Chapter 29
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
LUCA
H er feet are dainty, like the rest of her. Her toes aren’t painted, and I feel Sloane isn’t as girly as most her age are, solely because of her upbringing and the need for her not to be. There’s a small, almost micro tattoo on the outer edge of her foot, a semi-colon.
I brush my thumb over it, lotion swirling over the flesh with the movement.
She shifts to the other end of the couch, where she’s draped with a book.
“What is this?” I ask her, rubbing lotion into her foot as I knead it with some pressure.
She clears her throat, her cheeks showing a pink tinge as she lowers her book.
“A tattoo,” her sassy mouth answers.
My lips thin into a hard line. “Obviously. What does it mean?”
She swallows, and the delicate way her throat moves reminds me how breakable she is despite how tough she portrays herself outwardly. She’s had to erect walls that are nearly impenetrable to get over to protect herself, and it’s hard for her to peek over them at people on the outside, even when she’s comfortable with them.
“It means the sentence doesn’t end. To continue. It’s for suicide awareness. I would’ve put it on my wrist, but I don’t know, I liked it there,” she says softly, turning her foot and making a pointed arch as she looks it over. “Hurt like a son of a bitch, though.”
As I massage her foot, I can feel the tension slowly ebbing away. With each gentle stroke, she sinks deeper into the couch, her defenses dissolving like sugar in warm water. Moving onto the other foot, I try to remain neutral about how touching her makes me feel.
I’m a man who’s lost his way lately, and I can’t say that I don’t like it.
I’d be a liar.
Everything with her, every touch, every moment, feels new and exciting. But that’s not how it should feel. It should feel damning.
She places her book down on her lap; pages splayed upward. “You don’t act how I’ve ever imagined a priest should act,” she blurts, stopping my hands in their tracks.
I hold her foot tightly, stumbling over my words as I decide how much to let her over my walls.
“Well…” I clear my throat at the uncomfortable feeling of emotion building there. “I was wavering in my faith long before you came along. It almost felt like you showing up threw me over the edge.”
My admission hovers between us.
She sits up, tugging her feet away from me, shoving them underneath her.
She closes her book, forgetting to save the page, and tosses it onto the awaiting coffee table.
“And that’s what I don’t want,” she says, her honey eyes conveying so much meaning as they pin me in their stare. “I don’t want to be the reason you leave your flock or whatever they’re called. And I don’t want to be the reason you lose your faith. I’ve seen and done a lot of shit in my life, even at my age. I had to. To survive. Seeing you falter and knowing it was my fault would kill me.”
I swallow at her words, knowing I’ve been selfish with her and how I’ve let things carry on. It’s considerate of her to think this deeply about my soul and faith while I’ve been greedily touching and lusting after her like a teenage boy with his first crush.
“I know you don’t, and I don’t want you to carry the burden of anything between us, Sloane. None of it is your fault. I won’t do anything I don’t want to.” I know I sound desperate. My tone is edged in raw desperation to make her understand. I need her to comprehend that I’m not some fucking creep who can’t control his carnal urges.
I want to touch her, and I understand the ramifications.
We both know it can go no further than it has, and there doesn’t seem to be disillusion to the fact written on her face.
“You know we can’t…” I trail off, feeling the same well of emotions build into a ball in my throat.
She nods, leaning forward and grasping my hand in hers. “I know.”
Her words are soft and kind.
Far better than I deserve.
“Friends?” she asks, her brows tugged together.
I smile, even as my heart sinks and shatters to bits inside my body at the term. “Friends,” I agree.
“Good. Now, get back to rubbing before I have to let the rooster loose in the house.”
My chuckle comes accompanied by my touch back on the foot I’d left off with, and silence stretches between us as she closes her eyes and sits back.
For the longest moment, I watch her breasts rise and fall as she gets comfortable, and I don’t know if it’s the vulnerability of the action or pure insanity that makes me ask, but my mouth opens, and stupidity walks right off my tongue. “When Matteo forced himself on you, were you a virgin?”
Her eyes shoot open, and she lifts onto her elbows. “What kind of question is that?”
I take a steadying breath. “I don’t know. It kind of just flew out.”
She narrows her eyes at me, likely deciding how she’ll handle my ignorance. I hope she puts me out of my misery and goes to bed.
Then she’d be out of my eyesight, and my nerves could settle.
“No. I wasn’t.” She lies back, looking at the ceiling, as if memories are flooding her, and she doesn’t want to be trapped with them if she closes her eyes again.
