I close my eyes.
Like he’s trying to get loose.
I bite the inside of my lip to take some of the pain away, to release it, and the revelation hits me. Suddenly, I understand far too easily why Savio finds solace in pain.
But while I have no idea how to help him, I know I have to stop him. I can’t let him stay in the prison of his mind.
I move over and press a hand to his arm, but he surges upright, his hand swiping out at me like I’m the aggressor.
Stumbling, I lurch back, and only the fact I fall into the wall stops me from crumbling to the ground. For a second, I find myself a little dazed, but I don’t fear him.
If anything, I fear for him.
My brow puckers as I stare at him, watching him thrash, and suddenly the one comfort in this room makes sense.
His bed.
A double.
Not because he wants the comfort, because God forbid he has anything that makes him less penitent, but because he’ll fall out of it otherwise.
I gnaw on my bottom lip as I stare at him, wanting to help but knowing I’m not strong enough, physically, to do so.
That crucifies me.
Truly.
Deep inside? I feel wrecked because, fuck, this is my entire purpose.
To help him.
I knew that when I went into surgery. I knew I had to survive to help him.
He is my purpose.
My reason.
This goes beyond being soul mates.
This is divine intervention.
He’s on a path, a path of destruction. It will lead him to hell. Whether or not he cares about that now is neither here nor there. He’s in a pit of despair, so deeply entrenched in his depression that he can see no way out.
I know my purpose is to shine a light on him.
But how can I do that if I’m not strong enough?
A broken cry escapes him, and it wrecks me. Truly, it does. It breaks me.
I want to weep, want to slide to my knees at the side of the bed at the sound of him so weak.
Savio is not a man made for weakness.
He’s born of strength.
Forged of iron.
His soul calls to mine, and I don’t give a damn if the doctors said my reasoning would still be affected, I don’t care if they said every step I took over the years was shadowed by my illness. Here, now, I know it was all leading to this point.
Because I don’t know what to do to help him, I move around the bed.
He’s in the center of the mattress, flailing around, but if I stick close to the edge, I won’t fall off.
I need to be with him.
I need him to know he isn’t alone.
That’s important to me.
For so long, he’s been alone, and I haven’t been here for him.
That’s about to change.
I swallow, gulping down my nerves as I kneel on the mattress. Half-expecting him to wake up, to leap for me, to go for my throat, I’m surprised when he doesn’t, and I release a shaky breath.
The second my head connects with the pillow, I turn on my side and watch him.
As I watch, he calms.
That can’t be a coincidence, can it?
I frown at him, observing as his breathing starts to even out. He rolls onto his side, curls into a ball, the fetal position so tight that it’s incongruous on a man of his size.
But he’s turned toward me.
The more he calms, the more I can look at him, my tears evaporating.
The dream leaves him so suddenly that I can barely believe my eyes. Like it never happened, he starts to stretch out. If I hadn’t seen it for myself, I’d never have guessed it.
As he relaxes, the younger Savio appears. He’s less grim, more like the first picture I ever saw of him, and not unlike that first time, my visceral response to him is off the charts.
And something else hits me.
Without the cloud of fear, misery, terror, and anger dampening everything, and my own heartache staining the world in gray, his scent crashes into me.
Absolutely overwhelms me.
It’s like a punch to the gut.
In a good way.
It’s strange that, until now, I barely scented anything. My super sniffer makes me feel like a bloodhound on the trail of a dead body. But here, in this house?
It’s like no one’s home.
Like his spirit drifts through it and nothing else.
But now, in his bed? There’s no avoiding his scent, and it’s such a sweet and pure essence that heat begins to boil away inside me, bubbling like a volcano needing to erupt.
I’ve never wanted a man like Savio. I’ve never had the feelings before.
The doctors say my delusions were so powerful that they would overtake everything else, and considering my life before, it fits that I’d find no other attractive.
Savio was an ideal.
A man I held up in my mind’s eye as perfect. He was a martyr on a mission that put him in jeopardy. He was tortured and abused for his pains.
He was like a saint in my eyes, a stark contrast to the sinners I came into contact with every day.
Was it any wonder I idolized him?
Is it any wonder that now, even though my situation has changed, all I can still think about is him?
I know he’s dark, but I’m the light he needs.
Reaching out a shaky hand, I touch his chest. I’m not surprised there’s blood on the sheets, and though I regret his pain, I’m not averse to that.
The metallic tinge is in the air, shadowing his rich and musky scent, but it’s visceral. Even his blood belongs to me, and I’ll soak myself in it if it makes me smell like him.
My heart thuds, pounding deep and low as I let my fingers trail over the scant whorls of hair on his chest.
I can feel his heart.
It’s slow, rhythmic. He’s in deep repose.
I want to touch more of him.
I want to explore him.
But I can’t.
I won’t take his choice away.
I won’t hurt him.
My lip slips between my teeth as I stare at his abs. His body is perfection. I mean, I knew that before, but even in sleep? How can he have so many muscles? And these aren’t the simple ones of a man who works out.
