23. Andrea
CHAPTER 23
Andrea
Hallelujah - Rufus Wainwright
M y mind races with his confession, but his misery is as tangible as the blood seeping from his wounds.
Rather than issue another blow, I ask, “Did you seek penance for your part in the boy’s death?”
“Yes.”
My heart aches for his pain, making me wish I could take it away, but it’s never that easy.
“And did you mean it?”
“Yes.”
“Then his death isn’t on your soul.”
He blows out a breath that gusts against my belly, pooling warmth there. “I’ve never been a popular priest.”
There’s no way I can stop myself from pressing a kiss to his temple. “Why do you say that?”
“I ask too much of parishioners.”
“Isn’t that the curse of a modern parish?”
“Perhaps. They want lazy priests and I’m not that. I might not believe in everything I preach, but I don’t believe in loopholes.”
“Loopholes?”
“When they sent me to Spain, I lived in this tiny town just outside of Madrid. It might have been on the commuter belt, but the parish wasn’t that large.
“A girl came to me, her mother dragging her there because she’d stolen something. We discussed what she stole, then she told me that she only did that because her mother punished her by denying her food.” His throat works. “Sin is everywhere.”
“What did you do?”
“I told her that stealing was bad and that if she was hungry, she should come to me, and I’d feed her.”
“That sounds like you were a good priest to her.” I reward him with a kiss on the crown of his head this time.
“You’re not getting the point,” he mumbles, but he doesn’t pull away from me. If anything, he tightens his hold. “I’m a Bible scholar. I know the ‘rules’ of religion, and wherever I turn, there are these things that nag at me.
“She stole, Andrea. She should have atoned. Yet she wasn’t to blame. Her mother was, but when I confronted her during her own confession, she refused to atone for denying her daughter food.” A shaky breath escapes him. “In that situation, I broke the seal of confession.”
“I didn’t know that was allowed.”
“It isn’t. I had the girl taken out of the mother’s reach for her safety. She complained to the archdiocese so I was shuffled onto another town.”
“If you did it once, why didn’t you go to the cops with the others?”
“Because they were unique. A brush with the law wasn’t adequate absolution for their sins. And that is why I’m damned forever: because there is no apology in my heart for God to accept.
“I had the option, and I didn’t take it. I chose my path, and I damned myself forever with that decision, something I believe He’d want me to do to protect His innocent children.”
My brow furrows at his words, but I run my hands through his hair, loving how he huddles into me as if I represent safety now.
He’s a broken man. Twisted. Shattered. But he’s mine, and he needs me.
That’s why I carry on soothing him. Why I don’t run for the hills. Why I stay the night. Why I choose to spend it by his side.
It’s hell not being able to touch him how I want to.
After I clean his back and change the sheets, though the freak in me enjoyed lying on them, we put a towel under his side for extra absorption.
He falls asleep in my arms as I sing to him.
“Hallelujah.”
He softens against me, and shortly after, I manage to rest too.
It’s why I experience Heaven the following morning when I wake in his arms to the dawn chorus of birds tweeting and delivery vans dropping off their wares to nearby businesses.
A part of me fears his expression will be filled with hatred when he first looks at me, his body stiff with rejection, but he turns his face into my throat and whispers, “You smell like home.”
My heart thuds in my chest at those words, leaving me speechless.
I can only lie here, staring at the ceiling, holding him as he dozes in the early morning light.
I smell like home?
Dear God, I don’t think he could have said anything else that might have hit me harder.
His words resonate so strongly, so purely, that I can’t contain the happiness rattling around inside me.
I smell like home because I am his home.
Just as he’s mine.
Another person might think this is religious mumbo jumbo, soul mate nonsense that belongs in a romance novel, but nothing about this is ideal.
Nothing about this is romantic.
If anything, my skin stained with blood from his self-harming, the beginnings of a headache stirring in my temples make the truth even starker—this man needs me to stop him from escalating.
Cold.
Hard.
Fact.
Technically, he already is, but I could curtail his habits and limit him.
If ever there’s a man in desperate need of a means of slaking his emotions, it’s Savio.
Denying him sex, the purest form of release, is like chaining a dog to a wall and not letting him walk.
He’s dying on the inside so he whips himself with barbs because he has no means of purging himself of the emotions that drown him.
He needs to drown in me.
And, God, I’m more than ready for the flood.
Once again, he shows me that we’re on the same wavelength because he wakes from his doze.
I shiver as he presses his face between my breasts.
He breathes in deep. “This is wrong.”
“Nothing between us can ever be wrong.”
My words are calm because I feel calm.
I’m at peace for the first time since I saw his face on a TV screen.
And knowing he feels the same is pure bliss.
He didn’t stir, not once, through the night in my embrace, and while I’m not saying I’m a miracle worker...
Okay, wait, maybe I am.
