Chapter 16
“Please don’t go!”
Ow. My head.
The warped memory or nightmare reared with the sun in my face.
I didn’t remember falling asleep, but that didn’t stop me from waking up in the backyard of my parish, buck ass naked. The sun was glaring at me like a divine punishment from God himself.
“Fuuuuuck.”
My jaw fucking ached, and my ribs were throbbing like someone had worked me over with a meat cleaver.
Did I piss off Jerry and get a love tap from his little play toys in the shop?
I rolled onto my side and regretted it instantly.
“Damn it,” I muttered, but the only ones to hear me were the tweeting birds in the trees overhead that wouldn’t shut up.
Once I got myself into a sitting position, which took some effort, I assessed my body. My knuckles were split for sure, and purple swelling crawled along my right side when I inhaled too deeply, something caught beneath my ribs that felt like fragile glass.
What the fuck?
The club.
That part of the hazy recollection came fast enough.
My vision blurred back to the music vibrating the walls, and bodies pressed so close you had to wonder if they were one person. I remembered the dickhead nosy bouncer and some guy’s breath in my face, spewing hatred.
“You think that collar makes you untouchable?” he’d screamed at me, but I hadn’t worn my collar.
How had he known who I was?
I remembered the laughing of his idiot posse by his side while I got my ass kicked, but I couldn’t remember why the fuck I would have picked a fight with three beef heads.
Wrong move, apparently.
The first punch hadn’t even hurt because of how drunk I was. It was just shock, and then my instinct took over.
I’d grabbed him by the shirt and used his face as a punching bag. We were evenly matched, my height meeting his brawn.
I’d thrown some insults at him that had pissed him off, and someone had been screaming, but every time I tried to think too hard, my head pounded.
How many times had Bar Butch swung at me?
Clearly enough that it wasn’t a civil conversation.
It was impact and adrenaline with someone constantly screaming “Stop! Don’t do this!”
I remembered the taste of blood in my mouth, the ironic tang I didn’t want to feel. I remembered not stopping when I should have and the ultimate crack of my ribs that knocked me down.
Then—
Water.
Cold tile behind my back, warmth on my...
The shower? Had to be.
The shift was so abrupt that my stomach twisted to the point of puking. I leaned forward to vomit.
In my head, I was standing there again, the thick steam in the air, curling around her and me. Water was running down my chest and her hands. The purple of the bruises was already forming beneath the spray while I watched her careful trail over my skin.
“Jed,” a voice breathed, but I couldn’t place it.
It was soft and close, my name, spoken so low and vulnerable.
I swallowed in real time, getting to my wobbly feet and making my way inside my stupid house. I stood in my kitchen, washing my hands and splashing water in my face to wash away the dirt. Feeling the heat of the water made the memory press forward.
“Anything you want—” I’d started, but my voice wavered where I couldn’t hear all the pieces.
“Wash us of our sins,” she’d replied, but again her face was a haze of darkness, like a shadow that wouldn’t allow the light to see through it.
I could hear the moans clearly in my mind. Her breathy tone made me hard even now. My hands had braced against the tile, while her hot tongue was on me, kissing my chest, my stomach, erasing the pain and filling me with intense heat.
She’d stepped closer.
I remembered the way my breathing changed, and it felt like I was choking.
Her responses were hesitant but somewhat confident. I was so damn happy to obey every one of her commands.
It was like I was underwater, trying to hear her words before her image faded away.
A flash appeared too bright that made me blink—
My fingers in her hair, her lips on mine, her hands sliding along my sides, pausing over my burns.
“Atonement.”
The word echoed in my voice and hers.
“Father.”
She’d said my title. She’d known who I was. The way she’d said it was mocking and a complete tease. I squeezed my eyes shut harder, trying to see her face, trying to remember whose soft hands they belonged to.
Nothing. Just the sensation of tile against my bare skin.
Her hand gliding over my fevered skin, while the warmth made me explode my sin all over her.
The image had cut into a blank... nothing, leaving only a stifling headache. I inhaled sharply and opened my eyes. My pulse was racing, and the water was cooling on my skin.
“Fuck me. What did I do? And…with who?”
I turned off the water, wiping my face and hands a bit too roughly for how bruised I was inside and out.
It had to be Dawn’s friend.
It was the only thing that made sense.
Things must have been good after the bar and I…God, I led her to my damn parish? My church?
