Chapter 31
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
LUCA
S loane continues to sneeze and sniffle as I enter her bedroom with chicken soup and some water, along with enough medicines, she should be able to sleep better. The weather has been going from rainy to cold for weeks. It seems Sloane’s immune system has had quite enough of it.
“Chicken noodle soup and water. I didn’t know which medicines you wanted, so I brought all I thought would help. Though I don’t think you can mix these two.” I point out two on the tray as I hover near the side of her bed.
“Thank you,” she manages, her throat sounding as if speaking hurts.
I listened to her cough all night long from the couch. I slept there, perching her door open in case she needed me at night.
“I want to take a hot bath so bad,” she says, “but every time I get up, I get so damned dizzy.”
I nod, taking away the medicines as she chooses a cold medicine with a pain reliever already inside it, discarding the others toward the edge of the tray.
“I could help you if you wanted. I know it won’t be too comfortable, but solely to take care of you. I think we could manage it. Unless you want me to get one of the other men…”
“No,” she cuts me off abruptly, making me laugh.
Ardesia has a handful of men stationed around the island, and we’ve seen them come and go at various times. It’s been nearly two weeks since he dropped us here, and I’m sure there are more I haven’t seen roaming around outside the house.
“Maybe after some rest, we can get you into the shower,” I say as she yawns broadly.
She nods. “Maybe.”
I sit in the chair in the corner as I watch her eat what she can of her soup, down her water, and then lie back to snuggle into the bed.
I disassemble the tray, and she’s asleep by the time I’m back in the room.
Her wispy hair sprawls across her face, and I can’t help but linger close and brush it back. She’s so beautiful that it’s hard to look at her—like she isn’t meant to be ogled at all.
God has a way of making things in this world for a reason, and I’m baffled why he molded her into creation. I’ve often wondered why people like Ray and Belinda are gifted with children they’ll never care for.
They’d let Sloane down in more ways than I likely will ever know.
She opened up to me last night, and it felt like I was stepping into a forbidden museum where I didn’t know how many art pieces I’d get to look at or if I’d ever come back. So I’d inhaled every bit of information she gave me, storing it away to understand better who Sloane is.
I’m beginning to believe she’s one of the best people I know.
Returning to the bible on my lap, I continue reading where I left off or trying to. My brain is too full of worries and memories I can’t stop dwelling on.
Worries about how this will end.
Everything comes to an eventual end, and there’s a latent anxiety gnawing at my soul in anticipation of this one. Along with questions of my faith, morality, and thoughts of her on her knees…
No.
I scrub the thought from my head, closing the bible a bit loudly, wincing as I look up to ensure I haven’t startled Sloane from her slumber.
But I find her thrashing on the bed in little abrupt movements, her brows knitted together on her forehead, and her body writhing in some dream fugue. One that looks to be a nightmare.
“No, no,” she’s whimpering repeatedly.
She’s vulnerable, I realize.
She’s open and raw in her sleep state, as we all are as we rest.
And what she avoids during the daytime haunts her while her eyes are closed.
“Shh,” I tell her, sitting on the side of the bed and gently running my hand over her cheek. “You’re alright. You’re not alone.”
A hot tear comes from her closed eye, and I let it seep into my thumb as it brushes over it. It’s as if I let her sadness intertwine with my heart and soul, taking on some of her burden.
“No, no, no. Get off me,” she whispers, still unsettled in the bed as she moves beneath the covers.
My jaw clenches even though I can’t see whatever the hell she’s inside of. It doesn’t stop me from wanting to step in between her and the nightmares. Fight them with every ounce of strength and power I have.
I get off the edge of the bed, rounding it to lie beside her, over the covers, on the other side.
Scooping her into my arms, I tug her close, kissing her forehead.
“I’ve got you, little dove. You’re not alone. You’re safe.”
I continue to tell her I have her until the nightmare seems to diminish; the entire time, she remains asleep and unaware. I wouldn’t have it any other way. She needs her sleep.
The longer I hold her, the more she feels right.
Like my arms are where she’s meant to be.
Our age difference aside, being with her feels forbidden. My being the priest that’s supposed to cull her of sin, her being the dancer in the night, being the very thing sin is made of.
If sin were a fabric, she’d be the red dye made to illuminate it.
Still, I’m comforting her, and I tell myself there’s nothing wrong with that.
I close my eyes, feeling a sense of peace wash over me, akin to how I’m only supposed to feel in the presence of the Lord himself. Placid. Tranquil.
In the arms of the one thing that could ruin me altogether.
“Sloane,” I moan as the dream world blends into reality.
Warmth glides over my length, which is hard and wanting.
“Luca,” her raspy voice answers, and I pivot my hips, looking to anchor deeper into the ocean of her. I want to drown in her. Fuck the repercussions.
“More,” I plead, madness seething in my brain as mutiny takes hold of me. “More!”
Her stilted pleas and beautiful little noises only harden me further.
“Father Russo. God, I’m going to come?—”
Something about that statement has my eyes flying open, reality crashing into my brain, and the fog of sleep peeling back.
Somehow, I’d rolled onto my side, and Sloane’s leg was over me. Her hot, drenched center is writhing over my hard cock, and her eyes are closed.
