by Lana Grayson
And it is, without a doubt, my favorite book that I have written.
It might seem a little too wild for you, but I promise…
You will love this book. Give it a chance.
This is the taboo book you’ve always dreamed about…
1
Honor
“Forgive me, Father…we can’t do this anymore.”
The silence that followed bound me to my forbidden confession.
Was speaking it aloud a sin?
Was it any worse than letting the desire poison my body and my mind?
I whispered the damning truth in the sanctity of the confessional, but I wasn’t sure I deserved absolution.
My fantasies of this man burned me in hellfire. Every minute I stole with him tore me further from grace.
What I was doing here?
And how could I admit these sins?
When I was younger, I hated confession and the tiny wooden room where we revealed the worst parts of us. Now that I was older, I feared it.
The sweet cedar and sandalwood incense teased within the confessional. It smelled of him, and it dizzied me with indecision.
And shame.
I should have confessed for buying the sandalwood-scented candle too. I lit it at night, once. Not for prayer or meditation, but because the secret flame perfumed my room. Like it was him. Like he was there. But those thoughts were dangerous, and I’d snuffed out the flame before the scent twisted from sweet, honeyed sandalwood into sulfur and brimstone.
I’d reveal that transgression. I had no choice. If the Lord acted in mysterious ways, the devil wouldn’t miss a chance to make an example out of a sinner.
But I wasn’t a martyr. I wasn’t even a good Catholic.
I was lost, and I knew why.
Him.
“Father Rafe, I…”
I regretted using his nickname. It didn’t matter if I was more comfortable speaking it. I’d already corrupted the confession. Why desecrate it further with such informality? Especially since my secret would crack the very foundation of St. Cecilia’s church.
I desired a priest, a holy man of God.
And I knew what type of woman that made me.
I started again, and the words tumbled from my lips. Quickly. As if I raced the apocalyptic crash of horses’ hooves to cleanse my soul before it was too late.
“Father Raphael, we have to stop this.”
“You wish to stop your confession?”
His voice had the power to roll through the church’s nave—a rumbling command that ruled with authority over the congregation. Tonight, he whispered in the darkest shadows of the quietest sanctuary so only I could hear. His words smothered me like thick honey, just as sweet or inescapable as he desired.
I shivered at the sound of his voice.
Did he know? Could he tell?
Father Raphael was a man as patient as he was wicked—or maybe he was that good, and I was the one tormented? He wielded silence as a weapon and baited me with the warmth of his words. I never should have recognized the heat which shadowed his whispered questions.
“What must we stop, Honor?”
“Everything.”
“You’ve done nothing wrong.”
I didn’t believe that, but was I supposed to correct a priest? “What we’ve done isn’t…right.”
“There is no sin in a friendship with a priest.”
“Is it a friendship?”
“I hope it is. Do you regret this past month within our parish?”
Yes?
No.
It was hard enough uprooting my life and transferring colleges. I left most of my credits behind to return home and help Mom, but things were so different now. Even the church, the one constant force from my childhood, had changed. St. Cecilia’s was served by a new priest, Father Raphael St. Lucian, and he was nothing like the old, grey, half-deaf Father Falconi who had tended our flock for the past thirty years.
It was once so easy to take comfort in the warmth of the church.
Now, it was far easier to find that comfort with Father Raphael.
I started again, trying to justify the unforgivable to myself. “Father, I respect the Catholic faith.”
This amused him. “As do I.”
“I follow the tenants.”
“And I live my life by them.”
“Then you understand why this has to stop, Father.”
Father Raphael remained silent, unmoving. Almost otherworldly. He was a confident man, without flinching or awkwardness. It was like he mimicked the statues of the saints crafted in solid marble throughout the parish grounds. He didn’t fidget or duck his head unless it was a bow before the crucifix or altar. And he never averted his gaze from anyone. Even through the screen, I shuddered under the weight of his stare.
Maybe I was imagining things. Maybe I read too much into the conversations we had and the times me met within a quiet, empty church.
But could I risk my soul?
“I should go,” I whispered. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Prayer is from the heart, Honor.”
“Not this prayer. I’ve already taken too much of your time—”
“You will stay, and I will hear your confession. Time with you is not wasted.”
The screen separated us, and it should have been a relief. But I could still imagine him perfectly…because he was perfect. Hardened and soft, handsome and fierce, dark and light.
His silhouette shifted in the shadow cast by the confessional. I had no right to remember the dark, charcoal sincerity of his eyes, the crest of his forehead with eyebrows that were almost black, matching the slick darkness of his hair. Even in the dim light, I recognized the sharp definition of his nose, royal in stature like the strength of his jaw. He’d only just turned thirty, but his confidence and poise made him seem far older. Wiser.
Was he a priest or a warrior?
“Honor.” Father Raphael called for me. Did he intend to draw my attention, or had I imagined how he smiled over the word, as if he took pleasure in whispering my name? “We’ve talked many times this past month.”
