Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
SLOANE
I haven’t made eye contact with Father Russo since the other night, two nights ago, to be exact. The indecent way I behaved, even if he seemed a willing participant at that moment, had me spiraling emotionally afterward.
I’m questioning whether he was a willing participant or if he thought he was relieving me of my sins for carrying on and listening to me. But my logical brain knows that he knew what I was doing. He had to have seen, heard, or realized, even in the dark.
Shame has taken up in my heart, where I’ve never been one to regret anything I’ve done before. Where I’m usually sassy and a force to be reckoned with, around Father Russo, I’m unsure and docile. I don’t know why.
I can’t bring myself to call or even think of him as Luca after screaming his name when I came the other night. Even now, thinking of his name while looking at him handing out plates at the breakfast the church is putting on makes my cheeks heat.
I’m not allowed to be seen, but I do sneak into Mass sometimes. Even though I don’t think the man who’s after me attends, I know Ardesia and Father Russo are just being safe. Matteo is still out there, and I need to lie low.
I’m sitting in the first pew of many on the second floor that overlooks the nave. A breakfast has been set up near the sanctuary, and Father Russo and a few church members are busy plating food and handing it out to parishioners and passersby who came for a meal.
He looks joyous like this: his prematurely silver hair wafted back on his head, setting against his olive-toned skin like a moonbeam on dark waters. As if he could feel my glare, he looks around the nave.
I sit back in my pew, thinking of everything I shouldn’t be.
How I got here.
The way I’ve acted since I got here.
I’m out of sorts after all that’s happened to me, and while Father Russo might be right in thinking I need to take time to process recent events, that’s true of my entire life. The things I’ve lived through while with my mother and father are things no one should be privy to—especially not a child.
I can’t deny the idea of touching a man who has never been touched is taboo and alluring. But I know it’s wrong. As far as I know, it was wrong to knock on his door after what happened. Not as bad as pressing my ear to the door as I heard him cry out my name as he came.
The echoes will live in my head for the rest of my life.
I sit in the pew, watching and remaining hidden until the church clears out and Father Russo enters his office. He knows I’m here, but we’ve been avoiding one another since the incident.
I wander down into the nave, running my hands over the well-worn wood of the pews. My eyes drift over toward the confessionals, their very presence reminding me of the things I confessed to Father Russo in the throes of orgasm. In the hand of pleasure itself.
I know this has to be some delusional way I’m coping with what’s happened to me, what’s still happening to me, but I can’t seem to stop myself.
I can’t control the raw, carnal attraction I have for Father Russo.
I open the door to the confessional, and it squeaks.
Looking around, I ensure no one is watching as I slip inside.
For a while, I looked through the screen and imagined that he was on the other side, kneeling on the small floor toward the screen, with barely any light coming down from above.
I wonder how many things he’s heard inside this box.
It’s not until the other side opens and the door shuts that I startle, getting into the seat and facing forward at once.
It’s him. I know it is.
No one else would dare step into that side of the booth.
For a few tense moments, all we do is breathe together. The weight of everything unsaid is crushing.
I’ve already confessed so much to him. To lay anything more out for him would be to splay my chest open. To let him look inside the dark and twisted bits of me.
“Do you want me to hear your confession, child?” His voice is raspy and full of gravel.
The same gravel that raked over me as I came with his name on my lips two nights ago.
“I think you’ve heard enough, Father,” I reply.
“I am but a vessel—an ear to listen. But I can also be a presence if needed. If you are not ready to confess, let us sit in silence. May you feel His presence within it.”
My heart is rattling like a runaway steam engine, and my breathing is picking up. How he could think anyone could feel a presence beyond his own is astounding.
Because even with a wall separating us, his aura seeps through every nook and cranny of the wood that makes up this confessional.
“Do you have things you’d like to confess?” I blurt, not thinking, per usual.
A deep chuckle resounds through the confessional, and my thighs press together at the way it skims over my flesh.
“That isn’t how it works.”
I turn towards the screen. “I’m not a priest, no. But it has to be hard not to have anyone to talk to. I could hear your confessions. They’d go no further than this booth.”
There’s no humor wafting from the other side of the screen—just silence.
He’s considering.
I am overwhelmed with what he’s done to get me away from Matteo and what he’s done since he saved me.
I push out of the booth and open his door.
He’s sitting on the seat against the back wall, cassock gone, clad in jeans and a button-up shirt. Between his hands is his rosary, and his fingers wear its beads religiously.
“Swap places with me, and let me unburden you,” I say meekly.
I felt much more confident on the other side of the booth when there was a wall between us.
