Chapter 22
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
LUCA
“ D ante will be perfect for her,” Brynne says as we head back toward St. Andrews so they can drop me off. Leaving her there, half naked and dancing on the stage with men ogling her, had been the hardest thing I’ve ever done before. But she doesn’t belong to me, and I have no right to tell her not to work to keep herself afloat.
“Dante is well-versed in sassy-mouthed women. I agree with that,” Ardesia says, and I look between them as they smirk.
“As long as she’s safe,” I tell them both, disconnected from the conversation.
“She’ll be as safe as we can keep her. Not as safe as she would’ve been with you, but whatever happened there must’ve been too hard to deal with otherwise,” Ardesia says, a smirk on his smug face.
Brynne pats his leg, silently telling him to leave the subject alone, and I’m thankful.
I look out the window of the SUV, my mind pondering in a million different directions.
“You have her address?” I ask Ardesia without turning to look at him on the other side of the seat.
“I do. Her apartment isn’t far from her mother’s.”
I grit my teeth, thinking about Belinda as her face flashes through my memory.
“Do you want it?” Brynne asks me, and I nod once, denying how much I’m craving Sloane. The absence of her beside me is driving me up a wall, and it shouldn’t be like she was a poison made only for me to drink, my kryptonite.
My phone goes off as Ardesia sends me her address, and I don’t dare look at it. I just need to know that if I need to get to her, I can.
They drop me off at the church, and I make it to bed first thing. I don’t want to shower, even though I smell like sex and cheap cigarettes. And it’s all because I can still feel her on me. Her scent permeates my skin, and I want it there for as long as it’ll remain.
When my eyes close after I pray for forgiveness and guidance, her perfume and the phantom touches she left behind lull me into the darkness as I exhale in acceptance.
She’s tied to the cross on the apse, and I’m sitting in the first pew, looking at her like she’s a prize.
“Father, please,” she begs, her body moving as much as her restraints will allow her.
I roll my neck as I stand, twirling the rosary through the air in circles to taunt her. “Have you repented for your sins, little dove?”
She whimpers as I approach.
The lines where the rosary had already licked at her flesh are red and raised, and yet, they don’t stop me from wanting more from wanting to see how those same marks would look on her ass.
She wiggles as I step into her, looming overhead like her personal god that commands her.
“I have,” she whispers, jutting her defiant little chin.
My hand with the rosary finds her center, rubbing the beads over her swollen clit. “And yet,” I say, lifting a lip in fake disgust, “your pussy is wetter than the last time you came to me in confession of your dark thoughts.”
“I’m sorry, Father,” she says, and it makes me close my eyes, fighting the carnal urges I’m not supposed to give into as my cock surges behind the confines of my pants.
I continue to rub the beads through the wet anarchy she’s sloppy with, and her moans paint the room, bouncing off the stained glass like a holy prayer screamed to the heavens.
“God,” she pleads, and I smirk fiendishly.
“God won’t save you, little dove. Not even here,” I taunt, shoving a portion of the beads inside her entrance, feeling her warmth invite them in, swallowing the blessed beads like it’s where they belonged the entire time.
“Father,” she mutters, her head thrashing back and forth as I work the beads inside her, only to tug them back out slowly.
“Yes, my child,” I manage. My eyes travel down her beautiful body, covered in my marks, tied on the cross in sacrifice for me and me alone.
“I need you. Please, Father,” her pupils are blown when she opens her beautiful honey-colored eyes and finds mine.
I smirk. “Tell me what you need. For Proverbs tells us, ‘Truthful lips endure forever, but a lying tongue lasts only a moment.’”
Her head lolls around in ecstasy as I work the beads back over her clit before shoving them slowly back inside her core.
“Please, Father, fuck me. God, I need you so much.”
Her words slam through me like the loudest hymn I’ve ever heard. “Is that right, little dove?”
“Yes, please,” she begs, body shuddering as I drag the beads back out of her center as she whimpers prettily for me again.
“Then why do you keep saying His name, do you think?”
