb,” I said. “Little lamb.”
She stiffened right as my finger grazed the creamy skin of her neck, and she turned around, her mouth parted in an unbelieving o.
“Tyler,” she whispered.
“Poppy,” I said.
And then her eyes filled with tears.
I should have waited to see how she felt about me, I should have asked for consent to touch her, I know all these things. But she was crying now, crying so hard, and the only place she belonged was in my arms, and so I moved to her pew and pulled her into me.
She slid her arms around my waist, burying her face in my chest, her whole body trembling.
“How did you find me?” she managed.
“Sterling.”
“You talked to Sterling?” she asked, pulling away, swiping at her eyes.
I ducked down to meet her gaze. “Yes. And he told me what happened that day. The day you kissed—” and my own resolve failed here, because despite job changes and living on a different continent, seeing her now and remembering the hole carved in my chest the moment I saw her kiss Sterling was too much for me to speak out loud.
She cried harder now. “You must hate me.”
“No. In fact, I came to find you to tell you that I don’t.”
“I thought I had to, Tyler,” she mumbled, looking down at the floor.
“Had to what?”
“I thought I had to make you leave me,” she whispered.
Even my pulse paused to listen. “What?”
Her eyes were raw with pain and guilt. “I knew we could make it through anything Sterling threw at us, but I couldn’t handle the thought of you leaving the clergy…leaving for me.” She looked at me, face pleading. “I couldn’t live with myself if you had. Knowing that I had taken your vocation from you—your entire life—all because I couldn’t control my feelings for you…”
“No, Poppy, it wasn’t like that. I was there too, remember? I was choosing the same things you were; that mantle of guilt wasn’t yours to bear alone, if at all.”
She shook her head, tears still falling. “But if you’d never met me, you wouldn’t have ever thought about leaving.”
“If I’d never met you, I would never have really lived.”
“Oh God, Tyler.” She buried her face in her hands. “Knowing what you must have thought about me all these months. I hated it. I hated myself. The moment Sterling’s lips touched mine, I wanted to die, because I saw you coming through the park, I knew you were there, and I knew you were hurting, but I had to. I wanted you to forget all about me and keep living your life the way God wanted you to.”
“It hurt,” I admitted. “It hurt a lot.”
“I hated Sterling so much,” she said into her hands. “I hated him as much as I loved you. I never wanted him, Tyler, I wanted you, but how could I have you without you losing everything? I told myself it was better to push you away than watch you wither.”
I peeled her fingers away from her face. “Am I withered now? Because I did leave, Poppy, and not because of you and not because of the pictures Sterling released, but because I realized that God wanted me elsewhere, living a different life.”
“You left?” she whispered. “I thought they made you leave when the pictures came out.”
“I did. I thought…I guess I thought that you would know that.”
“But the rumors…everyone said…” She took a deep breath, her eyes on me. “I just figured the pictures had ruined you. And it killed me knowing that it was partially my fault, because if it hadn’t been for me, Sterling would have never have targeted you. Knowing that split my heart in two, and I couldn’t take it. I had no heart left to split. I missed you so much.”
“I missed you.” I pulled out the rosary and poured the beads into a clinking pile in her palm. “I brought this back for you,” I said, curling her fingers around the rosary. “I want you to have it. Because I forgive you.”
That’s not the whole truth, Tyler.
I took a deep breath. “And there’s more. I was so hurt—gutted—by what you did. And I’m angry with you now, for doing something that only brought both of us pain. You should have talked to me, Poppy, you should have told me how you felt.”
“I tried,” she said. “I tried so many times, but it was like you didn’t hear me, like you didn’t understand. I needed you to forget about me so that I didn’t ruin your life.”
I sighed. She was right. She had tried to tell me. And I had been so caught up in our love, so caught up in my own struggles and my own choices, that I hadn’t really listened to her. “I’m sorry,” I said, meaning those two words more than any person ever has before. “I’m so sorry. I should have listened. I should have told you that it didn’t matter what happened with my job, with us, because in the end, I believe God is looking out for you and me. I believe God has a plan for us. And wherever I go—wherever we go—and no matter what awful things happen, we’ll be comforted by his love.”
She nodded, tears streaming down her cheeks. And something happened then, an infusion or an awakening, because I realized something.
I still want her.
I still love her.
I still need to be with her for the rest of my life.
And even though it made no sense, even though it was only a few minutes ago that I’d found out she and Sterling weren’t together, had never been together, I still did it. I still lowered myself to one knee on the floor.