His smile is beautiful, though a little sad. “If only you could.”
Pure idiocy befalls me, and I step into the space, shutting the door behind me.
“Sloane,” he says.
There’s barely any illumination between us, but there’s tension.
And it’s rapidly building.
I fall to my knees before him, hands resting on his thighs. “I’m sorry.”
Even through the dim light of the confessional, I watch as curiosity forms on his face.
“What are you sorry for? That you have met a man who can’t bask in your beauty? Who can’t return any of the sentiments you blessed me with the other night?”
I swallow. It’s tough to breathe.
“No. I shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t have made you break your vows. Fuck, you shouldn’t even have me in your home.”
“Nor should you be on your knees in my confessional,” he says, and it’s laced with fire.
The kind I want to dance around, its flames licking up my skin like electricity.
“I was getting to that,” I joke, but he doesn’t laugh.
Sitting forward, he lifts the rosary and puts it over my head. He watches it fall over my breasts, which are pushed up inside another dress Ardesia had gotten me. I paired it with a light sweater because of the chill outside and for modesty in the church.
Before I can fathom what’s happening, he twists the rosary and cinches it up against my throat, my breath cutting off.
Panic sweeps in. Even though I trust him, I don’t know what he will do.
My core tightens in anticipation.
“You are burrowing into me like a fucking sickness.” He seethes, his lips dangerously close to mine.
I don’t say a word. I have no words.
No air.
My hands grasp at his as he runs his nose over the tip of mine.
He’s grappling with the same attraction I am, but the stakes are higher for him.
He will lose it all if the church finds out.
I will lose nothing.
I come from a whore mother and a junkie dad. Nothing anyone can say about me hasn’t already been said.
“I shouldn’t have brought you here, not when I was already grappling with my faith. I’m teetering on the edge, and you just might tip me over it, Sloane.”
“I’m sorry,” I manage, and he tightens the rosary.
It pinches my throat, and my core thrums between my thighs.
“Are you? Will you repent for your sins against me, my little dove?”
His nickname for me only makes me whimper. I’m no more a dove than he is a saint, but I won’t correct him. Because when he calls me that, my body feels alive.
“I will,” I grit out.
He growls as he takes my lips with his, and the entire universe melts away as if it never was. It was as if this was the moment predestined all along, and now that we’re here, the puzzle is whole.
He doesn’t loosen the rosary, only kisses me as if his life depends on it. He wants it to count as if this is the only time he’ll ever let himself lose control with me. He wants it to matter.
His tongue greets mine with a soft touch, and I moan into his mouth.
Only then does he let go of the rosary, cupping my face in his hands, meaning to push me away, but it cements me to him further.
It’s the most intimate moment I’ve ever had.
With one kiss, one sweep of his tongue, it feels as if he’s judging my soul, eating every sin I have, and washing them away altogether.
He pulls away, and the spell is broken. I worry he will panic about what happened, but he doesn’t.
Instead, he stands, pulling me to do the same.
He lifts and stands me on the seat before running his face over my stomach. It’s somehow the hottest thing I’ve ever experienced.
He’s a man unraveling, and I’m the reason. While I feel guilty because of this, I won’t deny how turned on that makes me.
“Sloane, I can’t ever be with you.”
His confession hits me in my gut, even if I knew it all along.
“I know.”
“I’m not supposed to have these thoughts, these feelings. I’m a man of God. I have taken vows, and yet you undo me. I can’t help the way I feel about you. I know He’s testing me, but I still can’t control myself. My flesh is weak…”
I can’t speak because as he’s confessed how he feels, his hand has traveled up my skirt, his fingers dancing dangerously over my panty-covered center like a promise. Like a prayer for strength.
Because he is wavering.
“Luca, please,” I beg, and I don’t know if I’m begging him to find the courage to walk away or to continue.
“Just one taste. Surely he’ll forgive me for just one taste,” he says, and I know now that he’s so lost in the argument within himself, the war he’s fighting, that he can’t hear me.
If only I were stronger, I’d push him away. I would be his strength.
But I’m not.
He moves my panties to the side, one hand holding my skirt up to expose me to him, and then he fans his hot breath over my core.
“Just one taste…”
I whimper in agreement as his tongue slips between my pussy lips like a long-awaited answer to a prayer.
“Luca, oh, my God!” I grab for the sides of the confessional to steady myself as my knees nearly buckle.
But he doesn’t stop with just one taste, and I’m thankful he doesn’t.
Because if we’re going to hell together, I’d rather know what it feels like to come on his tongue behind the walls of this confessional.