“I—” her brows tug together, mouth hung open as I slide two fingers inside her wet cunt, hooking them upward as I find her G-spot and caress it softly in circular motions.
“You?” I taunt, increasing the pressure of my fingers inside her, hanging my mouth open as if I can suck up her pleasure as means of sustenance as I watch her crest the wave of lust into the space where she’s floating in heaven that only I rule.
“Say it, little dove. I’m your fucking god,” I growl, latching onto her lip with my teeth and biting until I taste the tang of her blood hit my tongue.
“You’re my god!” she breathes, body bucking on my fingers.
I drop to my knees before her, watching her as I work her over with my fingers.
“You going to wash your god in your cum, little dove? You going to be a good little whore for him?”
“Yes, my god, your good little whore,” she mutters incoherently, body breaking out in beads of sweat as I take her to the edge of orgasm, my tongue swirling around her clit as I fuck her with my fingers.
“When you come, you scream my name and my name alone. This is my fucking house, not His.”
She nods frantically. “Yes, Father!”
She’s close, and I can tell. Her walls flutter around me as she circles the drain of orgasm, me at the helm.
“There’s God’s good little whore, come for me,” I coax.
She breaks beautifully, screaming my name, and it bounces through the nave like the most melodic thing I’ve ever beheld.
“Luca!” she cries over and over as her cum drips over my hand and down my arm, feeling like the holiest of waters.
I snap awake as I come all over the sheets. “Fuck, fuck, God,” I breathe through the orgasm, as it seems like it’ll never end.
When the last shudder moves through my body, I roll onto my back, heaving air into my lungs as my heart patters through my chest like a rabbit chased by a wolf.
I thought with her safely back home that, at least, I’d be able to return to normalcy.
But it’s as if she’s wormed her way into my psyche.
What the hell was that dream?
She opened the door, and Sin stepped through like it was waiting for a way in. I don’t know if I can close the door again.
“Father Russo, do you agree on the budget changes?” Jack asks me, and I’m confident by the look in his eye that it’s not the first time he’s asked me.
I nod, straightening in my chair as I look down at the paperwork on my desk beneath my hands on my desk. “Yes, it looks great. And this is for the next calendar year, yes?”
He narrows his eyes at me, nodding. “Yes, Father.”
I sign at the bottom and hand it back to him. “Was there anything else?”
“Not at the moment, no. However, I forgot to tell you I got someone secured to fix that broken fountain in the courtyard. He’ll be here by the end of the week.”
I perk up at that. The fountain has been broken for two years, and it’s been hell to get someone to repair it. “Oh, good! Thank you, Jack.”
He packs up his things, looking at me with concern every few seconds before pausing. “Are you alright, Father? It’s none of my business, of course, but you have people you can talk to if something bothers you.”
I eye him, not knowing what to say. There’s so much wrong with me. But none of it is anything I can discuss with him. “I’m fine, Jack. Thank you for your concern, though.”
He nods a bit absently. “You just seem a little distracted, is all.”
That is the understatement of the century.
The dream I’d had last night that woke me in the wee hours this morning was enough to have me renouncing my faith and title altogether, and it’s had me reeling all damned day long.
I’ve thought of little else than going to the address I’ve stared at a million times today and begging Sloane on bended knee to forgive me and come home.
But this isn’t her home.
No matter how well she fits with me.
“Have a good night, Jack,” I say as he opens his mouth to say something else.
He takes the hint and leaves.
I sit there, in my office, torn to pieces in a house I’ve always felt at peace within because of the turmoil in my soul and my heart.
I don’t know Sloane, and I know that.
But the ease I’d had with her and how right she felt in my arms…
No.
Thinking that way isn’t good for me.
She isn’t good for me.
She’s fucking twenty, for fuck’s sake.
I was there the day she was born. I held her right after Ray. I was so happy for my friend. I thought she’d turn him around, make him see he had someone to live for.
It had been a foolish way to think.
He was too far gone.
I look down at the calendar on my desk, and realization cracks me over the head. It’s the fifteenth of November.
Today is Sloane’s birthday.