I don’t know if she’s awake, but I know she feels so damned good.
My breathing speeds as I realize the ramifications of letting this go on.
We said we would be friends and wouldn’t do this anymore. That we can’t...
She rolls her hips, begging with her tight little body for me to continue, and I’ll be damned if I don’t do as I’m told, thrusting forward and giving her just what she needs.
I’ll always be just what she needs.
“Sloane,” I grit out, and it doesn’t seem to rouse her. She’s asleep. Likely, she’s still under the haze of the cough medicine she’d taken before I’d crawled into this bed to keep the nightmares away. It’s dark beyond the windows, and the only light bleeding into the room is a nightlight plugged into the adjoining bathroom above the sink.
“Sloane!” I manage, louder this time.
She startles, gasping awake as her eyes fly open and take stock of her body and how it feels.
“Luca,” she whimpers, and I know that tone echoes her earlier words.
She’s on the cusp of breaking into shambles.
“There you are, pretty girl,” I pant, unable to stop my body from giving her one more dangerous stroke with my cock.
Her breathing is hot and heavy, her lids heady, and if it were light enough in here, I know her pupils would be blown.
“Please,” she begs. “Please.”
“We said we’d just be friends, Sloane. Remember—” My jaw is clenched tight as she disregards me completely and flips me onto my back.
Her hips roll, and her perfect cunt shifts back and forth on my length.
Just as I’d done to her.
I could push her off me, but I want to watch her come.
I want to see her break for me.
Not that I haven’t witnessed it before. It’s only that each time feels like a blessing. Like it’s something only for me. Something powerful and intoxicating.
As I’ve always learned and taught that sin is.
She’s a vice, one I don’t know if I’ll be able to quit.
Her movements become an incursion. The friction makes me lift my head off the bed to watch where she sensuously rides back and forth over me.
My balls draw tightly up, the tip of me tingling in warning.
“Sloane,” I warn, but she’s not here with me.
She’s on another plane of existence—one where she’s the master, defying death and living immorally outside heaven’s rule. Where God can’t see her, and the Devil watches her with a husky look on his face.
“Coming, fuck, coming, Luca!” her urgent words signal my release, and we both dry hump through our respective releases hungrily, like the animals we are at our cores.
She opens her eyes, and the smog of arousal clears them, reality exsanguinating the prurient look that had been in them before her beautiful orgasm.
“God, I’m sorry,” she says, rolling off me and laying on her back next to me. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
Her warbling voice has emotion choked in my throat. I look down briefly at the cum leaked through my pants. It nearly hardens me all over again to think of what just happened.
We can’t stay away from one another. A disturbing connection between her and me is so exquisitely satisfying that it’ll have me chasing the high that comes from it for the rest of my days.
I don’t know how I’ll ever go back to reality.
Not one where she’s not in it.
“Hey, it’s alright. It was my fault. I shouldn’t have been in the bed.” I roll into her, trying not to get my cum-soaked pants near her skin or the bed.
She turns to face me, her beautiful cheeks filled with a deep, delirious blush. “Why are you in the bed?”
“You were having a nightmare in your sleep. I wanted to console you. I must’ve fallen asleep. God, Sloane, I’m so sorry.”
“It seems like you and I can’t be friends, Luca.”
Her words pierce my heart, gashing through the muscles like the sharpest weapon.
“Let’s get you into that shower, hm?” I ask, ignoring her assumption.
Even though I was the one who said this could never happen in my post-orgasm murk, I want to believe that there’s a way to make this work.
I help her from the bed, my blood cooking when her eyes flick over the mess I’ve made of my pants.
She strips down as I get the shower on and at optimal temperature. When I turn back around, I ignore the sweet call of her naked body to place the back of my hand on her forehead to check for fever.
Her breathing hitches, and I try to ignore it. However, an instantaneous jolt strikes through my dick at the sound.
“You seem like the fever you had earlier broke,” I tell her.
“Well…” She smiles up at me, nipples beading as she steps closer. “I had an amazing caregiver.”
I swallow as I think of the orgasm I’d just allowed her to have overtop of me and inwardly smirk.
She sidesteps me, enters the shower, and closes the glass door behind her.
“Coming, Father Russo?” she asks, a playful lilt in her voice.
I bite my lip, looking at her silhouette in the frosted glass.
I know I shouldn’t. The Son, the Father, and the Holy Spirit know I shouldn’t. But in the next breath, I shuck off my sweats and step into the spray of the water with the siren who’s rubbing her hands through the water over her breasts with a look in her eye that could level a battlefield of God’s most worthy warriors.
“What’s wrong?” I ask her as her eyes shift over my body from head to toe.
“I’ve never seen you fully naked before,” she says, and I instantly look down and realize what I’ve done.
I stripped myself bare and stepped into the shower with a serpent. One I’ve been warned to steer clear of my entire career. While it’s wrong to think of her as such, the idea makes my cock semi-hard all over again, and I reach for the door handle to get out of the situation before it takes a turn I can’t go back from.
Her hand comes down on mine, her body pulling close.
“Stay.”
Father, will I get out of this test of yours alive?