“That day, I was on my way to propose to you. And if you’ll have me, I still want to marry you, Poppy. I don’t have a ring. I don’t have money. I don’t even have a real job right now. But all I know is that you are the single most amazing person God has ever put in my path, and the thought of a life without you breaks my heart.”
“Tyler…” she breathed.
“Marry me, lamb. Say yes.”
She glanced down at the rosary and then looked back up to me. And her clear, tearful yes reached my ears about the same time her lips reached mine, her mouth greedy and jubilant and desperate, and I didn’t care where we were or who might see us, I unzipped my jeans, yanked her pants down to her knees, and brought her wet heat against my cock, grinding against her, half wrestling and half tumbling to the narrow space of floor between the pews until I could knee her legs apart and push my way inside.
It was short and rough and loud, but it was perfect, just me and Poppy and God in his tabernacle standing watch over us both. I wanted this woman for all eternity, and I wanted eternity to start as soon as fucking possible.
Poppy
Your hand is clapped over my mouth as your other hand digs under layers of lace and tulle to find my pussy—bare at your request. Bare precisely for this moment.
Outside, the guests are beginning to filter into the church, a Catholic church despite my parents’ playful protests, and in exchange for having a Catholic wedding, they extracted from us a grudging acceptance to let them throw the lavish affair they wanted to throw for their princess—fireworks and gallons of champagne and strings of lights under a starry Rhode Island sky.
But I’m nobody’s princess right now. I’m a panting lamb, squirming as your fingers find my clit—already ripe and swollen—and pinch it, gently. There are thousands of dollars of designer lace and silk pooled around my waist and I want you to rip it all off, expose my garter and stockings and naked cunt to the air. But you don’t.
Instead, you murmur in my ear, “You did as you were told. Good lamb.” You drop your hand from my mouth to cup my breast.
I lean back against you. “Isn’t there something about not seeing the bride before the wedding?”
“It’s bad luck, they say, but I think starting married life with a fuck is nothing but lucky, don’t you?”
&
nbsp; We’re in a small chapel off the main room, with a screened window that opens onto the sanctuary. It’s difficult to see inside and we’ve locked the thin wooden door, but it does nothing to muffle the sounds, and as quiet as I am, there’s no mistaking the rustle of my dress and my frantic breathing as your fingers move past my clit to the wet folds of my cunt.
Then you spin me around, drinking me in with hungry green eyes. You shaved this morning, your square jaw smooth and stubble-free, and even though I know your mother fussed over your hair earlier, a few stray locks have fallen over your forehead. I reach to tug on them but you catch my wrist in your hand before I do. Not necessarily to stop me, but so you can yank me closer to you, making the delicate skin of my pussy rub against your tuxedo pants. I feel your erection there—a hot, rigid length—and I moan.
The hand comes over my mouth again, and your normally smiling face is serious. “One more noise, Mrs. Bell,” you hiss in my ear, “and it will be your ass I’m fucking instead.”
Is that supposed to be a punishment? “I’m not Mrs. Bell yet,” I tease.
“But you still belong to me.”
There’s no arguing that. I’ve belonged to you since the first time I sat down in your confession booth.
The dress—a v-necked affair belted at the waist and skirted with a layer of fine, gauzy tulle—is a cloud around my hips, and it blocks my view of your hand reaching down to free your cock. Then your arm is sliding past my waist to my legs and I’m being half lifted, half shoved into the wall.
I feel the wide head of your cock notching into my folds, and you don’t give me a moment to catch my breath, you simply pierce me without preamble, and I’m trying so hard not to moan, but it’s so delicious, you in your tux and my wedding dress hiked up like a teenager’s dress in a prom hotel and your hand so firm and insistent against my mouth as you pound into me with rough, uncaring strokes.
“All those people out there,” you breathe, “they have no idea you’re so close to them, getting fucked so hard. Fucked in your wedding dress, like a little whore who can’t help herself.”
My heart is pounding like a bird in a cage—fast and fluttery—and my inner thighs are tensing against the abrasive fabric of your tuxedo pants. I’ve long since stopped trying to figure out why I like it so much when you call me these names, especially since outside of the bedroom you are so unfailingly respectful and adoring. Maybe it’s the naughty-priest-vibe that your new academic career hasn’t been able to strip away from you, or maybe it’s that you’re such a good person and it’s thrilling to see you lose control and act more like a sinner than a saint. Whatever it is, it drives me crazy, and you know it, and you whisper all sorts of awful things in my ear, take it and dirty fucking girl and come for me, you better fucking come for me.
