Chapter 3
CHARLIE
Two weeks of penance have become two weeks of torture.
I scrub the church floors on my hands and knees, the worn wood grain blurring beneath my vision as Father Adrian Cross’s footsteps echo somewhere behind me.
I don’t look up. I never look up anymore.
But I feel his eyes on me like a physical touch, tracking my movements as I work the brush in circles, as I reach forward and my vintage sundress rides up my thighs.
He’ll change his mind, I tell myself, wringing out the rag with hands that have gone raw from bleach and cold water.
They always do.
People don’t keep broken things.
They discard them once the guilt fades.
Mom left, and Dad was never there. I’m the girl men survive, not the girl they stay for.
I arrange flowers in the sanctuary the next morning, my fingers trembling as I trim rose stems.
Adrian stands at the altar reviewing his notes for Sunday Mass, and I’m hyperaware of the space between us.
Twenty feet that feels like twenty inches. His gray eyes lift from the page, finding me across the expanse of pews, and the air goes thick.
I look away first. I always look away first.
But I feel the heat of his gaze on my neck, my shoulders, the curve of my waist where my cardigan has slipped. I wonder what he sees when he looks at me.
The thief who stole from his church?
The charity case living in his rectory? Or something else, something dangerous that makes his jaw clench and his hands curl into fists?
During Mass preparation, I help Marcus set out the communion vessels.
His dress shirt sleeves are rolled up, his tattooed forearms flexing as he lifts the chalice, and I catch myself staring at the saints and sinners inked into his olive skin.
He notices, raises an eyebrow, but doesn’t comment. Just watches me with those dark eyes that seem to see straight through every defense I’ve built.
“You doing okay?” he asks, his voice low and rough.
“Fine,” I lie.
His expression says he doesn’t believe me, but he lets it go.
The others have accepted my presence.
Sister Margaret, whose serves and lives here as a nun, distrusts me and was clear about my hesitations of staying, but she couldn’t deny that I was helpful.
Deacon Paul was more accepting, welcoming me but keeping his distance.
That night, my phone rings while I’m stress-baking in my tiny apartment above the rectory. The hospital. My hands shake as I answer, flour dusting the screen.
Grandma Rose’s condition has worsened. They need to run more tests. More specialists. More money I don’t have.
The nurse’s voice is professionally sympathetic as she lists numbers that make my vision blur. Five thousand more. Ten thousand if the tests reveal what they suspect. I thank her, hang up, and stare at the half-mixed dough on my counter.
I need to talk to someone. I need to not be alone with this crushing weight.
Somehow, Adrian has become that person.
I find him in his office near midnight, the rectory quiet around us. He’s still in his cassock, every button fastened, every line crisp.
But his rosary beads are wrapped around his knuckles until they’re white, and there’s something wild in his gray eyes when he looks up at me standing in his doorway.
“Charlie.” My name sounds different in his voice. Rougher. Like it costs him something to say it.
“I’m sorry. I know it’s late. I just…” My voice cracks, and I hate myself for it. “The hospital called.”
He stands immediately, moving around his desk. “Your grandmother?”
I nod, wrapping my arms around myself. The office smells like old books and his cologne, something dark and expensive that doesn’t match his vows of poverty.
Something that makes me want to step closer, to breathe him in.
“They need more money. More tests. I don’t know what to do.” The words tumble out in a rush. “I’m working double shifts at the diner, but it’s not enough. It’s never going to be enough.”
“Charlie.” He’s closer now, close enough that I can see the stubble shadowing his jaw, the way his chest rises and falls beneath the black fabric. “We’ll figure something out.”
“Will we?” I look up at him, and something in my chest cracks open. “Or will you decide I’m too much trouble and send me away?”
His jaw clenches. “I wouldn’t do that.”
“You say that now.” My laugh is bitter. “But you’ll change your mind. They always do. I’m the girl nobody keeps, Father. I’m the mistake people make then spend the rest of their lives trying to forget.”
“Don’t.” His voice drops to something dangerous. “Don’t talk about yourself like that.”
“Why not? It’s true.” Tears burn my eyes, and I’m so tired of being strong, of pretending I’m not drowning.
“Grandma Rose is the only person who ever chose me, and now I’m going to lose her too because I can’t save her.
I can’t save anyone. I’m just a wreck who steals from churches and ruins everything she touches. ”
“Charlie.” He reaches for me, his hands framing my face, and the touch sends electricity shooting through my entire body. “You’re not ruining anything.”
“Aren’t I?” I stare up at him, at those storm-cloud eyes that see too much. “I see the way you look at me. The way you force yourself to look away. I’m destroying your peace, Father.”
His thumb traces my cheekbone, and his hands are shaking. “You think I don’t know that? You think I haven’t been fighting this every moment since you walked into my church?”
“Then why don’t you send me away?” My voice breaks. “Why don’t you just end this?”
“Because I can’t.” The confession sounds torn from somewhere deep inside him. “God help me, Charlie, I can’t.”
The air between us ignites.
I don’t know who moves first. Maybe we both do. Maybe we’ve been moving toward this moment since the day he found me with stolen money pressed against my chest.
His mouth crashes against mine, desperate and guilty and reverent all at once.
