Frustration thickened my blood. “I’m your dark night of the soul?! I think you went a step too far.”
“If that’s what you call a step too far, I’d hate to hear what you call indecent.” His body was against mine in an instant, my breasts heaving with shallow irritation and grazing the fabric of his vestments.
This profoundly infuriating man was under my skin like no one else had ever been, and just like a bad tattoo, I’d pay a professional to gouge him out of my soul if I could.
“This, for instance,” he hissed, “is surely a step too close to your precious comfort zone.” His body pressed tighter, the deep ridge of his arousal cutting at my hip and causing my throat to crack and turn to dust. “Don’t trick yourself into believing that you know you more than I do, Tressa.”
His dark eyes glinted in the dim light, my heartbeat vibrating in my ears the only noise in the room. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
I couldn’t catch my breath, his fingers crawling their way past my wrists, grazing the underside of my elbows before his thumbs dug in and he was as far deep inside my own heart as he could possibly go.
“You like the dance, dove, but just when things get intimate, you pull away.”
His scathing truth cut like a hot blade.
“No,” I squeaked.
His soft chuckle was his only reply, my eyelids already glued shut in opposition to his words.
“My sweet dove…my greatest temptation. I have already dishonored my God and broken my vows of faith with you in more wicked ways than I care to admit. I’m a fallen priest, and yet I can’t bring myself to repent.” Bastien’s thumb danced across the arch of my brow. “You think you only show me the side of you you want me to see, but I see more than that, sweetness.” His eyes flicked down to my lips, hips working softly against mine, and then harder. “Don’t you understand? When it comes to forbidden love—bitterness will always taint any sense of sweetness. Surely you’re not foolish enough to believe there is a light at the end of our tunnel. I’m trained to see the broken parts you’ve spent a lifetime hiding. I’m trained to be your light in the darkness, Tressa. But all that darkness—” his thumbs worked inside my elbows, swaying me against his body as he gritted out against my neck “—it weighs on me some days…but still, I cannot bring myself to desecrate something so rare and sweet, no matter how much it calls to me.” His cock flexed behind his sanctified robes, my body humming with pure desire for anything more he had to give.
The way he swallowed my space and caused my heart to thrum like a hummingbird was distracting enough, but his skin setting flame to mine was beyond unbearable. “When you fear nothing, you have nothing to fear.”
Bastien’s eyes held mine, the amusement chasing through his chocolate irises giving me enough satisfaction to live on for days. “You’re not fearless, Tressa, no one is, and often what we fear the most is right in front of us.”
I squared my shoulders. “You’re a prisoner to your belief.”
His eyebrows rose, shock striking him before his face settled into that same well-orchestrated calm he reserved for his parishioners. “You can bet I’m a prisoner, but not for the reasons you think. You may want to ask yourself why you’ve found yourself here, at my church, now.”
The harsh tone of his voice caught me off guard, but not more than the next moment did.
His palms captured my face, thumbs trailing down the warmth of my throat before he smashed our lips together.
His kiss defiled as much as it gave life.
He desecrated me to the depths of my soul without ever removing a strip of my clothing.
“But that’s where my beliefs diverge from the church.” His lips teased at the corners of my mouth before his tongue darted out, tasting the bow of my top lip.
Oh sweet fucking heaven.
“I happen to believe it isn’t living if you’re not breaking a rule every now and again.”
He caught the soft whimper on my lips with his, swallowing it instantly before his tongue pushed past the barrier and he was sheathed in me again.
His taste, far deadlier than I’d remembered.
His cock, sliding against the outside of my clothes, quickening my pulse and soaking my panties with forbidden arousal.
“Despite what my church may believe…” Bastien’s thumbs hooked in my shirt, the warm pads of his fingertips sliding against my skin and cutting through my nerves like hot butter. “I can’t renounce you.”
