Beautiful Sinner: a standalone forbidden romance

by Sara Cate

  Once he senses my discomfort, he stops the horse and touches my leg. “Look at me.”

  When I do, I nearly fall into those green eyes. His hand strokes my thigh with such a comforting touch that it’s hard to associate him with the same man who probably left bruises on my hips just a few minutes ago.

  Either Callum has split personalities or he’s very good at playing the necessary part.

  “Relax, Cadence. You’re in control. I’m here, but you don’t need me.”

  “Don’t leave.” I feel like a child learning to ride without training wheels. He smirks, then claps my hand.

  “I’m not going to leave you.”

  Holding Misty’s reins, I let his words sink in. I’m in control. I am in control.

  After a while, I start to get comfortable. His instructions helped, but once I got a feel for controlling the horse, I knew I could handle it. We walk Misty around the yard for another hour before we head back toward the barn.

  Callum indulges me when I ask to see him ride her just once around the pen, and I make sure to store that mental snapshot at the forefront of my memory bank. I want that picture of him, snug jeans and long-sleeve shirt on those broad shoulders as he rides against the setting sun, etched into my mind forever.

  Once we put Misty away, we ride toward the house, and I’m hit with a sudden wave of exhaustion. I slump against the seat and nearly fall asleep on the short drive over. It must be from the whirlwind of the past two weeks. I don’t sleep much, and I’ve been working harder than ever.

  Callum shakes me awake when we get to the house just before I feel his hand on my head. “Jesus, Cadence. You’re burning up.”

  Then it’s like it all crashes on me at once. My head starts pounding, my body aches, and my throat feels like I swallowed rocks.

  “Straight to bed,” he commands as I shuffle inside.

  Bridget is staring at us with concern as I bypass the lobby and head straight up the stairs. “She’s pale as a ghost,” she cries.

  “Grab her something to bring this fever down,” Callum says in his deep authoritative tone while he’s helping me to bed. I can walk perfectly fine. A minute ago I was riding a horse—not to mention, him before that, but Callum is acting like I’m suddenly incapable of basic functions.

  So sue me if I savor it, letting him help me out of my clothes and into my pajamas. He dotes on me like I’m his child...or his wife. After putting me to bed, he brings me water, two aspirins, and a cold washcloth for my forehead. Then, he doesn’t leave.

  Taking a seat in the chair on the other side of my room, he watches me drink down the water. “I’m fine, Callum,” I admit. “It’s probably just a cold. You really shouldn’t spoil me.”

  He leans forward, placing his elbows on his knees and watching me with his cold, calculating stare that I’ve learned to love so much. “I want to.”

  My heart still manages to thrum a little faster even though my head feels like it’s covered in fog. “You know what they say about feeding feral cats. They’ll never leave.”

  “Good,” he replies.

  I rest my head against the pillow and fight with the covers. I’m suddenly trembling and burning up at the same time. Sleep starts to pull at me the moment I’m lying down, but I keep my eyes open so I can enjoy this view for a moment longer.

  Callum is sitting in my room, not for sex but for me. My thoughts stop making sense as I let that image of him on the horse fill my mind as I drift off to sleep.

  Twenty-Five

  Cadence

  I sleep away the next twelve hours and barely leave the bed for most of the next day. Callum almost never leaves, except to bring me tea, soup, and fresh tissue boxes when I go through two with my head full of congestion.

  “I don’t want you to see me like this,” I whine, trying to only blow my nose when I know he’s out of earshot. “Please leave.”

  “Not a chance.” He refills my water and takes my temperature, again. I overheard him and Bridget arguing this morning when he demanded they take me to the hospital, to which she insisted it was just a cold. I was not dying. He was disgruntled, to say the least.

  When I wake up from my afternoon nap, he’s sitting in the chair again with his laptop on the table next to him and the bible in his lap. “You’re not being very discreet, Callum. Bridget will start to suspect...” My voice is scratchy, but my throat aches a little less now. I’d like to keep the sultry way it sounds though.

  “I don’t care,” he answers without looking up.

  “What are you working on?”

  “Tomorrow’s homily.” Bent over his laptop with the table-side lamp giving him a warm glow, I admire the fact that Callum has all the best qualities of a man approaching middle age. There are faint lines peeking out from the corners of his eyes, and his hands don’t have the flawless look of a young man’s. His hair is still thick though, even though the light brings out the gray strands along his hairline.

  His body doesn't show his age, that much is true. And neither does his libido. On his good days, he can go three rounds, and I’ve known twenty-year-olds who couldn’t pull that off. Maybe it’s the twelve years of celibacy that retained his sex drive.

  My head isn’t throbbing so much anymore and the chills have subsided, so I sit myself up against the pillow and pull my legs out from under the covers. Just thinking about pre-priesthood Callum has me feeling antsy with curiosity.

  “What were you like when you were my age?”

  His eyes cast up toward me, but his brow line tenses at my words. We never really talk about the age thing. I guess it’s eclipsed by the priest thing.

  “Your age?”

  A smile creeps across my face. “That was twenty years ago, Callum.”

  He rolls his eyes as he closes his Bible and sets it next to his laptop. “I’m aware how long ago it was.”

