Chapter 4
FOUR
Levi
I’m too busy scrolling through the playlist as I walk down the pier to see the person standing on it, and I have to quickly tuck my phone away when I finally notice her.
She’s clueless to my presence even as I get close, too used to the safety of the small community here.
She’s humming along to the song and dancing her way over the worn-out old boards.
When she spins around, her eyes widen, and she starts to scream, but it's quickly silenced as she chokes on it instead.
Then she stumbles backward toward the edge of the pier.
I lurch forward, grabbing her upper arm through the oversized cable-knit sweater she's wearing, and pull her forward before she can stumble back into the dark waters behind her.
She blinks for a moment, taking me in and confirming I’m not a mirage before proceeding to pull her headphones down around her neck.
She fumbles around her pockets, frantically searching for her phone when the sounds of the risqué pop song come blaring through the speakers.
I grin as she works to turn it off, her cheeks blazing with heat and her fingers deftly flying over the screen to try to silence her late-night dance party.
“Sorry. Sorry,” she apologizes as she finally gets to the screen she needs, and silence falls between us.
“I don’t think I’ve ever met a nun with a playlist quite like that,” I say. There’s no way I could have seen the whole list from her quick fumble with it, but she’s too embarrassed to realize, and I’m too dishonest to admit I already know every song on it for a different reason.
“Oh, um. It lets me unwind a bit from the day. I just need to let loose sometimes after all the cooking and cleaning. I’m sure you know what it's like. There have to be hard days. Giving last rights, taking confession—” She stops abruptly when she realizes what she’s walked into.
“No hymnals?” I frown slightly as though I’m disappointed in her lack of devotion.
“I, uh, have another list with those on there.” It’s an obvious lie.
One I’d see straight through even if I didn’t know it for certain.
She did have a playlist of Gregorian chants and one of the Boys' Choir for Christmastime. Maybe she was counting those to skirt the falsehood. But I’d rather pin her to it, let her squirm a little. After all, I need answers.
“I’m starting to see why you end up in confession so often.” I cant a brow skyward as my eyes drift over her skeptically.
Her lips press together, and her eyes dart down. It’s hard to believe this mild-mannered nun is the daughter of the man I hate so much. She barely seems like she could hurt a fly, let alone be part of a politically corrupt, empire-building family. But maybe I haven’t applied the right pressure yet.
“I thought we weren’t supposed to talk about that?” She steals a glance at me, but then her eyes hit the floor again.
“Talk about what?” I pretend to have no idea what she means.
“About the confessional today—” When she looks up, she stops abruptly, realizing I’d been trying to give her the out. “Oh. Sorry. I… I’m so bad at this.” Her cheeks brighten.
“What’s this?” I ask using air quotes and trying to soften my countenance enough for her to relax.
“Awkward things.” There’s a long beat of silence, and then she shakes her head, her face marred with mortification. “I had no idea it was you. I would have never confessed to that if I’d known it wasn’t Father Mark. I’m sure it was awkward for you too.”
“What you tell me in the confessional stays there. Between you and God.” I reassure her, and she nods her understanding, but her eyes drift to the horizon in thought. “Unless you feel like you need to talk about it more to alleviate your conscience,” I add.
Every single bit of information I can squeeze out of her means a little more data. The more weaknesses she reveals, the more opportunities I have.
“Well, given that we’re already discussing it… I could use your counsel, I think.”
“Of course.”
“I just wanted to say I know it’s wrong. I know what I did was wrong. I’m sorry for how it must make you feel.”
“Why is it wrong?” I want to hear her say it.
Her eyes meet mine again, and she studies them like she’s trying to root out whether or not this is a test or something else.
“I shouldn’t have those dreams. Or those thoughts. But the closer I get to my final vows, the more doubts I have. I think the dreams—it’s my subconscious manifesting those doubts.”
“So you’re not out to seduce me then?” I tease her.
A small smile flits across her face and fades.