“I am going to hell. I fucked a girl’s mouth in my own church.”
I was such a dick.
I didn’t remember her appearance. I had met her only last night, and she’d pushed me with her tongue and silky words during dinner. She’d liked testing my boundaries, but didn’t I step back?
Apparently not, Father.
My demons were mocking me.
I tried to remember more about the bar. Her voice. It was silky and lilted.
That tone matched the voice in the shower.
Didn’t it?
Did I dream of this?
I dragged a hand down my face.
The problem was the memory didn’t feel sloppy like a one-night stand—well, a one-night uh…mouth stand. Or was there more?
The hands on my body felt familiar. I couldn’t shake the dark shadow clouding my mind. It felt precise, not rushed or guilt-ridden, which is all I felt thinking about Dawn’s friend when I was stone-cold sober.
The voice. It was a dream. Or maybe a fucking nightmare.
She’d known exactly what she was doing. Every move to unravel me and listen to me beg while she pulled each part of me apart.
This was a damn mess.
I blinked through the haze, threw back some aspirin, and called the only person I could.
“Jerry. Hey, you wanna…uh, meet up?”
The cord on the phone about tripped me, and I grumbled as I dodged it multiple times in my pacing.
There was a silence, and then he sighed. “Yeah, brother. Come swing by the house.”
I didn’t dare drive. “Why don’t you come over to my place? I don’t think I should be behind the wheel today.”
Jerry grunted. “Yeah, alright. I’m on my way. Probably best anyhow.”
I started to question that, but hung up, and I was left staring at the clock and trying to tidy up until I heard his truck cut through the gravel that all but turned into mud from last night’s storm.
Jerry didn’t knock, which was the first sign he was pissed. The second was that, even after he got inside and sat on the couch, he didn’t really look at me. He picked at a seam on his jeans and cleared his throat. I didn’t say anything either and waited for him to look up.
When he did, I regretted having him over. His eyes bugged out of his head, and he froze for half a second before rebooting.
“Jesus, man. What the fuck happened to you, and why are you in your birthday suit? I don’t need to see that damn weapon of mass destruction. Put some shorts on.”
“Fuck,” I muttered, awkwardly covering my dick until he threw some random basketball shorts at me.
“Figured you’d say that.” I practically ripped the garment from how fast I yanked it onto my body and plopped down on the sofa across from him.
Jerry snorted and shook his head. “I gotta say Preisty Pop…It’s a good thing someone got to you, or I’d have knocked some damn sense into you.”
I contemplated that while watching him pour coffee without asking and handing it to me.
Both hands were wrapped around the mug. I needed it. The heat was grounding me.
“I need to ask you something,” I said, not bothering to beat around the bush.
Jerry leaned his elbows on the counter. “That sounds ominous with the way you look, my friend.”
“Last night.” I stared into the coffee, unable to look at him for this. “Dawn’s friend. She tell her anything?”
Jerry snorted, and I finally looked up to study his face.
Why the fuck is he being such an asshole?
“What about her, Jed?”
“I don’t remember all of it, I know that’s so beyond shitty, and you can be an ass or whatever, I just need to know what happened.”
Jerry’s brows lifted slightly. “I know someone knocked your blooming block off last night, but did you get brain damage in the process? What do you mean you don’t remember all of it? All of what?”
“I don’t think so. Maybe. I don’t know.”
I flexed my jaw, and it clicked faintly, reminding me of the flick of my lighter I was craving upstairs.
“I remember the club,” I said. “I remember fighting a bunch of assholes for some reason. Then I remember…um…a shower.”
“A shower?” he said, even more confused, but at least his anger was dimming. “You clean your wounds in your shower? Not sure why that’s a big memory point, big boy.”
“Yeah. Um no. I mean, yeah, I got clean…but uh, well…I mean, I took your advice, I guess, and she…”
Silence stretched between us.
“What are you on about, Jed? It’s too early for this back and forth shit, and Dawn already gave my ass a tongue lashing so I don’t need riddl—”
“I think someone sucked my dick, okay!”
“You think? Who? Jed, how in the hell don’t you remember if you got a blow job or not?” Jerry pressed.
I swallowed. “What do you mean by who? Your…friend…”
“You mean Ramona?”
“Obviously, I mean Ramona!” I huffed.
“Yeah. Okay, buddy, you definitely hit your head,” he said with a bombing laugh.
He studied me for a long time while I glared at him.