I look at the clock. It reads eight p.m. Jack and I worked well into the night on the budget and coming plans for the church repairs.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I head back to the rectory to change my clothes into something more suitable for going out.
I tried her apartment first, which was a dead end. Which means she’s working.
Though I look foolish, I walk into Happy Endings with an armful of flowers and chocolates, knowing that even though I left my clerical collar at home, they’ll know who I am.
“Father,” the bouncer says with a smirk playing on his lips. “You can go right on in. She’s on stage now.”
Half of me wants to beg him to stop looking at me like that. Like I’m the very picture of the stereotypical priest fallen from grace. But I keep my mouth shut and find a table toward the door, where the room’s darkness should shroud me from her. I lay the flowers and chocolates down on the tabletop.
She’s twirling her body around before she leaps onto the pole, hanging upside down, her dusky nipples taunting me as she turns in circles, a playful look on her face that doesn’t light her eyes.
She doesn’t look as happy as when she was teasing me in that private suite last night.
I promised myself I would let Dante and Ardesia handle her and that I would stay away from her.
But it seems I’ve become a weak man for her, and I’m out of control.
She gets done, collects her money, and heads backstage.
A tap on my shoulder startles me, and I turn to find the bouncer beside me. He inclines his head toward the side of the stage. “Come with me. I’ll show you back to her dressing room.”
I nod and scramble for her gifts as I follow him out of the main club area and down a hall to the left of the stage.
The lights in the hall flicker above, and I try not to judge how run-down the place looks back here. Likely, the entire club looks that way with the lights on.
Darkness has that effect. It’s an illusion.
However, Sloane only gets prettier when the light splays against her sinful flesh.
I shake away from the thought, as it’s not helping me keep my nerves under control.
She told me not to return, yet here I am, flowers and chocolates in hand, no excuse readily available.
When the bouncer leads me in, she’s got one foot up on a dressing chair before a vanity. She’s the only girl in the room, but it’s clear that all the girls use the same room to get ready between sets.
She looks up, sees me, and scowls.
My eyes follow the lines of her leg before she drops it and straightens, forgetting the shoe she was trying to remove.
“I told you not to come back here,” she scolds.
I swallow.
The bouncer pats me on the shoulder. “Good luck, Father. You’re on your own from here.”
“Thanks,” I reply wryly.
I move closer, thrusting the gifts toward her. “Happy Birthday,” I rush out.
Her eyes look between the flowers and the box of chocolates in shock as her mouth gapes open. “What… You remembered it’s my birthday?”
I nod as she takes them from me. The things I’ve brought her are meager, especially when I want to give her the world on a platter. But it’s all I could think up last minute.
“It’s not much, but I had to come to tell you Happy Birthday,” I admit, and I’m not lying. Once I realized the date, every thought of her telling me to stay away flew out of my head.
“Thank you,” she says, leaning into the flowers and breathing their scent in as if they’re the finest thing she’s ever been given.
The notion makes me angry and sad all at the same time.
“Sit,” I say, motioning to the chair.
She eyes me inquisitively, but listens and plops into the chair.
I drop onto one knee, opening the clasps of her shoes one by one and removing them for her, finishing the task I’d interrupted when I showed up.
“God, thank you,” she says, moaning as she stretches her feet one by one.
I swallow around the remembrance of the dream I’d had only hours ago. Her tone is so damned similar, I nearly just choked on her words.
“You okay?” she asks.
I nod. “Me? I’m fine.” I clear my throat.
Grabbing one of her feet, I work my hands over it, kneading my fingers deep into the muscles as I watch her eyes close as she sinks back into the chair.
“That feels so good,” she breathes, and I fight my reaction to the tone she’d used.
The more I watch her relax into my touch, the more I wish this was another world, another life, where I wasn’t who I was, and we could be together.
She feels she was always meant to be mine, but I know that can’t be true.
So, God must’ve put her in my path for some other reason.
She opens her eyes, pinning me with a sad stare, and a tear brims over her lower lid as if she’s read my thoughts.
“You can’t keep popping up,” she whispers.
I drop her foot, leaning forward and resting my forehead on her knee. “I know.”