Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
LUCA
T he house is dark, and I towel through my hair with the damp towel as I walk across the living room.
Her door is open.
It’s always open.
I damn near had a meltdown right in front of her earlier, and I’m confident she thinks I’m insane now because she came out and saw me on the couch, trying to keep myself from walking into the bathroom where I knew she was washing.
She left both doors open, and the sane part of me knew it was because she didn’t want to be a prisoner again. She just got to safety from weeks of being chained and beaten, and God only knows what else, and here I am, acting like a man out of control because I can hear her little moans in the shower.
Twice, I’d walked to the shower door, stopping myself with every ounce of strength before turning and storming back to my room. Only to slink back into the living room, lest I missed something like her emerging the way she had: with a flush on her cheeks, silk sliding against her clean skin, and her hair wavy with dampness still clinging to it.
She looked so innocent. So… perfect.
My thoughts since Dante dropped her with me the other night are scaring me.
She’s Ray’s daughter, and though part of me saved her because of that fact, I have to acknowledge the other part that begged Ardesia to save her based on my reaction to the photograph I saw in that news report.
I know that she’s been through so much. Fuck, there’s a roadmap to the last few weeks written all over her skin.
It makes me murderous, where thoughts like that are going to send me to hell any moment now because I can’t be having them.
I find myself, yet again, hovering in the fissure of her door. I’m sure I look like a crazed stalker.
Sloane’s tiny snores lure me closer to the end of the bed, and I run my gaze over her as she twitches in her sleep, her muscles seeming to remember all the shit she’s gone through in recent weeks while she’s trying to rest.
It’s likely why she still has purple rimming her eyes.
She whimpers, and I drop the towel in my hand to the floor, rounding to the side of the bed.
I don’t know what my plan is, but I stand there, willing the nightmares to leave her be, threatening them with my presence.
Again, she writhes beneath the covers, and the blanket rides down.
She’s been tossing, I realize when the blanket’s moving reveals that her silk shirt has ridden upward.
The light spilling in the door makes her stomach visible, and the bruising there makes my teeth grit audibly.
I lean forward, ghosting my finger over the blues and purples pooled on her belly, anger filling my veins with liquid fire.
I’m at a loss. I can’t calm myself as I see what she’s gone through.
Dropping to my knees beside the bed, I do the only thing I know how to do when I’m at a loss.
Pray.
I clasp my hands and close my eyes, leaning toward the very thing I’m praying for as if God will fill me and spill outward, healing her instantly.
Even though I know that’s not how it works, I wish he would.
I pray harder than I ever have before, begging God to have mercy on her and to wrap her in his hands and protect her from here on out.
After finishing my prayer and looking back at Sloane, I realize he might’ve already answered my prayers.
I might be the one he sent to protect her.
But that’s ignorant because I’m here, with the church, meant to be here for the masses, not for one woman.
No matter how much I want to be her savior, the one thing that holds her to the world and keeps her safe and happy, I can’t be.
Watching Sloane as she melts into the bed, the nightmares seeming further away as I linger at the side, I realize I’ve never faced something like her—a trial.
God has never tested me to this magnitude.
I wonder if it’s because of everything I’ve been up to with the Ricci family beneath the cover of the night in recent months.
He knows I’m hovering at the edge of my faith. He knows I’m one step away from jumping into the world head-on, turning away from the thing I’ve been clinging to my entire life when things got hard: Him.
Sloane’s cries claw out of her throat, and I reach for her before I can second guess the action, wrapping my hand around hers that’s gripping the sheets like they’re going to save her.
“No,” she breathes, and I pull my hand back, thinking she’s speaking to me.
“Shh, Sloane. I’m here. You’re not alone.”
She doesn’t wake. Doesn’t answer.
But she settles as I cover her once more with the fallen blankets.
Because if her silk shirt rides over another inch, her perfect nipple will be on display once more, and I don’t know if I have the strength to keep myself from running my touch over it.
I want to know what she feels like.
Fuck, I want to know what she tastes like.
I’ve never felt like this toward anyone before. Sure, I’ve lived a life of celibacy. I’ve kept my vows to the best of my ability.
That has to be why I’m so drawn to her. It’s only because I’ve never truly tested myself in this way.
Letting my head press into the mattress beside her, I pray for my own strength. I get the distinct feeling that God is glaring down at me from above, his lips pursed as he watches me flounder, already knowing the outcome of this situation.
When I get back to my feet, I give Sloane a backward glance before grabbing my towel from the end of the bed and using every ounce of strength I have to leave her alone. In her own bed. Untouched. When all I want to do is slide into bed beside her and hold her tightly and be the one who stands between her and the entire damned world.
“Thank you, Father,” she whispers through the dark, and I stop, turning back to look at her, my hand gripping the door frame tight in my hold.
I don’t say another word before forcing myself to return to my room. What would I say?
This was the stupidest decision I’ve ever made. I know I need to tell Ardesia to find somewhere safe for her to lie low because I can’t handle her. This. I can’t…
She feels like a storm that will test my resolve—one I need to weather to emerge from the other side, knowing I am strong enough.