“We all have those doubts,” I continue. “We question whether or not our choices really make sense. If it’s the right thing or the wrong thing. Sometimes, our subconscious works through it in unusual ways. All of that is normal.”
“It’s normal to have those kinds of thoughts about a priest?”
“You’d be surprised what I hear in the confessional,” I lie. I wouldn’t know, but I imagine it happens often enough to younger priests. Her smile returns at that admission, and she nods her understanding.
“Ah, yeah. That doesn’t surprise me. Aria says you’re too pretty to be a priest.”
“Should Aria have been at confession?”
“I wasn’t trying to get her in trouble. In her defense, I think it’s hard to look at you and not have an opinion.” She hedges her bets.
“You’re blaming me for it then?”
“Well, if you represent the temptation of sin, we should all stay away from you, right?” She posits a fair conundrum, teasing me back in the process.
“It’s only the near occasion of sin if I’m likely to let you act on it.
” I take a step closer to her, closing the distance between us.
“If you think I have the same kinds of doubts. If I’m vulnerable to sin as well.
” I reach forward and sweep a lock of hair out of her face, daring her to make a move in return. “Do you?”
She stares down at the small space between us and then looks up at me, surprising me with her next act of bravery.
She takes the smallest step forward, leaving the Holy Spirit with so little space to move between us that I wonder if we won’t just catch fire right here on this dock.
Her for breaking her vows and me for tempting her into it.
“Are you?” Her eyes lift to meet mine, fighting to hold steady despite the deep blush I can still see in the moonlight, the thrum of her heart at her pulse point, and the steadying breath she takes to calm her nerves.
“The collar doesn’t create a force field to protect me from the same sorts of base cravings any man might have.
” Neither does the long wool skirt nor the high collar of her conservative clothing.
If anything, it’s made them worse. I fantasize about peeling every layer off her.
I dream about what confessions she might make with my tongue on her clit.
“So you have impure thoughts too?” Her brows lift with the honest inquisition.
I roll my lower lip between my teeth, doing my best not to smile at her description. Impure doesn’t begin to cover it.
“I think about it sometimes, yes. My mind wanders. Especially at night.”
“Would you ever act on it?” Her words are a soft temptation, and if she weren't a mark and a nun, I’d already have her on her knees. I’ve got to remember I’m playing her and not the other way around.
“There’s always the temptation. Under certain circumstances, I think it’d be hard to resist,” I admit.
She takes another step forward, erasing any distance between us, and her head tilts upward as she holds my gaze. I don’t flinch. She’s practically begging me to kiss her. And fuck, for a second, I want to. I want to know what she tastes like. I want to feel her lips on mine.
Which is exactly why I can’t. My brother was right about me going fucking soft out here.
I have to remember what the fuck I’m doing.
She’s a means to an end. A pawn I need to bend to my will.
Seducing her but not fucking her was part of that plan.
If I kiss her out here like this, I’ll be at risk of fucking up everything.
I’ve been on this island too damn long, unmoored from the things that really matter and letting myself indulge in too much of the things that don’t.
“But what kind of priest would I be if I acted on every temptation? We have to hold ourselves morally accountable, or all of this is for nothing.” The last bit comes out sharper than I intend.
A reminder to myself as much as her that acting on every impulse is the kind of base vulgarity that got me into this situation in the first place.
It’s why I was out partying a thousand miles away instead of at home on the ranch when my parents needed me the most.
She snaps out of the spell she's been under. The one where she thought this ended like a fairytale, where I’m ready to give up everything I believe in for one taste of her.
Her lashes flutter, confusion and a hint of betrayal behind them, quickly followed by another flood of embarrassment at having misread the situation.
“Oh. I didn’t. I wasn’t.” She takes a step back, and another, rapidly trying to reestablish the space between us as if she wasn't the one who closed it. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to imply that—” She doesn’t get the last word in because the next step she takes is over the edge of the pier.
This time, it’s too quick for me to catch her, and she plunges into the watery void beneath, the dark waves lapping over her face and silencing her scream.