I do, my moans swallowed by your hand, as you continue to pump into me, each thrust pinning me harder against the wall, and each thrust drawing my climax further and further out, and then you look up and meet my eyes. You’re so close, and I think of all the times we’ve screwed, of all the times I’ve woken to your mouth flickering hot and wet between my legs, all the times where it felt like we’d fucked each other right out of the real, ordinary world and into someplace new and shimmering and magical. I feel like that now, actually, as I search your gaze, and watch you bite your lip as you fight to hold it back.
“Si vis amari, ama,” you tell me. If you wish to be loved, love.
Words we’d exchanged what feels like a million years ago.
It was your love that had brought us back together, your unflagging love that lasted through my deception and my seclusion. I’d thought I was making the right sacrifices for you to be with God, but I’d been wrong the whole time. Now we are both with God and we are together, giving up our individual lives today to fuse into one eternal soul.
No greater love than this… I think dreamily as you lose all control now, your hand moving from my mouth to my other leg so you can hold me up and open as you chase your release, your dark head nestled into my neck, kissing and biting.
“Te amo,” you’re saying in my ear. Latin for I love you. “Te amo, te amo, te amo.”
Fuck, I love you too, and then you’re coming so hard, your whole body is shuddering and your hands digging into my stockinged thighs, and your climax sends another orgasm chasing through me. Together we pulse, like a shared heartbeat, like the powerful waves of a single ocean, until we come down together with a sigh.
Somewhere in the church, an organ starts to play something pretty and light, walking-in-and-finding-a-seat music. My bridesmaids and mother are probably panicking.
You set me down and use the silk handkerchief in your tuxedo pocket to clean the traces of you from my legs. Then you fold it back up and replace it in your pocket—from the outside, perfectly clean and tidy, but we both know what’s hidden inside. “Just a little reminder,” you tell me with a dimpled smile, patting the pocket.
“A trophy, you mean.”
You don’t refute this, still grinning your adorable Irish grin as you help me rearrange my dress and straighten the cathedral-length veil.
You look down at your palm, stained with my lipstick, and your lips part and your eyes darken. I swear I can see you get hard again. “You might want to check on your makeup,” you say, and your eyes linger around my mouth. I have to push you away though, because if you kiss me again, I won’t be able to say no, and then we’ll be late for our own wedding.
“What should we tell them we were doing?”
You are now all zipped up and rearranged too, looking totally composed save for the possessive glint in your eyes. “It’s a chapel. We’ll say that we were praying.”
“Think they’ll believe us?”
Irish grin again. “Well, I was a priest once, you know.”
I think about this as the rest of the day unfolds, as my lipstick is freshened and then my father walks me down the aisle, and as I see you blinking back tears when Dad places my hand in yours. As we take communion, both of us remembering a very different kind of communion shared between us. And then as you kiss me, deep and long and searchingly, a kiss that make my cunt wet and nipples hard, even in the house of God.
You were a priest once.
I still mourn that sometimes, but I realize now that what we have together is just as holy, just as profound. Someday, we will start a family. We will be creating life together, which is perhaps the most God-like thing any human can do, and I wonder, as we dance together under the gentle May sky, if we will have a son.
Maybe he’ll become a priest too.
Priest is a bit of a special book for me. It’s my first contemporary romance, my first standalone, and definitely my first time writing about a holy man! I couldn’t have done it without the incredible support of my readers and my favorite bloggers—chiefly the Dirty Laundry and Literary Gossip crew. You girls are so patient with me juggling multiple personalities while also being a hermit crab. I love you.
Priest would also not be here without my early readers and critique partners, Laurelin Paige (my sometimes bedmate and always soulmate), Melanie Harlow (Father Bell’s biggest fan), and Kayti McGee (who kept me encouraged with her dimpled enthusiasm.)
It would also not be here without the bleeping fantastic editing of Tamara Mataya and the sage advice of Geneva Lee, not to mention the ladies who Order me around.
And finally, this book would not be here without the sexy, patient man I’m married to, who perfected every type of Hamburger Helper to feed our kids while I wrote this book.
Sierra Simone is a former librarian. She lives with her husband and family in Kansas City. You can stalk her on Tumblr and Pinterest, and you can also email her at [email protected].
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If you enjoyed Priest, you may enjoy Sierra's series about dirty, sexy Victorians:
The Awakening of Ivy Leavold
The Ed
ucation of Ivy Leavold
The Punishment of Ivy Leavold
The Reclaiming of Ivy Leavold
Table of Contents
Title Page
Author's Note
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Epilogue
Acknoledgments
About the Author
Priest Page 26