“Was it the first time you’ve been… assaulted?”
What is the matter with you?
“What is this, therapy?” she spews as she sits up and tucks into herself.
“No. It’s just curiosity. I want to know you.” I wring my hands, the lotion seeping into my skin as I do.
“If you want to know someone, ask their favorite color or song. Not how many times they’ve been raped.”
I nod, feeling foolish and about a foot tall under her scrutiny. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to make you angry.”
She bites her lip, sighing as she lays her head on her knees. “It wasn’t the first time.”
The embarrassment nearly swallows her words, causing my ears to throb loudly. I turn my back to the couch, facing away from her.
Somehow, it seems like the right thing to do. To give her privacy and allow her to continue if she wants to.
It’s also my go-to move as a priest who hears confessions of the soul for a living.
I say nothing, giving her the space she needs if she takes it.
“I was ten the first time,” she admits, and my eyes close, rage building in my chest as tears brim behind my lids.
“Mom was high or drunk, or both, and I wanted a bowl of cereal. There wasn’t any milk in the house, and I couldn’t find Dad. I decided I was going to get the milk myself. I was getting to an age where I was sick of their shit, if I’m honest, and I was also getting used to raising myself. It was on the way home when some man snatched me into an alley…”
I hear her shift on the couch, but I don’t move a muscle. I don’t want to make her uncomfortable.
“I think he saw me, you know? In hindsight, the way he snatched me seemed like he knew I’d be coming back the same route. Anyhow, it didn’t last long, but it hurt. It instilled something in me, though. An innate survival drive that has kept me going since that day. I blamed them for it. Mom and Dad. It wouldn’t have happened if they’d only been better to me, been sober.”
I give her a moment as I hear her sniffle before I speak.
“I’m so sorry you went through that,” I finally say.
“Well, it is what it is. You can’t change the past; you can only grow from it.”
I hang my head as I realize how tough Sloane is—tougher than I am.
The faith I have held firmly wavers further in my chest as I think of her ten-year-old self being dragged down an alley and molested.
“Why are you sitting like that?” Her whispered words feather against my ear, and I close my eyes at her proximity. “Are you hearing my confession, Father Russo? The dark and depraved tale of a street kid and what happened to her when no one was watching?”
My eyes fly open as anger fills my gut. I turn my face, my nose skimming hers. She doesn’t falter or back up.
“Don’t talk about yourself like that,” I growl.
She smirks. “The truth doesn’t sting as much when you’re used to bathing in it, Father. You should know that.”
My breathing increases, shallowing as she inches closer. “After all, you spend your time washing those around you in the truth . Teaching them what’s right and wrong and forcing introspection by making them realize their sins. Helping them to see where they’re unfit for heaven unless they change their ways and repent.”
“That’s not… Sloane…” Her hand comes down on my thigh, far too close to where my cock is filling with blood and inching toward her touch.
“Father,” she teases.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” I whisper, closing my eyes, hoping she’ll eat up the distance between us and kiss me for the apology.
But when I open them again, she’s standing.
She grabs her book and pads toward what has become her room. “I didn’t need you then, and I don’t need you now. While I’m attracted to you, Luca, I’m not a fucking charity case that you need to work on. I don’t need saving.”
Even if I beg to differ, I keep my lips sealed.
“Goodnight, little dove,” I mutter, too low for her to hear.
The door slams behind her, and I let a lone tear slide down my cheek without washing it away.
For the longest time, I sit there. I’m alone in the cabin’s silence, with only my thoughts as companions and the images Sloane left behind when she abruptly left.
She’s tough because she had to be to survive this world, and the reason she doesn’t process things in her past as she should be is that she doesn’t know who she is without her trauma.
She doesn’t know how to survive the world around her without the things that hardened her.
While I don’t fully understand what she’s going through and likely never will, I wish she’d let me in more. Let me help.
She doesn’t want to be a project, and I get that.
But at some point, she has to let someone in.
I spend the rest of the night grappling with the idea of praying for Sloane, but I don’t know what to ask for. How will he manage if I ask for her to be unburdened? If I ask for her to be without trauma and sadness, who would she be without it?
Ultimately, I settle for asking for him to guide her and begging him for forgiveness on my behalf, lest he not answer my requests for Sloane because of who I’m slowly becoming.
A man without faith.
A priest without a church to go home to.
And a godly follower who’s been tangoing a bit too close to the fires of hell.