His palm slid up my naked torso, divesting me of my shirt, while one hand cupped a shiny chalice, drops of wine already making their way between my breasts. Staining the satin bra I wore, pooling in my navel, soaking a rebel river of red along the elastic of my panties in unholy consecration.
“I know the taste of sin, sweet Tressa. I’ve tasted it every night in my dreams. Craving you is a new and deadlier form of hell than the last I’d overcome.” He dropped to his knees, the empty cup slipping to the floor and soaking his white robes in scarlet before his tongue met my flesh in slow swipes, eyes glinting to mine as he held me flush to his mouth.
Soft mewls formed on my lips as my body fell apart in his arms, limbs loose as he worked his way up my body, tongue tasting every inch of the blessed wine from my skin as he went.
“I am very surely a prisoner to you, my dove.”
Finally, his hands reached the cups of my bra, fingers splaying over the round flesh as he breathed against my ribs. “I’m caged to the dream of anointing you from head to toe. My desire to christen the throne you deserve to sit on.” His fingers hooked into the fabric of my bra and pulled, revealing my breasts to him. His irises warming with fire, he shot his tongue out and tangled with my nipple while the fingers of his other hand worked against my breast, kneading gently at first, before the pressure grew harder, more desperate.
“The thought of being good enough for you, to own the very heart of your soul, that’s what keeps me up at night.” His hands worked both of my breasts now, tongue darting out to pay the other attention before he stood to my height, hands cupping my neck and forcing me to look nowhere but him. “You’re not my dark night of the soul, Tressa, you’re my light at the end of the tunnel. When I talk of rebels, I talk of people like you and me. Soul mates, both of us driven to leave the world brighter than we found it. That’s the thing I love the very most about you, always willing to do all the wrong things for all the right reasons. I love your rebel heart.”
I swallowed, emotion ravaging the remaining nerves of my throat before wild tears burst the levees of my eyelids. “If I’m a rebel heart, wouldn’t that make you a rebel saint? My holy man, saving the world one soul at a time.”
His chuckle sent sparks down my spine.
“S’pose it would.” His grin quirked, eyes twinkling. “But love is a rebellious act and rebel hearts change history.”
“Why do people always fall in love with the things they can’t have then?”
A wry smile turned Bastien’s lips. “Because most people don’t know what’s best for them, especially in matters of the heart. Scripture points to the moment Adam took the apple from Eve as the exact sliver in time that humankind took its first bite of consciousness. In that moment, men and women became shrouded in selfish ego. Feelings like shame and guilt and lust and greed flooded the brain for the first time in history. So nothing about this—” the tip of his index finger traced the brown edge of my nipple as he rhymed his own brand of scripture “—is inherently unnatural.”
He ducked his head, sucking a peak into his mouth, eliciting moans of rapture.
“We are love, you and I. Your body can’t deny it’s reaction to me,” his lips grazed my skin with his illicit words, “I can’t tell you how much I love the smell of your arousal on my fingertips.” His words struck all the lonely chords of my heart.
I hated him for that.
The selfish side of me wondered if he knew I yearned to hear his words like an addict searching for the next high.
“You’ve
pledged your love to God,” I accused, my broken heart peppering each word with choked emotion.
He flicked his eyes up before he turned back to loop a blood red rope between his hands, gaze fading back to my peaked nipples. Soft, emotion-filled eyes observed me, his actions slow as he began to wrap the braided rope around my wrists, winding the shiny fibers up my forearms before leaving the loose ends hanging.
He drifted his eyes up and down my body once before searing my gaze, then ducking to loop my tied arms over his head.
“Looks like I’m pledged to you for at least the next time being.”
“Someone could open those doors at any moment, Bastien. This isn’t funny.” Trembles of fear soaked my desire cold. “Undo the ropes.”
Bastien cinched them tighter, drawing one fingertip down the line of my arm and sending shivers over my skin.
“Didn’t they teach you in seminary that bad company corrupts good morals?”
Bastien’s smile twisted up, both his hands working softly at the flesh just under the waistband of my pants.
