Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
SLOANE
L ast night changed something. It took more guts to stand before Luca naked—more than I usually need, even when I’m on stage.
His eyes on me were hazy with arousal, and I couldn’t stop my heart’s racing as I tried to keep my back straight and my chin held high.
I’m here for safety.
I’m here for solitude.
But I can’t deny that I am dying to sink to my knees and know what he tastes like.
Fuck.
I’m dying to have a moment alone where I can sink my hand beneath my panties and…
“You alright?” Luca asks, and I realize I’ve been standing in front of the coffee machine, staring off into space as I fantasize about masturbating to images of him.
Clearing my throat, I pour coffee into my mug. “Fine. You?”
If he senses the lie, he doesn’t let on.
I notice he’s in slacks and a button-up, meaning he’s working in the church for some kind of business today. It’s Friday, so it’s not his day to lead Mass…
“Where are you going looking all handsome?” I regret the words as soon as they’re out, and it has me looking back into space and wishing I was less awkward around him.
He’s just a man.
Just a run-of-the-mill, ordinary, beautiful, sexy, priestly man. With silver hair and dark eyes, and…
“Sloane?”
“Hm?”
Fuck, I need to get laid.
“I said I’m going to the church today for a bake sale. Would you like to come?” he asks me.
“Well, I thought I couldn’t be seen?”
“I hardly think that Barone is coming to the St. Andrew’s bake sale, but you could stay in the pews on the second floor. When I can get free, I’ll bring you a treat.”
The dirty place my mind just went to when he said he was going to bring me a treat is going to be my ticket into hell.
“Sure. That sounds fun.”
“You’ll need to get dressed, of course.” He swallows, and the action calls my attention to his throat, where thick veins run the length like…
I shake away from the thought.
“I’ll be out in ten,” I tell him, escaping with my coffee to the solitude of my room, where he isn’t looking how he does, taking up all the oxygen in the fucking room.
The issue is that hypersexuality doesn’t mix well with a sexy priest who’s taking vows of chastity, especially not when all my toys that help with this very issue are back home.
The thought of closing the door to get myself off makes my chest tighten, a side effect of being held in a dark basement for weeks. And Luca has already proved to me he has no issue bursting into my bathroom.
There’s no illusion of privacy in the rectory, as there shouldn’t be.
I’m on consecrated ground.
Shit, can one masturbate on church grounds?
I hate myself for the throb that moves through my body, exciting me more.
Shoving into jeans and a T-shirt and topping the look off with a messy bun and jacket, I decide that’s enough. After all, no one can see me, right? Even when I attended Mass, I had to sit up top.
“Ready?” he asks, looking me over.
I nod. “How will we get in with no one seeing us?”
He smirks as he leads me to the side of the cathedral. “I have my ways.” When he winks at me and holds the door open, my stomach does an indecent flip before heat blazes in my center.
Luca leads me up a winding staircase that spills into the top pews. When he closes the door behind us, a sneaky little hidden door remains.
“I’ll be down there if you need me. Once the crowd clears, I’ll sneak back up here.”
He grins, and a dimple on his right cheek pops out as he opens the hidden door and disappears.
A table near the apse set up is covered in baked goods. Mary greets Luca with a big hug as he approaches, and I settle in to people-watch.
Watching Luca from afar only solidifies that I don’t belong here. Not because I’m some awful person and he’s a saint, but because our worlds are so different.
I dance on a stage for a living, all while he’s feeding the poor and selling muffins.
But this nagging, petty part of me wants to be more like him, wants to be near him. To siphon some of his goodness.
Before I knew it, there was only Betty and Luca below, and he excused himself, but not before paying for a few items.
When the hidden door opens, I’m antsy in my seat to be near Luca, with so much uneasy energy flowing through me.
“What did you get?”
He looks down at his arms. “Pumpkin cream cheese muffins and chocolate chip cookies.
“Score!”
Dropping beside me in the pew, he sets the baked goods between us, like a pumpkin muffin is going to referee this buzzing power.
“Good sales?”
He sighs and sits back. “Enough to fix some issues with the roof and fund a field trip for the youth group.”
“That’s good.”
We’re bad with small talk when the tension gets thick.
We’re five pews back, nearly at the wall, far away from any prying eyes below, if there were any, and my mind and body are on the same page, and what we feel for Luca is too consuming to fight.
It has me scooting away from him slightly, angling my body in the other direction so I don’t leap.
“Are you alright? Last night was awkward, but I thought you said we could return to normal.”