What worries me is that I don’t want to weather her. I want to lie down in her wind and let her carry me away.
And that, that feeling, that’s weakness.
Something I didn’t know I had before Sloane Collins and her honey eyes entered my life.
Dinner boxes surround us on the coffee and side tables, and Sloane yells at the television, cursing at the girl crying over a man on the reality show she insisted we watch.
I’m watching her with rapt attention and wonder at her strength.
I’ve witnessed her wounds. Seen firsthand the bruises on her body. Yet, she’s more together than I am.
I’m drowning in my teetering faith and her presence while she’s seemed to kick pain’s ass and send it packing. I don’t know if she’s handling things typically or healthily, but she’s furious when I’ve mentioned getting her someone to speak to a few times.
“Can you believe this girl?” she asks, and it takes a moment before I realize she’s speaking to me.
“No. I can’t.” Even though she doesn’t realize I’m speaking about her and not whoever’s on the TV.
“She’s a dumbass,” Sloane says offhandedly, digging in the M&M bag on my lap comfortably before eyeing me with a lifted brow. “You alright?”
I swallow over a thick lump that burns in my throat, nodding. “Fine.”
“You look… off. You sure?”
It is astonishing that she would be concerned about me with all she has going on. “I’m fine. I’m just tired.”
“Oh, well, I can clean all this up. We can go to bed,” she says, reaching for the remote between us.
I move quickly to grab the remote, but I end up landing my hand over hers on the thing.
We both freeze.
Does she feel it?
The tingle of attraction sizzles through me, driving into my bones like a heavenly fire, and I swallow again. “Sorry.”
I don’t lift my hand.
Her eyes are locked on mine, and I wonder if she can hear how loudly my heart is beating.
“Do you want to go to bed?” she asks, and I’m choking on the underlying innuendo she lets linger for a moment before clearing her throat. “In your bed, I mean.”
I cough. “I’m fine.”
“You said you were tired.”
“I lied.” It’s out before I can overthink it.
She tugs her brows together, her hand shifting behind mine on the remote. “Do priests do that? Isn’t it against some covenant?”
“I’m human, too, Sloane.”
She wiggles on the couch at my saying her name, and it’s her first tell. It was the first time I’d realized she might also feel this electric attraction between us.
Her eyes flicker down to where my hand is, only increasing our heated interaction. “I’m sorry,” I say before slowly lifting my hand off hers.
She lifts the remote and shuts the television off. “Maybe it is time for bed.”
She stands and cleans the food boxes from the Pho we ordered off the coffee table, and her shorts ride up in the back, showing me the way her perfect ass creases where the back of her thighs meets it on either side.
I bite my lip, looking upward. Father, forgive me.
“I’ll help you do that,” I tell her, rushing to aid her with the armload of boxes in her hands, but I only knock into her because she turns while I stand.
Boxes shift in her arms, but she catches them. One tries to fall to the couch, but I capture it, leaning forward into her space.
“Sorry. I got it.” I turn my face, smiling at the predicament, only to find her breathing heavily and not laughing.
The room grows smaller, closing in around us like we’re the only two in the universe that exist for a span of time.
My breathing speeds, my heart racing to catch it.
Neither one of us speaks, but there’s a moment where I wish she’d delete the distance between us and be the one to bring me to my knees—the one who forces me to beg forgiveness for my indecent thoughts.
“Father,” she says, her voice crackling with lust, and I nearly whimper.
“Mm?” It’s all I can manage through the haze of her presence.
“Can I get past you to throw these away?” she asks, and shame and guilt slam me instantly as I nod and step back, allowing her to pass.
Fuck, what are you doing?
I help her clean up, trying to ignore the unfamiliar heat wafting through the air.
“I’ll be gone tomorrow well into the afternoon,” I blurt, trying to break up some tension.
She nods. “Work?”
“Yes. Mass in the morning. You could come if you wanted to. I know it’s really not your thing, and it doesn’t need to be. It would just get you out of the house.”
She bites her lower lip, and I zero in on it, wanting to know what her teeth feel like sunken into flesh. My flesh.
I shake away from the thoughts, and Sloane seems to notice the war within me.
I didn’t mean for this to happen. For me to save her only to prey on her with some unfathomable attraction, but I can’t help it. There’s something about her.
A strength I want to bask, drown, and be baptized in.
“What time is it? Mass?” she asks, and suddenly, my stomach is giddy, thrumming with energy that wasn’t there before.
The thought of seeing her in the pews beneath me as I preach makes my stomach knot, and I wonder if it’s a good idea to have her there in the first place, but it’s too late to resend the invitation now.
“Seven to nine-thirty,” I manage.
She smiles. “Maybe I’ll see you there.”
With that, she tells me goodnight and leaves me leaning against the kitchen bar, trying to get my racing thoughts together as I see her in my mind’s eyes, naked, flushed, and sitting in the pews beneath me, her attention rapt on me like I’m the one she’s worshipping.
I grumble and shut the thoughts down as I shuffle into my room and shut the door.
I ignore a text from Ardesia asking me how things are going because I can’t give him a straight answer without lying.