“Mm, Heaven’s dew and earth’s sweetest juices from amid the flowers—”
I slammed my eyes closed, ears locked to his well-worded weapons. Damn biology, tangling with my logical thought, his assault on me becoming too much. The emotion, the pressure, the pain and pleasure. With ragged desperation and tears itching my eyes.
“Tressa.” Bastien’s voice broadened, his hands sinking into the flesh of my waist, hovering just out of reach of the elastic of my waistband. “With you I’m very well in danger of losing my soul.”
I gulped, dampening all of that pent-up desire for him before I breathed the pained words that’d been floating just out of reach for days now. “I’m leaving.” I paused. “Soon.” I pressed my lips together, looking anywhere but at his face. “Consider this my notice.”
The words cut my throat like they carried miniature knives.
My heartbeats stretched long and slow, all four chambers echoing thunderously in the tiny shell of a holy room as he sat silently between my thighs.
It was laughable.
All of it.
We were laughable.
A thousand angry secrets sped up in my throat. I wanted to scream and cry and run my way out of this moment. But instead, the bastard had me here, facing my worst fear, my fucking self.
“I just think it’s time for me to move on—” The words were weak even to my own ears.
“The hell it is.” His hands checked the bindings at my wrists, ensuring they were tight, while his eyes traveled up my torso, gaze sizzling up every soft inch, before his thumbs hooked at my waistband and pushed.
His jaw clenched, eyes equal parts ravaged and desperate, the press of his hands into my flesh left all the marks his words couldn’t.
Eyes holding mine, he slid his fingers inside the elastic of my panties, pushing them down my thighs before our lips came together in a fevered rush. A kiss that stole all of my breath and my soul along with it.
That kiss wasn’t the light at the end of the tunnel; it was the bomb in the darkness, lighting up the dark depths of our souls just enough for us to catch a glimpse before the lights burned out again.
A simple kiss, the beginning of the end.
Bastien wrapped his hands around my waist, pulling my ass to land on the wooden-topped chest as his other deft hand stripped me of my underwear. With one large palm pressed at the base of my back, he snuck under the cage of my arms again before catching my lips with his just as his cock nudged at the edge of my entrance.
His hips moved in a slow rhythm, a torturous tango my head grew dizzy trying to anticipate, my body succumbing to the drugging force of his lips pressed against mine, tongue working in tandem to sever every lock I held tight, burn every wall I’d kept purposely high.
With the blood of Christ on his lips, Bastien entered me fully, filling me so tightly his invasion burned and itched. I gasped, the burn of a man inside me for the first time too much to bear. My teeth sank into the flesh at his neck, tight ropes of muscle strung with sinew tighter than the ones that bound my wrists.
Finally, sweet agony filled my muscles, relaxing around him until the stretch of his girth felt less like an invasion and more a pleasurable assault.
His hands covering my body, paying attention to all the places he’d been promising to, his fingertips and lips owning every piece, I gave him my last moments of innocence.
Encircling me in both his arms, he held me against him in a hug that caged, coaxing out all my love for him against my will. A love the sheer size of which I still couldn’t fathom.
Bastien slipped a hand around his neck, working the red ropes from my wrists and letting them fall to the floor in a heap. I dug my nails into his skin instantly, muscled shoulder blades flexing beneath my palms as I clung to him, begging for more.
With every inhale, we sealed both of our coffins.
Running one hand slowly up my back, he following the curve of my spine. My heart began to pound and I arched my back into him. One finger played with the lace above my breasts, before slowly tugging the fabric down to reveal my chest to him. My nipples hardened as the fabric grazed my oversensitive skin. His eyes looked at me through dark lashes before he dove in, finding my nipple with his teeth and tugging firmly, then sucking it into his mouth. My body shuddered with pleasure as my hands held his head to my chest, urging him on.
He pulled my wrists above my head and locked them together with one hand. He attacked my neck with nibbles and licks, making his way to my lips and pressing deeply. Bastien Castaneda kissed me with more passion than I had ever been kissed in my life. This tender man seemed to embody passion, from head to toe.
