Takeover: The Complete Series

by Lana Grayson

  “What about your parents?”

  “My mother is…still shocked I became a priest.”

  “And your father?”

  “He’s not devout.”

  “No?”

  “He has no fear of Hell.”

  I thought I hid the dark spite in my words, but Honor flinched nevertheless.

  Since when was I such a terrible priest? An angel like her had nothing to fear.

  Except me, apparently.

  The silence ached through me. I hated this.

  “I don’t often talk about myself,” I said.

  “Maybe you should.” She leaned against the pew. Her arms crossed again, but not to hide. She turned…almost playful. “It might alleviate some of your mystery.”

  “I’m no mystery, Honor.”

  “Are you so sure?”

  “I am a priest. That is who I am.”

  “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  She didn’t look away. “Why are you a priest?”

  “I ask myself that question every day.”

  She didn’t understand. I arched an eyebrow.

  “I wouldn’t be a good priest if I didn’t meditate, pray, and reconfirm my faith every day.”

  “Have you ever…”

  “Regretted it?” I answered for her. No need for hesitations, not when I knew why she asked. “No.”

  “Not even once, not even for a moment?”

  Was it another temptation? Or was it honesty? In her, I was served a vision of sensuality and wicked ambitions. I’d overcome those desires in the past. What made her so different?

  I’d never regretted becoming a priest. The clergy, my vocation, my faith was the barrier I had and the only protection I possessed that granted me the strength to overcome my own monstrous self.

  But footsteps echoed from the hall—high heels clacking along the linoleum.

  I stood, heart racing. I jerked away from the pew in a sudden movement.

  There was my regret.

  I knew I wasn’t supposed to be here. When I’d stepped into the adoration chapel, I feared we’d repeat the same sins.

  But that was the wrong fear. I should have worried for my own guilt.

  We flinched away and tensed—as if whoever walked the halls might have peeked inside and witnessed our sins. Honor leapt up, stubbing her toe on the pew. A small penance to pay for the guilt which raced in my heart.

  Except I hadn’t surrendered to any desire. I didn’t touch her, hadn’t indulged in what wasn’t mine. My vow remained unbroken, and Honor’s lips untasted.

  We had done nothing wrong.

  But for how long?

  The footsteps hurried across the hall and into the sanctuary. The wooden door banged closed.

  Honor spoke first. She clutched her phone and braced as if to run. “I have to go.”

  “Honor.”

  “No,” she said. “Don’t. Don’t say anything. Please. Can we just forget what happened that night?”

  How could a simple comfort become such a dangerous lie?

  “No.” I hated to hurt her. “We need to remember what happened.”

  She lowered her eyes. “So it doesn’t happen again?”

  Yes. And no. That memory was a moment of joy and sin, utter infatuation and great weakness. “We need to confront this. Hiding from that night will damn us. It’d be too easy for that desire to take hold in our minds. We can’t let it steal our thoughts, invade our dreams…fuel our fantasies.”

  Honor bit her lip. “I’m trying not to think like that, Father.”

  “As am I.”

  “Is it working?”

  No. “You did not take the Eucharist during the evening Mass.”

  She shook her head. “It didn’t feel right.”

  “It would have been.”

  “How can you forgive this?”

  “Why would you punish yourself? Everyone…everyone has desire, Honor.”

  “It was more than desire.”

  “Lust then. Attraction. That…” The hardness returned, persistent and demanding and almost painful in its beauty. “Need.”

  Her body trembled with mine.

  One touch, and I’d be scarred with sin.

  One precious moment, and I’d rend through her soul.

  One forbidden night…and we’d be lost in each other, damned for eternity but blessed for this lifetime.

  “How are we supposed to protect ourselves, Father?” Honor’s voice haunted like a hymn and scourged like a flogger. “I have to go. That’s the only way.”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  Selfish, terrible desire. It addled my brain, blurred my thoughts, and hardened every irresponsible part of me.