“I’m asking myself if you’re real.”
“Can’t you feel me? Can’t you tell that I am?”
He moves slightly, and all of a sudden, I feel his erection against my thigh.
Everything inside me tenses up then just relaxes, turning molten as need rumbles through me.
The need for him.
The need to connect.
The need to be at one with him.
I sigh, my breath brushing his hair as he turns his face and rakes his teeth over my nipple. Through the cotton, it’s heavenly, but I know it will be even better when he touches my skin.
I shiver as he nibbles, then when he nips, I squeak, but my hips jerk and I spread my legs.
The noise jolts him. He freezes. Then his forehead pushes into my chest. “I’m a—” He swallows. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
“I’m the Eve to your Adam,” I murmur, repeating what I told him last night, tempting him just like she tempted her man. “I was born for this. Born for you.”
Something in my voice, or maybe just the words, has him moving. He doesn’t go far though, thank God. He peers at me in the early morning light, rasping, “You’re a virgin?”
So I tell him my truth: “I was waiting for you.”
His eyes flare. “I swear you’re not real. I’m going to wake up and you’re not going to be here?—”
I grab his hand and shove it between my legs. It’s crass and crude, but I whisper, “Do I feel like a dream?”
“You feel like paradise,” he grinds out, cupping me there until his fingers begin a light dance over my clit.
Unable to contain the sound, unable to resist the desire rushing through my veins, I close my eyes.
For so long, I wanted this.
For so long, I’ve needed this.
And now he’s here and he’s going to give me what I’ve been looking for— him.
When he rolls between my legs, I still, not wanting to scare him away. Because I might have wings, but he’s the one who will fly away if I’m not careful.
My words reached him last night—I know they did—but in the cold light of morning, things change.
His dick pushes against me, the thick weight settling between my spread pussy lips with two thin shields of cotton separating us. I can feel the pressure against my clit, and it makes me want to rock my hips.
We both hiss when he presses harder into me, settling most of his body atop mine. Then, his arms come to rest on either side of my head. On this occasion, he’s the one who presses our foreheads together.
And from surrounding him, he surrounds me.
I’ve never known anything like it. It’s overwhelming, almost scary, but it’s Savio. He might be a killer, but he’s my killer.
My Savio.
My sinner.
My seeker of redemption.
He seems to pick up on that because he rumbles, “You’re not scared of me at all, are you? Even though you know what?—”
“You’re the one who thinks I’m crazy,” I interrupt, not wanting him to lose track of where we’re at. “Maybe you should be thankful for small mercies?”
His eyes narrow. “You’re a cheeky little thing, aren’t you?”
Tongue-in-cheek, I tell him, “In America, they call me a smart-ass.”
“Your ass is something, but I wouldn’t say it’s smart.”
“What is it then?” I pout.
“Bitable.”
“Okay, I can deal with that.”
“I’m not sure I can,” he growls. Then, he sags. “How am I supposed to do this, Andrea?”
“I feel how much you want me,” I tempt, wishing I could forge ahead for both of us, but the last thing I want is to take away his free will.
“My vows... we’ll be breaking them together.”
“I-I’m thirty years old, Savio, and I’ve been waiting for you since I was seventeen.
“I’d really, really appreciate it if you made a decision, because if you don’t, then I need to go shower.”
He blinks. “Why?”
“Well, it’s morning. That’s when you shower. But they always have cold showers in the movies, don’t they? I need you. I’ve needed you for so long. A cold shower is?—”
“I’m a priest. I lived chastely for a lot longer than you,” he says dryly. “Cold showers don’t work. Trust me.”
His use of the past tense has the hair on the back of my neck standing on edge.
“Did you ever touch yourself?” I ask shyly.
“No. After Algeria, sex wasn’t something I craved anymore.”
“You’re hard now,” I point out. God, is he ever. His dick is like a brand against my pussy.
I didn’t imagine anything could beat the feel of his arms around me, but this is a close-won thing.
“You’re crazy. Apparently, I like that in a woman.”
“ Your woman,” I correct.
He shakes his head again—he does that a lot. But he corrects himself, though his voice is low, a rumble, a mutter even, like he can’t believe he’s saying it: “My woman.”
For a second, I want to explode with happiness, but I don’t.
I won’t until we’ve broken his vows.
Only then will I know he means it.
Only then will it be cemented that this is fated.
“You’ve never slept with a man?”
“Never,” I tell him promptly.
“ Nom de Dieu ,” he rasps. “I’m so glad about that, but I want to fuck you, Andrea. I want to fuck you and devour you and?—”
I lift my legs, wrapping them around his hips and holding him tightly to me. “Take what you need. I can handle it.”
“I thought you didn’t lie?”
When he rolls his eyes at that, I roll them back. “I want you however you want me. Please, don’t deny me that.”