Chapter 14 #2
"But Emmaleen," he says, and his voice has gone cold. Sharp. "If you're thinkin' of trickin' me—of pretendin' to try while holdin' back your true effort—I'll banish ya from this chapel forever. Do ya understand?"
Oh shit. I wasn't gonna do that, but just the thought if it makes me shudder.
Banished.
No. I do not want to be banished.
"I will forgive failure," Saint Lorcan says quietly. "I will forgive tears, and breakin', and losin' count, and forgettin' the words. But I will not forgive lies. If ya don't give me your best, lass—if ya try to manipulate this—you'll never kneel here again."
His hips press forward slightly, grinding his cock against me, and I whimper.
"So I'm askin' ya now," he murmurs against my ear. "Are ya goin' to try?"
I swallow hard.
Nod.
"Say it."
"I'll try," I whisper. "I'll try my very hardest."
"Good girl."
He straightens, his weight lifting off my back, and I feel the loss of him like a physical ache.
"Then let's begin."
I close my eyes, press my forehead to the wood, and start to pray.
CRACK.
My entire body jolts forward, fingers scrabbling against the prayer desk, and holy fuck that hurt ten times worse than the last one.
"What number was that, a stór?" Saint Lorcan asks, voice calm as death.
I freeze.
My brain scrambles, desperately trying to rewind the last sixty seconds, trying to count how many strikes I've taken—
Five? Six? Eight?
I have absolutely no fucking idea.
"I—I don't—" My voice cracks. "I don't know."
The silence that follows is so thick I can hear my own heartbeat pounding in my ears.
Shit shit shit I fucked up already—
"It's alright, beloved," Saint Lorcan says, and his hand settles on my lower back. Warm. Steady. "Ya got lost in the pain and we took a tiny break so I could explain things to ya. It happens to the best of us, so I completely understand."
I let out a breath. He's very forgiving.
"We'll just start over."
My breath catches. "Start... over?"
"Aye." His palm slides down my spine, then back up again in a soothing stroke. "This time, you'll count and pray. One strike, one line of the prayer, one number. Simple as that."
There's no irritation in his voice.
No disappointment. No threat. Just... patience.
Who the fuck is this guy?
"You can fail as many times as ya want, lass," Saint Lorcan continues. "Lose count, forget the words, need a break—doesn't matter. We'll just reset and start again. No judgment. No consequences. Just you and me, workin' through it together until we get to seventeen."
His hand cups my hip, thumb stroking the bone there.
"Do ya understand?"
I nod against the wood, but my brain is short-circuiting because—
Wait.
Wait.
"Every time?" I whisper. "I have to start over every time I mess up?"
"Aye."
The reality of that hits. If I lose count at strike fifteen, we go back to one. If I forget the prayer at strike twelve, we reset. If I can't take it anymore at strike nine and need a break—back to the beginning.
Giovanni's spankings were controlled bursts—brutal, yes, but finite. Thirty strikes with the crop and it was done. I could scream, and writhe, and white-knuckle my way through because I knew there was an endpoint.
Jino doesn't punish me at all. He tests. He trains. He edges, and denies, and builds arousal. And he'll correct me. Snap the crop against my nipples if I slouch. Stuff like that. But he doesn't deliver pain like this.
This is something else entirely. This is more than endurance. It's more than precision. It's a… a religion.
This is Saint Lorcan telling me I can fail as many times as I want—but every failure costs me everything I've already endured.
Penance, Emmaleen. The word is penance.
Literally.
Panic claws up my throat.
"I don't know," I whimper. "I can't start over. I can't—"
The words fracture into broken crying because my ass is already on fire and the thought of doing this again, and again, and again until I somehow manage to hold it together for seventeen consecutive strikes—
I can't.
I can't do it.
Saint Lorcan says nothing. But his hand leaves my hip and slides between my thighs, cupping my pussy with firm, possessive pressure.
I freeze, breath catching.
He doesn't push inside me. Doesn't stroke. Doesn't give me anything except the promise of his touch—hovering right there, so close to what I desperately need but refusing to deliver.
The message is crystal fucking clear.
If you want this, you'll earn it.
I try my best to calm down, my whole body shaking. His hand stays exactly where it is—steady, patient, waiting for me to work through the panic and reach the only logical conclusion.
If I want pleasure tonight—if I want to come—I have to endure this.
All of it.
The pain. The failures. The endless resets.
I have to pray and count through seventeen strikes without losing my place, and if I can't manage that, then I get nothing.
Saint Lorcan's thumb shifts slightly, barely grazing my clit, and I whimper.
You evil Irish bastard.
But also—
Okay fine yes I'll do it just please touch me properly—
I take a shaky breath.
Let it out.
My brain scrambles for justification, for some way to make this okay, and what comes out is:
Alright, Emmaleen. Think of it like a video game.
You die, you respawn at the last checkpoint.
Except instead of Princess Peach, you're rescuing your own orgasm from the castle of an extremely hot monk who's definitely going to hell.
And also you. You're both going to hell. But at least you'll have company.
I let out a broken laugh that's half sob.
"All right," I whisper. "I'll—I'll try again."
Saint Lorcan's hand leaves my pussy immediately, and the loss is devastating.