“Yes.”
“About many things.”
Everything and nothing. “Yes, Father.”
“Do you regret our conversations?”
I stiffened. “They weren’t just conversations.”
“What were they?”
“They were…”
Just like this. Veiled words, unspoken desires, and every dangerous and wicked thought cloaked in small talk. We exchanged pleasantries while holding our breath. We spoke of the church and trembled in quiet, unrealized longing for a brush of our fingers or moment alone, beyond the congregation.
“They were deceitful,” I said.
He never spoke a forceful word. Never needed to exert that power over another soul, not when his gentleness captured them instead.
“I have never deceived you,” he said.
I believed it as much as I feared it. “Honesty in words is different from honesty in action.”
“You may be the only one in my flock who listens to my homily.” His amusement hummed in a quiet chuckle. “And here I thought I wrote that lesson for myself.”
“I learned from it.”
“Obviously. You are here.”
“Yes.”
“Guilt does not tarnish a soul as pure as yours, Honor.”
“Are you sure?”
He paused, posing the question like a game, a tease. “Why did you come here tonight?”
I stared at my hands, folded in unsaid prayer. “Because I wanted to do the right thing and confess.”
“And what are you confessing?”
I didn’t know yet. I didn’t even know if I’d be able to admit it.
What if someone heard our whispering?
But the church had emptied hours ago. I’d waited until night fell, when the sun went down and the shadows cloaked the nave…
Except for the corner confessional where Father Raphael
and I battled a different darkness.
If he fought anything at all.
Maybe it was just me.
And that was more of a reason to run.
“What is it you fear, Honor?” he asked.
I felt him move, almost as though he had pressed through the walls and towered over me, scented with sandalwood and tense with the same uncertainty and heat.
“Is it cliché to say I fear for my mortal soul?”
“It’s not cliché, but it is foolish.”
“Foolish?”
“We are all sinners. Sometimes we make mistakes. Sometimes we convince ourselves that we must commit acts that go against our faith. And sometimes, after we’ve lost ourselves, we fear what we’ve done, what we want, is unforgivable.” His voice lowered. “If you truly wish to be healed, you can’t simply confess what you’ve done.”
“What do I do?”
“You must question what first led you into that darkness. What reason you had for wanting to sin. For some, it is depression. Others, rage. And some fear. What has driven you into sin?”
“That’s what frightens me, Father. Answering that would risk my soul.”
“Do you think I would threaten something so precious? Something so innocent?” His words graced me like the soft brush of his fingers, a touch I wished and feared to experience. “I would never endanger a soul this beautiful.”
My heart beat, too quick and fierce for anything deserving in the quiet sanctuary of the church.
“You shouldn’t say such things, Father.”
“Why?”
“It’s not…”
“You are beautiful, Honor.”
My fingers trembled, lithe and dark, contrasting the pale gold of the crucifix on my rosaries. I tucked my hands under my legs. It didn’t stop the rest of me from shaking.
“Do you believe me?” he asked.
I wanted to. “Aren’t we all beautiful in the eyes of the Lord?”
“And yet before me sits an angel, humble in her perfection.”
“And I thought the serpent had the slick tongue.”
“I have greater uses for mine than mere lies.”
Was he talking about the church? Celebrating Mass and preaching or…did he tease with something more? Something sinful and delightful that lingered in my mind as an untasted, unachievable promise?
“This is what I mean, Father. Is it wrong…the way we speak and the things we say?”
“The compliments we give?” Father Raphael drew the question with a soft rumble in his voice. “Do you trust yourself?”
“Me?”
“Do you trust your thoughts, your feelings, your faith?”
“No.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Because I’ve already failed my soul’s first challenge.”
“A challenge?” His words shifted, curious. “What sort of challenge?”
“Does it matter? We face so many every day.”
“What made this one different?”
I swallowed. “It was the first one I’ve lost.”
“Are you certain you’ve lost?”
“I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t.” My hair fell over my face, ebony waves that should have been pinned and proper for church. Instead I let them cascade, wild and free. I thought I could hide in them. It only revealed more of me. “Father, we’re too close.”
“Close to what?”
He was a priest, but he wasn’t naïve. Couldn’t be, not when the only thing he denied himself was so often the primary focus of the church’s teachings.
Did he want me to say it? Was that the game? Did he wait for me to admit just how depraved and terrible and amazing the fantasies had become? Every squirming second in the confessional only made me realize how sinful my thoughts were. How dangerous.
And he knew it too.
It was part of the control he had over me.
Why should he admit these sins if he could tease me, leave me shamed and aching for an embrace that never happened, words we hadn’t whispered, and a release that…
Well, that release had come. At least he had only been in my mind and not in my bed then.
I bit my lip. The sharp sting didn’t punish me. Just the opposite.