His question floats between us like a prayer too heavy to make it to the big guy upstairs, and I swallow.
“I did say that.”
“Did I mess up too badly, then?”
“No,” I snap. “I’m just having an off day, is all. I’m sorry.” My eyes turn on him as I feel the tension grow taut before I realize he’s moving closer.
The baked goods are rustled around as he shifts them to his other side.
“Talk to me,” he prods, his hand coming down on my thigh.
Closing my eyes, I try my damnedest to breathe through how my body responds. I’m so keyed up.
The indecent dream of him fucking me in one of these pews last night didn’t help.
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Clearly, there is, Sloane. You’re so rigid, and there’s energy about you today. I know I shouldn’t have burst into your room, and I’m so sorry if I made things harder for you,” he says, his hand squeezing.
“Please, remove your hand,” I grit out.
He pulls away as if spurned. “Shit, shoot, I’m sorry.”
I turn as I feel him retreating outwardly and inwardly. “It’s not… You did nothing wrong.”
“You’ve been through so much. I overstepped.”
He can’t see what he does to me; his confused state attests to his innocence. The very innocence I’ll wreck if he’s not careful.
“Not in the way you think,” I tell him.
He narrows his eyes.
“Something is wrong with me, but I fear this is not the place to discuss it.”
“This place is as good as any to discuss any matter. God doesn’t judge you.”
“Hah! This is something he would judge.”
“Would it be easier to tell me in the confessional?”
I think of his deep timbre billowing through the screen. “No!” I squeak. “It wouldn’t be easier then.”
He leans in, oblivious to my sputtering. “Well then, whisper it.”
I bite my lip, not knowing if I can pull back once I’m close to him.
“I—”
“I can’t help you if you don’t tell me.”
He can’t help me if I tell him, but he doesn’t know that.
Fuck it.
“Remember that you asked for it,” I preface.
“Well, now I’m concerned.”
As you should be.
Leaning in, I hover close to his ear. “Last night, I had a very… indecent dream. It left me a bit… horny, for lack of a better term. I didn’t want you touching me because it made it worse.”
His breathing has gotten deeper, and the air between us is charged when I pull back enough to look into his dark eyes.
His next swallow bobs his Adam’s apple. “Maybe you were right. This isn’t a conversation that should happen here. But thank you for being honest with me. Though, I don’t know what you could’ve had a dream about that worked you up like that, especially after all you’ve gone through recently.”
Blush fills my cheeks, but I decide I’m already this far gone. What’s the harm in going further? I’ve already reserved my spot in hell at this point.
“I dreamt you fucked me right here in the cathedral. Over a pew. You made me scream your name, and it bounced off all the steepled peaks of the ceiling and stained glass. I woke with my hand down my panties, but I knew that what I could do wouldn’t sate the urge. It would’ve only made it worse.”
“Sloane,” he groans, turning forward to angle away from me.
“You asked me for my truth, Father. I gave it to you. Don’t regret asking now that it’s out.”
“I don’t.”
A long stretch of silence trickles down upon us like the answer to a prayer.
“A truth for a truth?” he asks.
“Sure.”
He turns, pinning me in a darkened stare. “I would’ve loved to watch you wake from that dream, loved to watch you touch yourself. To hear you scream my name as you came.”
My heart is pounding so hard I can scarcely hear a thing past it.
“We can’t do that,” I croak.
He shakes his head. “We shouldn’t.”
I notice how he disagrees in a way that leaves the option hanging in the air. My foolish heart hopes it’s because he’s bending. He’s relaxing, and there’s something so palpable between us that neither he nor I can stop.
It’s a runaway train, and we’re along for the ride.
No matter who it ruins on its journey.
“What can we do?” I ask meekly, not recognizing the tone of my voice at all.
“Dinner?”
I turn forward, feeling good for both of us, having faced this monumental thing between us. It’s no longer the elephant in the room. However, now that it’s out, it’ll be more challenging to ignore and harder to fight. And I hope it doesn’t get one of us spurned.
“Dinner,” I agree.
He shifts and grabs the baked goods before giving them to me. “You take these home, and I’ll be there shortly. I’ll order us some food. Chinese?”
“Sounds good.” Standing, I use the same door he led me to return outside and out into the cold air.
It wraps around me and sobers me as I realize the gravity of what just happened.
My admission cost me nothing. I’m nobody.
His could cost him everything he’s worked for—his entire life.
And it’s something I can’t take lightly.
Not even if I hope he acts on his words. I’d pray for it if God wasn’t already pursing his lips at me.