Chapter 5 Rafael
RAFAEL
FOR A LONG time, I sat in the booth, trembling and unable to breathe.
I didn’t trust myself to leave, didn’t trust that my legs would support me on the short walk to the rectory.
Even though I’d heard the door that led to the tunnels shut, signaling Alessio’s departure, his presence still lingered here, and that terrified me into staying hidden away, hoping any moment now I’d unhear his words.
I made silent prayers to God on my knees, begging him to help me. In Alessio’s wake he’d left me in turmoil, and it was so confusing and overwhelming that I didn’t know how to alleviate it.
It wasn’t until I’d forced myself to leave the booth, the sanctuary, and head home that I realized the feelings he’d stirred up weren’t going to go away so easily.
My hands shook as I tried to unlock the rectory door, unable to get the key lined up, and I dropped my arms and took in a deep breath of the cool night air. I tried again and rushed inside, closing the door firmly behind me before falling back against it.
I closed my eyes, my heart racing and my breathing coming in shallow pants, like Alessio had been running after me or would come bursting through the door any second.
Ridiculous.
I just needed to calm down, catch my breath, and try to remember that Alessio was drunk and saying things he didn’t mean. He probably wouldn’t even remember this tomorrow with the way he was stumbling around.
But his words had already embedded themselves under my skin. All that pent-up rage pouring out of him that he’d obviously been holding back all these years. The ache in his words when he asked, “Do you even think about me anymore?”
I pressed my palm over my chest, right over my heart, like I could keep those words from stabbing me there.
After all this time…why now? Why tonight? Why dredge up the past when I thought we’d left it there, buried deep?
But that was a lie. We’d both moved on in our separate lives, but the unease and tension between us had been there for years, even though we’d gone through the actions of a mended acquaintance.
It was the one part of my life I hadn’t fully turned over to God, and tonight it had come back full force to haunt me, reminding me that I was a fraud to hold on to any piece of my old life.
I took in a deep, steadying breath and opened my eyes.
The rectory was dim, lit only by the lamp on the dresser.
A simple twin bed adorned the space, extra-long to accommodate my height, but that was as far as the luxuries went.
The room was the size of a tiny studio, without the kitchen and only a small full bath.
We didn’t need much, not when the church provided in all other ways.
This home was safe. Familiar. A place no one else ever entered, that was mine alone. I’d walked through the door thousands of times and left everyone outside—but tonight Alessio had followed me in.
Not physically, but in a way that still felt like a betrayal to the one I was most loyal to.
I reached for my collar and hesitated. It was such a small thing to mean so much, and I traced the edges, trying to remind myself of my vows.
Every night was the same, a routine I’d established to stay in control.
I took off the collar, setting it carefully in its spot on the dresser, and then began to unbutton the cassock.
There were thirty-three buttons, one for each year of Jesus’s life, and I usually reflected on the Incarnation each morning and evening as I dressed and undressed.
But tonight I unfastened a handful and drew the material up over my head.
Patience was a virtue, but not one I possessed at the moment, though I took the time to carefully hang the garment in the closet.
As I continued to undress, Alessio’s voice echoed in my ear, telling me about watching scantily clad men tonight.
Hoping they would incite a reaction from him.
For his…cock.
A soft groan left me as, for the first time in a long time, I could feel my pulse everywhere—thumping wildly in my neck, across my chest, and down my hips, like my body was awakening from a long slumber. My dick stirred, rising with every word Alessio uttered.
“My cock wants you…father.”
No. I couldn’t do this.
I entered the small bathroom and turned on the faucet, splashing my face with cold water to shock me back to my senses. It worked to slow my heart rate a little, and I sighed, staring down at the water draining down the sink and willing the temptation rising inside to do the same.
But every time I closed my eyes, he was there, Alessio’s dark gaze boring into mine, desire swirling with agony in those depths. It felt like a punishment. I shut off the faucet and reached for the towel to wipe my face.
I didn’t mean to look in the mirror when I opened my eyes again. There was only one allowed in the small space, and I only ever used it to shave. Never to look at myself. Not like this—naked and half hard, a version of the man I used to be and not the reality.
But as I moved to turn away from the reflection taunting me, the stranger in the mirror dared me to stay.
Stay and look.
Look at what he’s done to you. What he’s made you feel.
This is why you should’ve walked away. You should’ve walked away and never looked back.