  I tug my bottom lip between my teeth. “So, tell me. What were you like?”

  After a heavy sigh and a long moment of contemplation, he relents. “I was lost. Reckless. Like I was always in search of something but never satisfied.”

  “Were you religious?”

  “No. Not really. My family only went to church when we really had to. Bridget and I sort of abandoned that when we moved out. But when I turned twenty-eight, I knew I needed to do something with my life. So I started going to church, hoping God could answer my questions. Give me the guidance I needed. The first time I prayed, as an adult man, I became addicted. When I told my family I was going to seminary school, they were appalled. Thought I was throwing my life away.”

  I keep my comments to myself as I watch him across the warmly lit room. How would I feel if someone told me that? I’d be disappointed too. It feels so final.

  “Then Teddy went and got himself killed, and I think they wanted me to drop out. It only fueled the fire. I was determined to do both: run the house and the church, so I spent the next fifteen years of my life working so much that I didn’t have time to focus on what I was missing.”

  Suddenly it’s like I can see Callum so much more clearly. The broody, stoic man who barely takes time to smile, gave his life away. He doesn’t seem to regret it, but hearing that I have to wonder. Is it really his pride that keeps him tied to his job? The inability to accept defeat or that he made a mistake.

  I want to tell him that he may have needed guidance then, but he doesn’t now.

  “How are you feeling?” he asks when the room grows heavy with silence.

  “A little better. I need a shower. I feel disgusting.”

  He quickly stands and moves toward me on the bed. In absolute horror, I back away as he reaches a hand out for me to take. “Stay away, Callum. I’m too gross!”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “I’m serious. I probably reek, and my whole face is all swollen and congested. This dim light is about all I can handle you seeing me in. Bright bathroom light is out of the question.”

  He completely ignores everything I say as h
e flips back the covers and scoops me into his arms. I don’t bother fighting with him because it's not worth the ruckus we would cause, and I’m sure Bridget is suspicious enough. But still, I tighten myself into a ball as he carries, hoping that I can somehow mask any odors I’ve accrued from being in a bed for thirty-six hours straight with a burning fever.

  “You’re impossible,” I mumble.

  As we get into the bathroom, he sets me on the counter and shuts both of us in. I desperately hope he’s not going to try anything because I don’t know if I could turn him down. When I turn around and catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, I’m mortified. Any makeup I did have on is now smeared down my cheeks. My nose is red and puffy, and my eyes have heavy, dark circles. I look like hot garbage.

  I can hardly stand the idea of any man seeing me like this, let alone the one I currently like the most. I’ve been known to apply a full face of makeup at two in the morning after a promising text message with an invitation to come over and “chill.” The only people who see me like this are Sunny and my mom. But the way Callum barely seems fazed has me feeling suddenly very warm and fuzzy, and not in a fever sort of way.

  He watches me undress with too much mischief in his eye, but at least he has the decency to let me wash myself up—and shave the important stuff—before he climbs in to join me.

  “So what about you?” he asks as he turns his back to the shower stream.

  “What was I like twenty years ago?” I reply with a smile. “You sure you want to know?”

  Instead of laughing at me, he pinches my side. I let out a raspy squeal, so he lets up.

  “You didn’t let me finish. Where do you see yourself when you’re my age?”

  The laughter in me dies as I try to formulate an easy answer to that question. Do I go with honesty or something fake? I figure if I can be honest with anyone, it’s with him, so I swallow down the pain rising in my throat—not from my cold, and I stare at his chest to avoid his eyes.

  “I want kids.”

  The only sound is the shower stream for a moment before he runs a hand from the back of my head to my lower back. “How many kids do you want?”

  His voice sounds strained, like it hurts to even ask that.

  “A lot,” I answer, looking up at him. “Or just one. I don’t care.”

  He gives me that signature Callum smile that only seems to really register in his eyes.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” I say, pulling away to squeeze shampoo into my hands. “You didn’t expect me to say that. I don’t exactly give off the mom vibes. ”

  He doesn’t respond as I reach up to lather his hair with soap, dying to just run it through my fingers. His hands land on my hips, but I keep my face away from his. Even in the shower, I’m not about to let him kiss me.

  “It didn’t surprise me at all. I think you’ll be a great mom.”

  As he leans his head back to rinse out the shampoo, I swallow down the lump in my throat. I should tell him, right now. I should come clean and tell him everything. He’d understand. He’d listen and be loving to me about it.

  Or it could ruin this perfect moment. And every perfect moment to come.

  A moment later, he wraps his hands around my legs and hoists me up. My back is against the wall as I bury my face in his neck.

  “Thank you,” I whisper.

  We don’t say another word about it, letting all of those regrets and what-ifs swim down the drain, along with one of my precious opportunities to come clean. As he enters me, my stress melts away. Our good days feel numbered, especially when he brings up the future. So I need to enjoy the ones we have before they’re gone.

  Twenty-Six

  Callum

  There is no normal now. Normal was a bleak chapter in my life when I thought I had everything I needed. Then Cadence careened in and shuffled up everything.