“I want to see you.” His eyes burned into mine. He pulled the dress down over my hips until it finally dropped and pooled at my feet, my hands pinned over my head by Father Bastien Castaneda. I’d never felt more exposed or turned on. My body writhed as a smile played across his lips.
My heart thrummed in my chest, and his palm traveled around my hips to land on my bottom. His hand ran down the thigh of my leg and hitched it up around his hip. He kissed me deeply, ending with a bite on my lower lip before he released my wrists and placed his hand on my other thigh, bouncing me up onto his hips. He held me against the wall, and I ground my core into him as a means to relieve the tension throughout my body. My most sensitive parts ached to be filled by him and if the tension wasn’t relieved soon I thought I would combust.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and inhaled the scent of his skin beneath his ear. I tugged on his hair without thinking, so desperately ready for him. He held my bottom in both of his hands, backed me off the wall, and walked with eager steps to the narrow staircase up to his room.
“I can’t say no anymore, my dove, not to you.”
Arousal skittered through my body, soaking my thighs and sending me down the rabbit hole of need. Need for him. I was in a world of trouble.
He held me wrapped around his body as he took the stairs two at a time. He opened a door and we entered the room that overlooked the church garden and entrance beyond.
He laid me back on the crisp white linens of his bed and stood back to look at me. The clerical black pants hung low on his hips with the top button undone; he looked dangerously sexy bathed in the moonlight and all I could think about was his body pressed against mine.
“Good enough to eat.” His eyes inspected with a dark glint.
He gave me a lopsided grin as he picked up my foot and traced it with his nose. He took one shoe off and dropped it to the floor. He set my foot back down onto the bed softly, then removed my other shoe before crawling up the bed to my body. My heart skipped a few beats as he ran his nose up the side of my thigh, locking my legs into place with his strong hands. I writhed under his grip in anticipation of what he might do.
“I’ve been drunk on you all these weeks.” He ghosted over my center before sliding his tongue between my thighs. I cried out in pleasure, finally
feeling his touch where my body most needed it.
“And this greedy pussy is so ready for me.” Bastien pulled away for a moment before running his tongue back up the sensitive flesh. I cried out again and arched into him. My hands tangled in his hair and tugged on the silky strands. He alternated sucking and nibbling before slowly pushing one finger inside me. Desire flooded through my body as Bastien continued to lick and bite before sliding in another finger and pumping his hand. I was ready to explode underneath him, but I wanted to feel him inside me. I tried pulling him up, to signal I was ready for him.
“Not yet, sweet dove. I want you to come first.” Bastien pumped deeper and sucked harder until I fell over the cliff, pleasure washing through me. My fingers tightened their grip in his hair as my body tensed then relaxed under him. My heart was pounding in my ears and my breathing came out in ragged pants.
“Sweet heavenly cream.” Bastien crawled up my body and kissed me on the lips, forcing his tongue into my mouth, letting me taste myself. The action was a surprising turn on, and it made my head dizzy with lust, mingling our tastes together. I held his head tightly to mine and kissed him with passion. Bastien pulled away from me and I groaned.
He backed off the bed and unzipped his pants then, letting them drop to the floor. My eyes flicked to his cock as he stroked it a few times while watching me with intense eyes.
“You’ve got me so hard, Tressa.” Bastien’s eyes blazed. He crawled over me and held my head tightly between his hands as he kissed me, running the tip of his length between my legs. I wrapped both arms around his body, digging my nails into his back. My legs locked around his waist and pressed him harder into my center, urging him on.
“Are you ready for us?”
My eyes flickered up to his as he froze above me. I nodded.
“Say it.” He ground his hips into me with deft precision, a quake of pleasure tearing through me.
“I’m ready for you,” I whispered and arched my back into him.
“Ready for me to do what, Tressa?” he continued to taunt me.
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