  “I want you to stay,” I said. “I want you to become more involved with the church.”

  “How could that possibly help?”

  “How could it hurt?” I gestured to the chapel. “This should be the place where we come to seek strength and comfort.”

  “And what if we destroy it?”

  I wouldn’t let her speak of her soul in such a way. It pained me, just as it hurt her.

  “I spoke with my mentor today…Bishop Polito.” I didn’t say where I visited him or why I had gone. “He warned me not to get trapped within my own thoughts. We can’t internalize our problems. We must find a way to redeem ourselves. We are alone in our sins, and that is why we’re suffering. To end it, we must stay together. You will become more involved in the church.”

  “It’s a bad idea, Father. I won’t be forgiven because I’ll sing in the choir or help in the festival.”

  “Absolution is mine to give. This is a chance to heal your spirit. You can give of yourself to understand what has happened.”

  She shook her head. “And what about us?”

  “We fight how we feel. We forgive our transgressions. And if we are tempted…”

  “When we are tempted, Father,” she said. “It is not a matter of if. It’s when…how. I can’t trust myself around you.”

  Trust.

  A strange word.

  I trusted nothing of temptation. Not what darkened my mind, beat my heart, or hardened the part of me pressing against the trousers under my robe. I tried to hide everything that stained my soul, but my thoughts still shattered with wicked images and fantasies.

  But if I wanted to help Honor, I’d have to trust that I was strong enough to resist.

  Because I could only protect her if she stayed close.

  If she wasn’t lost already.

  If I wasn’t lost already.

  “Better is open rebuke than hidden love, Proverbs 27:5,” I said. “We’ll hold ourselves accountable. Protect each other.”

  “Is it possible?” Honor lowered her voice. She approached me, her hesitating steps a challenge to my restraint. “I want to be holy, Father. And pure. And blessed…”

  Her hips swayed.

  Her blouse was buttoned high, but the strain of the white material caressed the swell of her chest.

  She breathed sweet questions of innocence and lust between parted lips.

  My angel offered her salvation, damnation, and body for me. And tasting even a moment of that surrender would have destroyed my own honor.

  Dreadful, beautiful fantasy.

  And she knew it.

  Honor lowered her gaze. “I didn’t think it was possible, Father. What we feel is too dangerous. We can’t control it.”

  A quiet rage blossomed within me.

  I could control myself. I was strong enough, fierce enough, devout enough to quell whatever mortal, human, flawed urges tried to possess me.

  Nothing would ever challenge me that I hadn’t already faced.

  Nothing.

  I seized Honor, pulling her into my arms. She gasped, though the words silenced as my hand tangled in her hair. I held her tight as I pinned her to my body.

  Our hips met, and her chest pressed into mine, the swell of her breasts heaving, caught between surrende
r and protest.

  I hardened—fiercely and violently.

  She felt it. Her eyes widened, but I didn’t let her speak. Didn’t let her move.

  And if I hadn’t lost my soul before, this was the moment when it should have been wrenched from me. But I was strong enough to resist.

  Though I desired her kiss, I leaned only close enough to let the barest hint of my lips graze against hers. If I had been a lesser man, I might have seized her, torn through her clothes, and moved upon her then and there on the floor.

  No, against the wall.

  Or in my office.

  Or on the altar—the sanctified, honored, perfect location to strip her bare, reveal her to my sins, and take that sacrifice for myself.

  My lips moved, softly, only a feather’s width from hers.

  “You will stay.” The command resonated as hard as the sin between my legs. “You will join the choir. You will sing. You will volunteer for the festival. You will join the activities and groups of this parish. Every day I will find you here. Every day you will pray that this is as close as we ever come.”

  Her eyes fluttered closed. Her pulse beat, rapid, a vibration of glory within her chest.

  My growl might have startled her. I didn’t care. “I will control us. Do you understand, my angel?”