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to banish the words, not liking the way they made me feel. I didn’t want to associate Alessio with the guilt twisting my stomach into knots.
It wasn’t his fault I was weak. It wasn’t his fault he made my body respond.
That was my burden. My hardship to bear.
I braced my hands on the sink and opened my eyes, staring at the stranger looking back at me, judging me.
Temptation of the flesh. Man’s greatest weakness.
What made me think I would be any different? Any stronger to resist? Because I’d resisted this long?
Only because I refused to remember. But when faced with the past, when confronted with the feelings and experiences we’d once shared, it was much more difficult to push aside.
He’d said his biggest sin was that he thought about me all the time. He’d asked how I’d been able to forget him, forget us, and the way we’d been together.
And as I straightened in front of the mirror and reached up to flatten a hand over my heart and slide it over my nipple, I knew my biggest sin was that I hadn’t.
I’d never forgotten the way his fingers had felt exploring, touching, and teasing me the way my fingers were now. The way he’d brushed his thumbs across the tight tips, and then lowered his head and flicked his—
I let out a harsh groan and narrowed my eyes on the hands now roaming my body of their own free will.
They were no longer mine—they were his. I knew the exact way he’d touch me, circling first the left then the right nipple, before moving in to kiss my neck.
I sucked in a breath at the thought, craning my head to the side, Alessio’s lips a memory I’d never been able to erase as they made their way down to the hollow at the base of my throat.
My cock rose to attention as though it knew it was now or never to get in on the action, and the sight of myself at full mast was such a foreign one that I couldn’t help but reach down and tentatively graze the length with my fingers.
How long had it been? Years.
Years since the day I’d said goodbye to that part of my life. It’d been difficult at first to accept, but that was the choice I’d made. One I thought I’d come to terms with.
I’d quenched that thirst, conquered that desire…or so I had thought.
But as Alessio’s tortured voice and gorgeous face came to mind, I wrapped my hand around my rigid dick and imagined him standing in front of me.
He was so different now, and still somehow the exact same. The boy with the dark, brooding eyes and brow that was all too serious—he was the same. So was the high slash of the boy’s cheekbones and his full and overtly sensual lips.
They were what tempted me back when we’d been teens.
Were what still tempted me now, whenever he was near.
But there was a harshness to him now, too, one I didn’t recognize. The Alessio I’d known was cheeky and mischievous, someone who always smiled. Now, he hid that smirk behind thick stubble and a long curtain of silky, dark hair that intrigued me.
I wonder what it feels like? Soft? Thick?
I wanted to run my fingers through it and, at the same time, knew I never could. That didn’t mean I couldn’t envision it, though. I’d already gone this far—what was one more transgression?
I closed my eyes and imagined the hand around my cock was Alessio’s. That it was him staring back at me, not the stranger in the mirror. I imagined him with a smirk curving that full mouth of his as he stroked his fist up my throbbing length and then back down.
The pleasure was exquisite. So much so it was almost painful, as Alessio’s voice washed over me, much more direct this time.
“How could you forget the way I made you feel, how you made me feel when we touched each other?”
“I didn’t,” I whispered, hoping God could forgive my moment of weakness, hoping He understood I was only a man.
“Prove it,” Alessio’s voice taunted me, seducing me as surely as the hand around my cock was.
I knew I should deny it, should stop and punish myself for being so weak. But when I opened my eyes and looked at the man in the mirror, what I saw there wasn’t a weak man but a desperate one.
My teeth were clenched, my body taut as a trip wire, as my hand pumped harder and faster around the thick, veiny cock jutting out from my hips.
The small space I stood in seemed to shrink in on me as my neck corded with veins and I strained against my own desire, fighting with my body’s need for release.
“You smell so fucking good.” Alessio’s voice, his words, lured me to the edge of my control—“I want to rub my face all over you”—then finally pushed me over.
I bit into my lip so hard that I drew blood as I came in a hot rush all over the spotless sink in my rectory bathroom. My muffled cries were that of a tortured man breaking and realizing he wasn’t good enough to wear the cloth. That he’d just given in to the biggest sin of all—temptation.
I wasn’t sure how long I stood there, but when my vision finally returned, and I stared at the stranger in the mirror, I brought my fingers to my lips and tasted the release Alessio had just given me.
God may feed my soul, but Alessio had always fed my heart and desire.
And if that was a sin, then I’d atone for it…later.