  Now we exist in this new definition of normal, and it’s ours. I sleep at the house every night, and ironically, I'm feeling more connected and revived at the church than ever before. My homilies come with ease. The scripture speaks to me in new ways I never realized were possible; as if, for the first time, I am hearing a language I didn't know I could speak.

  Every spare moment is stolen by her. Kissing her in the barn every morning until I can hardly breathe, sneaking her away into my office after Mass so I can fuck her with my collar on because it drives her crazy. Each night we take turns crawling into each others’ beds, and even when there is no sex, I’m still just happy having her close, knowing she’s mine. Living in bliss on this side of that forbidden line we crossed.

  I keep my job up at the church, and she continues killing it at the house. Bridget can’t stop talking about how good she’s doing, how much she thinks Cadence should start thinking about her future, take some classes, consider a business of her own.

  We don’t talk about the future, not anymore. That conversation in the shower came at me like a punch in the face. I don’t know what I was expecting her to say, but it wasn’t that. I thought she’d talk about the hotel or opening her own. But kids…

  It’s really not so surprising now that I think about it. Cadence would be an amazing mother. It’s the giver in her, the selfless nurturer who is always putting others first. I’ve seen her with the little guests that occasionally come through, the way she plays with them in the parlor, pulling out the board games or running around the yard. Like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

  But hearing her say she wants kids puts a thorn in the crown of our relationship. And it suddenly feels like it’s hanging around as a constant reminder that we have an expiration date.

  And it may be coming a lot sooner than I expected.

  Cadence and I share a bathroom, one which I barely used before since I liked to get ready for work at the rectory. But since everything has been uprooted, I find myself showering and rushing in the morning to get to the church. Without a toothbrush, I start to rifle through the drawers hoping Bridget stocked extras.

  The small drawers are mostly full of Cadence’s makeup, hair things and whatnot, but it’s a little pink disk that catches my attention. It’s not the fact that she owns birth control that shakes up my whole fucking morning—I mean, it’s a good fucking thing she does, regardless of my religion’s outdated views on the stuff—but my curiosity gets the best of me, and I open it.

  The good news is that according to the dates on the package, she’s taking it.

  The bad news is that she’s almost out.

  Is it any of my fucking business how or when she takes it? Absolutely not. I took that risk on my own, but it feels a little like opening Schrödinger’s birth control pack. I didn’t know before today how long we had until we had left to be reckless, but now that I know, my head is spinning.

  Last week’s conversation put these thoughts in my head. It’s making me see things I definitely should not be seeing, especially after one fucking month together—in a very forbidden, extremely secret relationship.

  But still...the vision of her with a rounded belly, full with my child…

  My brain is all kinds of fucked up today.

  Even at the church, sitting with the morning bible study, I can’t stop thinking about it. The young mother whose baby I just christened two months ago is nuzzled against her chest. I imagine it’s Cadence and a tiny dark-haired infant with green eyes and full lips.

  I never thought about children before, and I’m almost forty-five fucking years old. It’s bad enough I’m asking Cadence to keep whatever this is between us a secret. It’s a whole other level of fucked up to ask her to put off her dreams of a child...or to raise one alone.

  “Father Callum.” I lift my head from the blank stare I’m holding over the sleeping baby.

  Every member of the group is staring at me, waiting for an answer to their question, a question I didn’t even hear.

  Looking back down at the scripture, I find the passage highlighted for today’s reading and manage to pull some bullsh
it out of thin air. It seems to be enough because the congregation looks happy. The woman with the daughter smiles and nods.

  The group lingers around for coffee and donuts like they usually do, and I spot movement by the front door. Just then, my phone vibrates in my pocket, and I open it up to find a picture of bare legs just below a very short skirt, spread wide over my desk.

  Cadence: Forgive me father, for I have sinned.

  Jesus Christ.

  I clear my throat and pocket my phone. How the fuck am I going to get these people out of here? They’re busy talking to each other, and it’s mostly just the keeping up town gossip and boring small talk with a few of the retired farmers. They wouldn’t even notice if I was gone, so I make busy work as if I’m cleaning up and need to tend to something important.

  A moment later, I’m stalking down the hallway, but instead of being in my office where she was supposed to be hiding, she’s coming out of the ladies bathroom.

  “Oh hello, Father,” she says coyly, and I suddenly don’t give a shit that twelve to fifteen of my congregation are standing around the corner, only fifteen yards away. I press her body against the wall and reach up her skirt to palm her warm cunt.

  Her eyes pop open and she tries to push away. “What are you doing?” she mouths. She looks at the corner cautiously, waiting for someone to burst in and see us. Honestly, so am I, but I don’t give a fuck.

  I pull her panties aside and slip a finger in, absorbing the sound of her muffled moans against my chest.

  “Callum, stop,” she gasps, but she doesn’t complain as I begin to circle her clit with my finger. She clings to my arm, and I watch her face change with every movement of my hand under her skirt.

  Voices come closer, and we can hear their conversations clearly. They stop just beyond the hallway, caught in another meaningless diatribe, but I know our time is short, so I hurry my progress on her soaking sex in my hands.

  She presses against me, caught between the desire to come and the need to flee.