  Honor couldn’t speak, but her lips parted.

  She wanted the kiss.

  So did I.

  I released her to unstable legs and hearts.

  “Do you understand?” I asked again.

  “Yes, Father.”

  “Go back to the meeting.”

  She nodded, stumbling to the door. She turned, swallowing, defiant if only to prove she could demonstrate the same strength I wielded.

  Blessed little angel.

  She’d need it.

  “And what will you do, Father?”

  “What I have done for the last five years of my life…” I met her gaze, lost within the mysteries in her stare. “I will be a good priest.”

  Honor nodded, slipping from the hall to return to the meeting. I listened until I could no longer hear the echo of her steps.

  She left me, but I was not free.

  I collapsed before the monstrance, the sanctified golden box that held the Host.

  I prayed harder than I’d prayed in years.

  “Heaven help me…” I clenched my rosaries. “I fear I’m turning to sin.”

  5

  Honor

  What was I thinking joining the choir?

  I plunked down in the vestibule, not ready to head into the sanctuary. The organ tuned from inside, but no one was ready for the auditions yet.

  I wondered if he was in the church.

  Then I hated myself for such a thought.

  The choir girl and the priest? It was a bad joke waiting to happen. Toss in a bar and the Pope’s hat, and we were as cliché as we were damned.

  I’d dreamt of him. Again. It was the third night this week, and the images only became more powerful, more…explicit. As if my body hadn’t tested me enough, now my mind captured me too.

  And I liked the fantasies it created.

  What was wrong with me? My heart strained and beat and panicked, as if trapped within his arms once more. He had hardened that night in the adoration chapel. It throbbed through the cassock, through the pants beneath.

  I’d never met a man so full of contradiction. Here was a virile, passionate, sensual man, rippled with muscle and straining with desire…but instead of sinful delights, he chose the collar. The blindingly white and pure beacon represented a man of morals, faith, and celibacy.

  Both sides of him were masculine, so very strong and powerful. Just my luck, the clerical clothing only accentuated every strength carried in his broad shoulders, thick arms, and tight chest.

  If the world had been made for a man like Raphael, maybe Eve wouldn’t have wandered alone through the garden…

  Or maybe he would have become her original sin?

  I arrived fifteen minutes early for the auditions—thanks in part to still planning my day via bus schedules. I often forgot I had Mom’s car. At least one good thing came from her suspended license—it was easier to get from classes to work and then to the church.

  I dropped the bag carrying my books for my summer classes. The math, English, and polysci credit were cheaper during the summer. It was worth the drive to take them at the satellite campus instead of at the college this fall.

  Not that it mattered. I hoarded all the credits and community service hours I could keep from the transfer, but I was short the classes I needed to graduate on schedule. Going part-time meant it’d take longer than a year to finish my degree, even with the summer’s extra courses. Figured. The incompletes I earned after Dad’s funeral sophomore year still haunted me.

  Along with every other aspect of that day.

  I opened my laptop. Carefully. It was old, still clunking along from freshman year. I didn’t trust the fuzzy rattle coming from the fans. I’d need a new one, but I had no idea where to spare the money for a replacement. Mom was a month behind on the rent, two on the water bill, and still owed fines from the accident.

  This was why I came home. To help. But had no idea it had gotten this bad for her. Then again, once I was accepted to college, I ran. I’d rarely visited, even for holidays.

  And after Dad had died, I never thought I’d come home again.

  I rooted through my second bag—a change of clothes, bottle of water, and my packed lunch. My stomach rumbled, but I regretted packing an apple to eat.

  Of all the stupid fruit to bring into the church.

  I grabbed the pack of crackers instead and nibbled through to get to the peanut butter. The vestibule doors opened, and Alyssa and Samantha strolled inside, arm in arm. They greeted me with wide smiles.

  That meant trouble.

  “This is so great,” Alyssa said. Today, her hair bound high in a ponytail, so perky she should have sat on top of a cheerleading pyramid. “It’s like the whole gang is back together.”