I gasp, and he swallows the sound, his hands sliding into my hair, tilting my head back so he can kiss me deeper.
His rosary beads press into my hip as he backs me against his desk, the wooden edge digging into my lower back.
“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” he murmurs against my lips, his voice rough with twenty years of suppressed want. His hands find my waist, my hips, pulling me closer. “But where sin increased, grace abounded all the more.”
“Adrian.” His name feels forbidden on my tongue, and that makes it sweeter.
He groans, the sound vibrating through his chest into mine. “Say it again.”
“Adrian.” I thread my fingers through his salt-and-pepper hair, messing the severe cut. “Please.”
His control shatters.
He lifts me onto his desk, papers scattering, his body pressing between my thighs.
The cassock is rough against my bare legs, and I can feel the heat of him through the fabric, the hard evidence of his want pressing against my core.
His hands slide up my thighs, pushing my sundress higher, and I arch into his touch.
“Lead us not into temptation,” he whispers against my throat, his teeth grazing my pulse point. “But deliver us from evil.”
“I’m not evil,” I breathe, my hands working the buttons of his cassock with trembling fingers.
“No.” He pulls back just enough to look at me, his gray eyes dark with hunger. “You’re salvation and damnation wrapped in vintage dresses and freckles. You’re the answer to prayers I didn’t know I was praying.”
I finally get his cassock open, revealing the white undershirt beneath.
My hands slide under the fabric, finding the hard planes of his chest, the rapid hammer of his heart.
He’s all muscle and heat, and I want to map every inch of him with my fingers, my mouth, my body.
He strips the cassock off completely, letting it pool on the floor like discarded vows.
His hands find the zipper of my dress, and he pauses, his forehead pressed against mine.
“Tell me to stop,” he says, his voice ragged. “Tell me this is wrong.”
“It is wrong.” I kiss him again, harder. “But I don’t care.”
The zipper slides down, and my dress follows his cassock to the floor.
I’m wearing simple cotton underwear, nothing fancy, but the way he looks at me makes me feel like I’m draped in silk and diamonds.
His hands trace the curve of my breasts, my waist, my hips, like he’s memorizing me through touch.
“Beautiful,” he murmurs. “So fucking beautiful.”
The profanity from his mouth sends heat straight to my core. I reach for his belt, and he helps me, his movements urgent now, desperate.
When he’s finally naked before me, I take a moment to just look. He’s older, yes, but his body is hard and scarred and perfect.
He pulls me to the edge of the desk, his hands gripping my thighs, spreading them wider.
When he enters me, we both freeze, the sensation overwhelming. He’s big, stretching me, filling me completely.
His rosary beads are still wrapped around one hand, and they press against my hip as he holds me steady.
“Forgive me,” he whispers, pulling back and thrusting deeper. “Forgive me, forgive me, forgive me.”
I don’t know if he’s praying to God or to me. Maybe both.
We move together, finding a rhythm that’s both desperate and reverent.
His desk creaks beneath us, papers falling, a lamp teetering dangerously. I don’t care.
Nothing exists except the slide of his body into mine, the way his hands grip my hips hard enough to bruise, the dark verses he murmurs between kisses.
“The spirit is willing,” he groans, his pace increasing, “but the flesh is weak.”
“Adrian.” I’m close, so close, my body tightening around him. “Please.”
He reaches between us, his thumb finding the bundle of nerves that makes me cry out.
The sound echoes through his office, too loud, too revealing, but I can’t stop.
He swallows my moans with his mouth, his movements becoming erratic as he chases his own release.
When I shatter, it’s with his name on my lips and his rosary beads pressed between us like a brand.
He follows moments later, his body going rigid, a sound torn from his throat that’s half prayer, half curse.
We stay like that for a long moment, breathing hard, our bodies still joined. Reality creeps back in slowly, bringing guilt and fear and the weight of what we’ve just done.
Adrian pulls away first, his expression already shuttering. He reaches for his cassock, and I watch him transform back into Father Cross before my eyes.
Every button fastened.
Every line crisp.
The man who just worshipped my body with his hands and mouth and cock disappearing behind priestly armor.
I slide off his desk on unsteady legs, finding my dress, pulling it on with trembling hands. The zipper catches, and I struggle with it, my fingers clumsy.
“Charlie.” His voice is carefully controlled now, all the rough edges smoothed away. “We need to talk about—”
“Don’t.” I finally get the zipper up and adjust my cardigan. “Please don’t.”
Of course this won’t last, I think, backing toward the door. Men like him don’t keep girls like me. This is a mistake he’ll spend the rest of his life pretending never happened.
I turn and flee before he can say anything else, before he can tell me this was wrong, that it can never happen again, that I need to leave.
The hallway is dark and cool after the heat of his office. I’m adjusting my dress again, trying to calm my racing heart, when I realize I’m not alone.
Deacon Marcus Reyes leans against the wall, tattooed arms crossed, dark eyes knowing. He’s seen everything. Or heard enough.
His expression is unreadable, but when our eyes meet, something dangerous passes between them.
He doesn’t speak, doesn’t move.
Just watches me with an intensity that makes my skin burn all over again.