Chapter 11 Katharina #2
“You’re what your mother was. What they burned her for being.” His thumb pressed against the pulse in my throat. “A woman who refuses to kneel unless it pleases her to do so.”
Heinrich’s laugh was soft but edged with danger. “You help women control their own lives. You know which herbs kindle life and which extinguish it. You walk through this world with power the Church can’t control, and therefore they fear.”
My bound hands trembled between us. “You knew. You’ve always known.”
“I knew.” His fingers traced the line of my jaw. “I saw the women who came to the church doors with desperation in their eyes leave yours with hope. A hope no priest could ever deliver to those in their position.”
That was his confession, and it hung in the air between us.
“And you never stopped me? Why?”
His eyes softened, if only for a single beat of my heart. “I would never do that to you, my dove.” The endearment on his lips was weighted with new meaning. “The question is whether you’ll continue to hide in the shadows, or whether you’ll finally admit what you truly hunger for.”
The rosary had numbed my hands now, the prayer beads cutting off circulation until my fingers tingled. The pain was exquisite, focusing all my attention on the points where wood pressed against flesh, where his hands held mine captive.
I wanted his hands all over me. The confessional had become stifling, the heat of our bodies and breath turning it into a very gateway to Hell. One tiny step, and I would fall and never come back.
This was madness. This was suicide in a city where mere suspicion meant death. But his words ignited something in me that had been smoldering since I’d first laid eyes on him.
“Release me,” I said, testing.
His grip on my wrists tightened instead, pulling me closer until I could feel the heat radiating from his body through his clothes, all softness gone.
“Is that truly what you want? Or do you want me to wind this rosary tighter, until the Blessed Mother’s beads leave marks on your skin that you’ll feel for days?
Until every time you fold your hands in prayer, you remember this moment? ”
God help me, I wanted the marks. I wanted the memory pressed into my flesh like a brand.
“Heinrich,” I breathed, and again something flickered across his face. For an instant, his grip gentled, and I saw my guardian there—the man who’d protected the girl everyone was willing to throw away.
Then it was gone, replaced by this beautiful stranger who wore Heinrich’s face but moved with a malice that awakened the worst part of me.
“Say my name again,” he commanded.
“Heinrich,” I repeated, letting my need creep into the sound, and he rewarded me by unwinding one loop of the rosary, blood rushing back into my fingertips with painful sweetness.
“Good,” he murmured. “Very good.”
Somewhere in the distance, I heard footsteps on cobblestones, voices carrying through the evening air. The city was settling for the night, the threat of rumor and accusations weighing on everyone, the tension like miasma lingering in the air.
“Someone’s coming,” I said.
Heinrich listened, his head tilted like a wolf scenting the wind. Then he leaned closer to me, the small door of the confessional closing behind him. “Then you must be very quiet, my dove.”
He yanked the rosary so my hands were above my head, pinned against the rear wooden wall. The beads bit deep again, grinding against bone.
“You asked for penance for your multitude of sins, so I will give it to you.”
His fingers bunched my skirt, tugging it higher. He pressed his leg between my thighs, spreading them as he traced the delicate, untouched skin of my inner thigh.
“Heinrich…” I barely breathed it, afraid of making any sound. It was a plea—but not a plea to stop.
My leg twitched as he found the place no man had ever been before, sliding back and forth slowly, like his fingers tracing words on a page. I bit my lip to stifle the cries that tried to escape.
“So wet, and in the House of God, no less. Such a lustful creature you are.” He circled the spot that had me melting. “Confess—have you touched yourself here, thinking of me?”
“Yes,” I gasped as he stoked the fire that threatened to consume me.
“Beg for forgiveness. Beg me.” His gaze never left my face.
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sin—”
My breath hitched as he slid farther back, two fingers pressing inside me until the burn matched the sting at my wrists. “Recite twenty Hail Marys, my dove. Then you shall receive your absolution.”
“Hail Mary, full of grace…” I breathed as his mouth lowered over the hollow of my throat.
Warmth spread from where his lips met my skin and plunged to where his fingers moved slowly within me.
He pressed them deep until it felt he was touching my very soul—a soul reduced to nothing but desperate want.
“The Lord is with thee.” I was barely breathing, and Heinrich let out a low, dark chuckle.
“Do you feel him with you now, my dove? No, of course not. He’s not here. I am. So let your body pray to me.”
I had never felt anything like this before.
It was different from when I was alone. The pleasure twisted through every part of me, a deep shadow laced with burning embers, until my nipples rubbed painfully against the rough fabric of my dress as my whole body moved in a treacherous wave, chasing what he gave me.
I clenched around the intrusion of his fingers, and he moved his thumb in tighter circles, making my legs thrash. I kicked the small wooden door, and a ray of light lit his face, and he looked like someone else.
But I didn’t care who saw, who heard. All I cared about was that his eyes were on me, that he looked at me like I was his devotional, his sacrament.
Everything converged, and white light danced across my vision as my body shook. My eyes closed as sensation overwhelmed me, my pleasure cresting through me. He didn’t stop, not until every wave had passed and my chest stopped heaving.
“Katharina.” His voice was low, so close.
My eyes fluttered open to find him watching me the way I remembered.
There was reverence, but the hunger was gone.
For a moment we were just man and woman, not priest and sinner, not a servant of God and the woman who had condemned him.
I wanted that softness to last just a little longer.
I leaned forward, my lips pressing against his. Now there was no hesitation as he opened for me, our tongues meeting in a slow dance. It was an orison in a language just for us. And for that moment, he was mine and mine alone.
Then he pulled back, the shadow of the confessional casting his face into harsh angles. My skirt fell as he withdrew his fingers, leaving me with an emptiness I had never felt before.
He raised them to his mouth, and I watched as he tasted the glistening proof of my sin that lingered there. The hunger returned to his eyes, along with a harshness that made my heart tighten.
Then, slowly, he began unwinding the rosary from my wrists. Each loosened loop was its own small agony as blood returned to compressed flesh. When he reached the last coil, he brought my hands down and pressed his lips to the red marks the beads had left.
“I’ll see you for our lessons tomorrow,” he murmured against my skin. “We have more sins to discuss.”
He released me, stepping back as the church’s main door creaked open. By the time the churchgoer—old Frau Weber, by the sound of her shuffling gait—reached the nave, Heinrich had vanished into the vestry, leaving me alone in the confessional with my burning wrists and racing heart.
I lowered my gaze to the marks the rosary had left—perfect red impressions of each bead, a sacred geometry of pain written on my skin. They would bruise, I realized, marking me as the sinner I was.
The thought should have terrified me. In a city where the Witch Bishop’s men looked for any sign of commerce with devils, these marks were damning.
Instead, I pressed my fingers to them, feeling the tender flesh sing with pain, and smiled.
The fire in my belly raged brighter than my fear for the first time in memory.
1 King James Version, Isaiah 9:2