  Samantha twirled in a skirt that might’ve doubled for a priest’s stole. “I knew we’d have some fun this summer. It’s been hell getting through Saint Francis’s programs. Can you believe a college has a dress code?”

  I started to see the appeal. I offered them a cracker, and Alyssa took it with a wicked arch of her eyebrow.

  “Is Daddy El here yet?”

  My mouth dried, and the cracker turned to ash. I grabbed my water bottle and chugged. Even that tasted of sulfur.

  “Don’t know,” I said. “He probably won’t be here. The Choir is Deacon Smith’s project.”

  Alyssa shook her head. “But the festival and the Battle of the Choirs was all Daddy El’s idea. He bet the other parishes in the area a fully painted rec room to the winner. This just got serious.”

  I smirked. “I thought gambling was a sin.”

  “That man is sin.” Samantha fanned her face. “I hope I get stage fright just so I can imagine him in his underwear.”

  And that was the image that I couldn’t get out of my head.

  What was more dangerous—imagining Father Raphael naked…or picturing him in the cassock? Flesh was one perilous temptation, but I never imagined I’d fall for the robes? They were strict, commanding, and possessing every righteous power afforded to him by his Holy Orders.

  Both thoughts made me tremble from the inside out. At least my song’s vibrato would sound authentic.

  As if he could tell when my thoughts drifted from the pious to the wicked, the solid, solemn click of his shoes against the stone echoed through the hall. Alyssa and Samantha silently squealed. The crackers crumbled in my hand.

  Father Raphael checked his text messages and tucked an iPhone into his cassock. He greeted us with a smile that seemed so genuine, so wholesome, it was as if I’d imagined the desires that stoked between us.

  “Good afternoon, ladies.”

  His gaze lingered politely as Alyssa and Samantha twist
ed under the briefest of his stares. He reserved the worst and best for me. I sat, paralyzed, meeting his dark eyes with darker intentions.

  Thank God for the white-collar that separated us from complete and utter devastation.

  “You can go in,” he said. “Deacon Smith is on his way.”

  Alyssa bit her lip. “But Father…aren’t you coming?”

  Oh Christ, save us. I hid my face in my hands.

  “I’ll be in shortly.” His words rumbled, heavy but innocent. “Tell him not to start without me.”

  Father Raphael continued down the hall to his office. My breath returned only once his footsteps faded. Samantha giggled.

  “One day, he’s going to flirt back.”

  Alyssa snorted. “I doubt it. Denying us is his game. A man like that isn’t naïve. He’s in complete control.”

  Control.

  Right.

  Father Raphael had yet to succumb to any of the desires that had so humiliated me. Was he leading me from temptation?

  Or did he drag me down the dangerous path?

  This was a slippery slope made slicker by his touch, words, stare.

  The vestibule doors clattered open, and Deacon Smith shuffled inside, immediately dropping his papers and music. He was a blessed teapot of a man—short, stout, and constantly steaming about one thing or another. Today it was the lack parking spaces.

  He groaned as he averted his eyes from Alyssa and Samantha’s bare legs. Three people followed him, and a car peeled up to the curb outside, tossing out a couple high school boys who might have worked as the bass voices we needed.

  “Inside, inside.” Deacon Smith didn’t look at my friends. “We’ll start auditions in five minutes.”

  Alyssa and Samantha cackled as he hurried to the organ.

  “If nothing else, we can stroke him out,” Alyssa giggled.

  Samantha gestured for us to follow with a curled finger. “We’ll make sure he wants to stroke something.”

  The doors closed.

  Wow.

  I tried to avoid Hell, and they preferred to toss everyone into the fire. I gathered my things and hauled the bags over my shoulders.

  The weight lifted immediately. I swallowed as Father Raphael took my book bag and laptop from me. He opened the door to the sanctuary.

  “After you,” he said.