He trains.
Hard.
I noticed before how his veins were thick and raised, and I knew that was a combination of adrenaline and pain flushing throughout his system. But now, I wonder if that has to do with how hard he exerted himself.
The cuts were deep. Like tracks on his flesh.
They were torn too. Rips and jagged edges that don’t align with a regular lash.
It wouldn’t be the first time someone used barbs for a deeper cut, for a better sting. But Savio had to push it.
His body gleams with vitality, so different from his withering soul.
Slowly, I move my hand from his chest, because I know temptation will hit me and I’ll want to touch him more.
The need to roll over into his arms, to push myself into him, to press every inch of me against every inch of him is so strong, I have to close my eyes and twist onto my back to evade the needs coursing through me.
They’re alien.
Dark.
New.
No longer attached to an ideal, but to a man. A man whose touch I crave. Who I ache to explore with my fingers and mouth.
A shaky breath escapes me, but as my chest heaves high, my nipples brush the camisole I’m wearing. I removed my skinny jeans and blouse earlier, then dragged off my bra too, leaving behind the cami I wore underneath and my panties.
I’m very aware of how little I’m wearing.
And I’m even more aware of the powerful scent of him on the sheets.
It laces every breath I take. Is deep in the air around me until I know my skin is being caressed by it, by him.
My nipples bead, budding against the cotton fabric, rasping and rubbing in a
way that doesn’t appease me. If anything, it’s sweet torture.
I can’t stop myself from snapping my hand up and squeezing one of them hard.
The sharp pain makes me whimper, and I have no choice but to anoint the other side. Pinching that other nub too, I shudder, enjoying the sensation. My body itches with the need for more. Unusual and wicked urges fill me as I let my fingers drift down, slipping lower and lower until I begin to rub over the gusset of my panties.
Gnawing on my bottom lip when that sends a naughty twist of pleasure shuddering through me, I spread my legs some. Dragging the flat of two fingertips up and down the cotton makes me wet, until I can feel it through the fabric. Until I can feel my juices anointing my skin.
It’s wrong.
So wrong.
Wicked.
So wicked.
But I can’t stop myself.
I slip my fingers under my panties and touch myself in earnest.
The caress of them against my clit?
Has another low whimper escaping me.
And that’s when it all goes to hell.
A hand snaps out and grabs a firm hold of my wrist. “What the fuck are you doing?”
I jerk in response to both his words and his touch, even as I twist my head to look at him.
My hips rock of their own volition, loving the feel of his skin against mine. When he sees that, he scowls.
“Stop that!”
I bite my lip and force myself to come down, to calm down.
Closing my legs, I pull my hand away from my thighs, and I’m not altogether surprised when he keeps a tight clasp on it.
He doesn’t trust me not to do it again.
I don’t blame him.
“What the hell is wrong with you?”
“I can’t help it,” I whisper, and I know my eyes are big as I stare at him in the low light. A streetlamp pours an orange glow through the windows, and it illuminates us both in the golden hue. “You’re so beautiful, Savio. How couldn’t I?”
His mouth works for a second, and though he’s furious, and his anger has his arms all bunched up, his stomach muscles tensing as he’s surged half upright, like he’s ready to drag me off the bed and back to my room, my statement has him flopping back against the mattress.
“What am I going to do with you?” he rasps, shaking his head, rocking it so his hair tangles on the cotton pillow beneath him.
“You don’t have to do anything,” I tell him softly. “Just let me be here.”
“This is wrong,” he counters, and his hand tightens about my wrist before he starts to let go.
This time it’s me who moves.
My other hand darts out and I grasp his wrist just as he clutches mine, holding him there, not wanting to let the connection drop.
“I need you, Savio,” I whisper. “And I think you need me.”
I knew he did, but there’s more than one way to skin a cat, and pushing this, forcing him into this situation, would get us nowhere.
He doesn’t seem to be listening to me though, because he grumbles, “You’ve got blood on you.”
“You’re bleeding all over the place.” I shrug. “What’s a bit of blood between friends?”
His brow puckers. “I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone like you before.”
“Good.”
Maybe he hears my jealousy, because he snorts. “I didn’t mean that as a compliment, Andrea,” he rumbles softly.
A shudder whispers through me at him saying my name for the first time. I already know I seem weird, so I try to play it casual by shrugging. “I’m taking it as one. There’s only one of me. God made perfection,” I declare cheekily, “and he didn’t want to make everyone else envious.”
His lips twitch. “Bigheaded to boot.”
My eyes twinkle. “I don’t think it’s too big to get through the front door.”
“Praise be to God for that.” He arches a brow at me, but he doesn’t move his hand, and I don’t move mine either. “What are you doing in here?”
“I heard you call out in your sleep.” Any amusement in me fades at the memory of his pain. “Y-You calmed down when I came in and I didn’t want to leave you.”
His scowl returns before he hisses out a breath. “Night terrors.”
“Do you get them often?”