“Father, we’ve spent time together this month, and I appreciate the guidance and comfort you have given, but it has to end.”
“Why?”
“Because it no longer feels innocent.”
This intrigued him. I imagined his gaze upon me, scorching through the tiny screen separating him from my innermost thoughts, fears.
Desires.
Now or never.
“When you speak with me…” I said. “It’s like there’s more to your words.”
“Do you believe I’ve misled you?”
“No. I think you say exactly what you mean. What you want.”
“Which is?”
“Something neither of us can have.”
Father Raphael breathed deep, solemn. “You speak of sins we’ve never committed.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Words we’ve never spoken.”
“Yes.”
“And a touch I’ve never offered.”
“Yes.”
He smiled. “So what exactly is it you have imagined. What are you feeling?”
“Why would you make me say it?”
“Why would you confess here, with me, if you did not wish for me to hear it?”
What did he want from me?
I’d come to accept responsibility for the thoughts and feelings that threatened my soul. Now? I’d never forgive myself for getting tangled deeper in his web.
But, even as I squirmed, even as the truth tightened around me…I savored the sound of his voice.
Father Raphael awaited my answer. I had none.
“Honor, you came here tonight because you wanted to speak with me about these feelings. You sensed the danger, and yet you came to me. Was it for protection? Absolution?” He exhaled, his voice lowering, quiet and dark, only for me. “I know that’s not true. Be honest with yourself. Be honest with me. Tell me how this makes you feel.”
“How what makes me feel?”
“Confessing these dark and terrible sins to me.”
I shuddered so hard everything inside of me clenched, tight and waiting. “I don’t understand—”
“How brave of you to sit in my confessional, trapped in this little cage while you reveal these sins that have bound you in desire for…how long has it been, my angel? Days? Weeks? Since the first time you met me?”
I had wanted him from that very first instant when we were introduced. I stayed silent.
“I remember when I first saw you,” he said.
“So do I…” I swallowed. “You were giving Mass.”
“You were one of the few who listened.”
And look at the trouble it caused. “I was taught to respect my priest.”
“And yet you do not believe me when I say how beautiful you are. How special.”
“No, Father. It’s the opposite. I do believe you. Every word.”
“And that is a problem?”
“Maybe.” I edged closer to the screen. “The first time we met…what did you see in me?”
His words edged, hard and forced. “In you, I saw my damnation. It flashed like a prophesy in my mind…before it turned to fantasy.”
A shiver claimed me, but I didn’t fear it. It delighted me with a tickled warning.
Don’t let this happen.
“I should have imagined you with a halo, draped in golden light,” he said. “That’s what you’d prefer to hear. But I’ll always be honest with you…especially about this.”
The tension would tear me apart. I knew it. I had felt it. This wasn’t playful flirting.
This was something far more dangerous.
My whisper was too loud for the silence of the church. “Father, we can’t speak like this anymore. We can’t meet anymore. No matter how innocent we
once thought it was…now we know the truth.”
“Which is?”
“I’ve wanted to be alone with you, too many times for all the wrong reasons.”
“You have not sinned.”
“I will not give it a chance.”
He sighed, speaking softly with his infinite patience. “Tell me why you are really here, Honor. What sins have you committed?”
I bowed my head. The confessional was too small, too claustrophobic, too near him. I edged to the screen, not knowing if I sought forgiveness or the chance to feel his heat, hear his breath…to imagine his touch.
Just a graze of his fingers.
A slide of his hand.
The gentle brush of his lips against mine.
My mouth dried, but I feared the soothing flick of my tongue over my lips.
“You are a priest, and it’s wrong to expose you to these feelings. You could lose the church. Your vocation.”
“My angel, those are not your sins. They are mine.”
“They’re shared.”
“It is not a transgression if we speak after Mass, or if you help me carry supplies for the youth group, or if we stay late to clean the nave. These are not sins—unless you have succumbed in another way…”
I swallowed.
I had surrendered to something worse. Something damning.
Something amazing.
“Bless me, Father. I have sinned.”
The confessional creaked. His voice warmed and chilled, lashed and comforted. He understood, and yet he demanded more from me.
I closed my eyes. “My thoughts and actions have not been…”
“Pure?”
No one’s thoughts could remain pure around Father Raphael. He was a man who’d convert an unbeliever with the confidence of his smile. The sincerity of his words could bless even the most pious. He feared nothing and no one, and even his confidence was shadowed in humility.
He was good. He was holy.
He was completely forbidden to me.
Why did I want him so badly?
“I’ve had impure thoughts.” I stared at the floor, the scuffed wood from too many formal shoes bowing before the window. I hadn’t knelt. I didn’t trust myself to fall to my knees before a man like him. “And…sating those thoughts hasn’t eased the desires.”
“Sating?” His words echoed in a hidden smile. “How have you attempted to sate these thoughts?”