Chapter 25 Alessio
ALESSIO
STEADY RAINFALL TAPPED against the window, the only sound in Rafael’s small rectory, but my heart crashing painfully against my ribs was all I could hear.
If Rafael noticed, he chose not to say anything.
Instead, he stared at me where we lay face to face, tangled together on his narrow bed, our breaths finally slowing in the aftermath.
Even if we’d been in my California king, we still would’ve been this close, our bodies still connected, my arm wrapped around his waist so tight, like he might disappear if I didn’t hold on to him.
We fit. So well. Too well. I’d told him I only needed one night, but it was a lie, and I didn’t know how, after this, I could let him go.
Again.
Rafael reached between us and tucked my hair behind my ear, then slid his fingers into the long strands. I’d worried he wouldn’t like the way I’d grown it out, but he seemed riveted, wrapping his finger around one of the messy waves, curling and uncurling it, his guard completely down for once.
Such a small, inconsequential thing, but it made my stomach flip, lit a spark inside me that felt a lot like hope, and I needed to shut that down and just enjoy the final moments I had with him.
This was all I could get, and it had to be enough.
He’d put his faith aside for a few hours, and that’s all I could ask for.
“You deserve more,” Rafael said softly, his focus still on his fingers running through my hair.
I searched his face, trying to get a read on what he was thinking. Where that had come from.
He brushed the hair back from my shoulder, then up to trace the line of my jaw with his thumb, like he was memorizing me.
“You should have been living your life. Falling in love—”
I made a disgruntled sound and started to roll my eyes, but he turned my head back to look at him.
“You really haven’t been with anyone else?”
“Never.” God, this felt like a confession, one I’d never actually planned on telling him, but fuck it. “I’ve tried. After you left, when I got to the pissed-off stage. When you came back and I wanted to prove to myself that I didn’t want you. A few weeks ago when—”
“You went to Lucien’s club,” he finished for me, his throat working as he swallowed. “I remember.”
I felt the change in him immediately, his whole body going still. It was the first time he’d shown any kind of reaction to all those drunken confessions I’d uttered, and the emotion I saw in his eyes cracked my heart in two.
He didn’t want to care. But he couldn’t help it.
It was so fucked up that it gave me relief to know this wasn’t as one-sided as it felt.
“I couldn’t—” I started, and tried again. “It felt like lying.”
Rafael’s eyes closed, and he took a deep breath. “Alessio—”
“I didn’t want anyone else. Fuck, I… I still don’t. And I know what you’re gonna say, but it doesn’t matter how much you tell me to move on or how I deserve more, or whatever bullshit will make you feel better.”
My words settled between us, and he sighed, dropping his forehead to mine.
“I didn’t know the cost,” he said quietly. “I thought you’d be happy.”
“Without you?”
“Eventually, yes.”
My pulse began to race as I opened my mouth to ask something I didn’t know if I was ready to hear the answer to, but it came out anyway. “And are you? Happy?”
For a long time he didn’t answer, just kept his forehead against mine, our breaths syncing together in the quiet. I hugged him closer, his hesitation telling me what he couldn’t seem to say.
He wrapped his arm around my shoulders, holding me just as tight, easing the anxiety coursing through me as the time we had kept passing. I wanted to freeze this moment, stay right here in his arms, breathing in his scent and wrapped up in his warmth.
“You can talk to me,” I whispered into the silence. “Trust me with your secrets.”
“I know that,” he said, and closed his eyes, his blond lashes kissing his cheekbones. “I… I’m just trying to find the right words.”
“They don’t need to be right.” I slid a hand up to cradle his face. “They just need to be true. Are you happy?”
Rafael opened his eyes and swallowed. “I used to think so. But lately…lately, I’ve felt conflicted.
Tested. Alone…” He gently shook his head.
“Usually I can find some kind of peace, some kind of answer from prayer, from my fellow priests, from Him. But nothing has helped, nothing has been clear until tonight—until you.”
My heart thumped so loudly against my chest, it was all I could do to concentrate on the words coming out of Rafael’s mouth. Because for a moment there it sounded like he’d just said…
“You are peace. You are love. You are passion and chaos and turmoil, and I don’t know what that means. I don’t know what it can mean.”
“What do you want it to mean?” Rafael opened his mouth to answer, but before he could, I put a finger to his lips. “Answer me as the man lying in this bed with me, not as a priest.”
“They’re the same man.”
“Not tonight they’re not.” I shifted until Rafael was on his back and I was braced on his chest, my hair falling down around our faces, blocking out the rest of the world. “What do you want it to mean, Rafael?”
His eyes became glassy as he speared his fingers into my hair. “That you’re mine. That I get to hold you, like this, for the rest of our lives. But—”
I crushed my lips to his, not allowing him to taint what he’d just said by saying we couldn’t have it. That it was impossible. I didn’t want to hear that, didn’t want rational thoughts to enter this room, this conversation.
Tonight was magic. It was perfection.
Reality could fuck off.
“What if I said you could have it?” I said, trying to find a way around this, a way to keep him even as our time was drawing to an end.
“Alessio, I can’t ask—”
“You’re not. I’m offering.”
He let out a sigh and ran a thumb over my lower lip. “That’s not fair to you. None of this has been fair to you.”
I could feel the seconds slipping through my fingers as he lowered his hand to the bed, and knew it had to be now or never. He was getting ready to end this. My one night would be over, this would be it, done, and I wasn’t ready.
“So what happens next, then?” I said, sitting up. “I just say goodbye and leave? That’s it? You’re okay with that?”
“I…” He moved to sit up beside me on the bed, gently placing a hand on my thigh. “I have to be.”
“But you’re not,” I said. “It’s killing you as much as it is me. You think I can’t see that?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“Why the fuck not?” I demanded, and shot to my feet.
Rafael looked up at me with a resigned sadness, and I knew what was coming next. “Because I took a vow. I… This is killing me. Of course I want more than one night—”
“Then take it.” I fell down to my knees, between his, pleading with him now, desperate for this not to be the end. “It doesn’t have to be sex. Or anything intimate. I just want you in my life, Rafael. Outside of here. Where it’s just us. Don’t leave me again.”
He was going to deny me. He was going to tell me it was too risky, too tempting, too everything. Instead, he reached for my face and angled it up to his, swiping away tears I didn’t even realize had fallen down my cheeks.
Then he leaned down and gently brushed his lips across mine.
“I’m not going anywhere. I couldn’t even if I wanted to. And God help us both—I don’t want to.”
“You’re mine,” I whispered across his lips. “And if I have to fight Him to the end to prove it, don’t think I won’t.”
“Alessio.”
I pressed a hard, fast kiss to Rafael’s lips. “Don’t think I won’t.”
I moved to my feet, grabbing up my clothes and stepping into them. All the while, Rafael sat with his back to the wall and the sheet pulled across his lap, watching, memorizing, no doubt praying.
But for what, I wasn’t sure this time. Usually I’d think it was to be rid of me. To forget about me. But the look in his eyes told me none of those thoughts were in his head right now.
“When can I see you again?”
He blinked and brought his eyes up to mine. “What do you mean?”
“Tomorrow. After your day?”
“After?”
“Yeah.” I pulled on my shirt and ran my fingers through my hair. “Like when we usually come to confession. Later. At night. You could maybe use the tunnels?”
Rafael’s eyes widened a fraction. “But they’re locked.”
“Luckily, you know the guy who can unlock it.”
He gave me a slow once-over that gave me way too much hope, considering I’d just promised to keep things platonic.
“Tomorrow?”
I nodded. “Just come to the door. I’ll be watching for you.”