He doesn’t answer, but he grows still. “Please, tell me I didn’t hurt you.”
I can feel the tension in him, it’s like it throbs through the blood-soaked mattress.
Maybe it does.
Maybe because his blood is touching me, it’s a conduit to him. To his soul.
I like the idea, and I turn my face into it, knowing it will turn my cheek rosy with him.
“You pushed me away, but you didn’t hurt me,” I assure him.
He releases a shaky breath, one loaded with relief, then he turns to me and catches me humming as I rub my cheek into the fabric beneath us.
Though his scowl is back once more, he doesn’t stop me. Instead, he asks, “What hymn is that?”
“Au coeur de ma vie,” I answer easily, wondering why he asks when he has to know it.
“That used to be my favorite.”
His thickly uttered response has me whispering, “I learned it for you.”
“You sing?”
“I used to. Not so much now.” I clear my throat. “I used to be in a choir at our church.”
“You truly were Catholic?” he questions, his surprise clear.
I huff, annoyed he didn’t believe me. “I haven’t told you a single lie, and I won’t either,” I tack on, wanting him to know that.
Damn nerve.
Something shifts in his eyes, and he shakes his head as a smile blossoms on his lips.
“You truly are peculiar.”
“Thank you.”
Savio
For anyone else, I knew that would be taken as an insult. And maybe, from anyone else, it would have been offered as one. But it wasn’t. I didn’t mean to offend. It was just a truth.
As I watch her coat her cheek in my blood, as I watch her hum a hymn that used to be my favorite, something she had to have learned during her ‘tracking’ of me, I can’t deny there’s no one like her.
No one.
And I’ve met some fruit loops in my time.
But at the heart of her, she’s innocent.
I can see that.
She’s naive and pure.
Maybe a tad naughty, but good.
It gleams out of her. It’s like her soul calls to the dark, empty shell of mine, reminding it what it used to feel like to be that way.
But I stopped being pure when I was thirteen.
A stupid bully changed everything, changed my life, changed me.
Memories crowd me, and she starts to hum again, like she knows the past has consumed me.
Like she knows something changed.
The old song resonates deeply. It reminds me of the first time I heard it—when I entered Seminary.
My parents had been the exact opposite of pleased about my becoming a priest. My mother had cried about it for two days straight, and every time my father had looked at me, he’d shaken his head.
In France, where I was raised, the state and church were not close entities. People weren’t ashamed of their religion, but neither was it embraced as maybe it was in other countries.
The first day of Seminary, my mother’s weeping echoing in my ears, I’d heard the hymn.
You are at the heart of my life.
And He was.
That had been my feeling at the time.
Now?
The hymn is a reminder of how I’d been once upon a time.
“Please,” I whisper gutturally. “Don’t hum that.”
She stops. Instantly.
Just like she does every time I ask her to—or don’t ask, just make her. There’s no rebellion.
None whatsoever.
That’s why it’s easy to let my temper fall away.
S
he’d touched herself.
In my bed.
Her whimper had awoken me, and for a scant second, I’d watched her, heard her. Felt her response.
Then I stopped her. I had no choice. Because I wanted to see more. I wanted to know more.
Just the thought of the taste of her pussy on my tongue is enough to make me salivate. It’s been so fucking long since I did anything remotely sexual that I can’t even remember when it was.
I’d been thirteen when I killed Luc Roussillon. I’d gotten a suspended sentence at fourteen, and a mountain of community service until I was eighteen.
Everything had changed when that community service had taken me to a church.
To a priest who’d changed my life.
At the time, I’d felt certain it had been for the better. But looking back, I know I’d have been better off sticking to the path I’d been on.
“I’ve lost you again.”
There’s a sadness to her tone that has me blinking, even as I register her.
Her words have me shaking my head. “I’m here. I’m found.”
Her smile is twisted. “I’ve never known anyone as lost as you, Savio.” She squeezes my wrist. “But I see you, and I want to make things better.”
She wants more than she’s telling me, more than she wants to verbalize, but she is, I sense, harmless.
I’d known that earlier though. It was the only reason I allowed her to stay.
Hearing it now, after catching her touching her pussy, after her seeing me during a night terror… well, it changes things.
“Were you really feeling ill earlier? Or were you lying?”
“I told you, I won’t lie to you. I was feeling...” She hesitates, and for a second, I think she’s going to get creative. “Fragile.”
I repeat the word in my head, frowning over it for a second. “Fragile?”
She sighs, reaches up with her free hand and rubs at her temple. “Yes. I pushed it today. I’m supposed to nap and take cabs instead of walking places.”
My eyes narrow as I read between the lines. “You discharged yourself too early, didn’t you?”
Andrea licks her lips. “Maybe.”
“Why did you do that?”
“My parents returned home to California to clear up their house because it had sold. I knew if I didn’t leave then, they’d never let me out of their sight.”
Whatever I’d expected her to say, it wasn’t that.
The Vows We Break: A Twisted Taboo Tale Page 12