Chapter 7
Seven
Mercy
Ican’t stop reading about a young woman’s life in medieval France. I even grab the sword once or twice, but sadly, no flames erupt. It’s possible it’s not real. Stranger things have happened. It’s also possible that Joan was insane. Still, something keeps me going.
The only sounds are the buzz of a distant fly, the flip of a page, and the occasional hiss of my own breath.
Until the door clicks open.
My fingers freeze around the journal. I don’t even breathe. Every ounce of my attention watches the shadowed figure as he slips inside the reliquary. He doesn’t bother with the lights, but I know that swagger. I know those broad shoulders, form-fitting black clericals, and tattooed hands.
My body wakes up before my brain does. Of course it does.
Cisco closes the door with an easy flick of his wrist. Oblivious to me crouched between stacked boxes, he leans forward, head bowed, splayed hands braced on the door.
“Father! Oh Father, where art thou?” Outside, Tawny’s sugary voice takes on a pleading tone. “I need you to taste test these cookies for evil. Please?” A pause. “Where are you? I saw you come in here.” Another pause. “I’m starving.”
A grumbled curse travels across the room.
Oh yeah, he’s got that priest act on lockdown. He has everyone fooled with his fake compassion, rich Italian purr, and that stupidly sexy scarred upper lip. But I see him.
Nice try, priest.
I move fast, silent, gliding through the room until I’m right behind him, breathing on the back of his tattooed neck, smelling soap and incense on his skin.
His head jerks up. Tension wraps his posture, drawing every muscle tight from his head down his muscular back, to where his hands fist against the door. For a split second, he doesn’t move. Doesn’t breathe. Maybe he thinks I’m a demon, about to rip his soul out through his asshole.
A smile tugs at my lips as I whisper into his ear, “You always creep around like this, Padre, or just when you’re hiding from Tawny’s baking?”
Cisco turns so fast that I have to step back or risk us going down in a tangle of limbs.
Before I recover, he covers my mouth with his giant hand.
He grabs my waist, and suddenly the world is spinning.
When it stops, our positions are reversed.
Already deprived of my usual stress release therapy, every nerve ending in my body is on edge.
So when the priest presses his warm body into mine, trapping me against the door, my executive functioning turns to mush.
I lift my gaze to his and expect to find violence, to finally see the real man buried beneath that tighty-whitey collar. Instead, I’m met with panic, and it throws me, completely wiping out twenty years of automatic tactical response training.
He shakes his head at me, eyes wide. “Please.”
I should be shoving him off me. Instead, I’m not thinking at all. My body is. There’s no instinct for self-defense. No care. Just the feminine urge to hook my leg around his hip and pull the heat of his body into mine.
“Father!” Tawny’s voice grows louder as she nears the reliquary again. “I promise this is the last batch! Where are you?”
“Wha—” I try to speak, but his hand presses harder over my mouth.
I flatten my palms on his shoulders. Damn, he’s tense. Muscles are corded beneath. My fingers prod a little more. Fuck me, he’s ripped beneath this shirt. No wonder it looks snug.
“Shh.” Cisco continues to release quiet, guttural pleas in Italian. Something like, “Please, please, please, shh.”
I nod once, like a good little Sinner, and let the priest press against me harder.
Logic slowly filters back, and I narrow my eyes. This act of his seems very convincing. What if he does need my help? Stranger things have happened. Thea slept next to Prue for half a night before realizing Prue was possessed by a demon.
He doesn’t appear to be possessed, though. And that Beatific Vision sense Mary Magdalene’s Gospel gave me isn’t throwing an alarm. This must be all Cisco.
It’s almost entertaining. I’ll give him to the count of thirty to explain, then it’s gloves off.
Outside, Tawny’s voice pitches up, then down, like a whiny siren losing power. Her footsteps fade, and then it’s silent.
Still, we linger.
Still, his pulse rattles in my blood.
Finally, he eases off but doesn’t step away. The impression his body left on mine is hot and electric, like the aftershock of a punch. I tilt my chin, daring him to move first. Instead, he stares into my eyes. It’s more unnerving than his touch.
I raise my brows, about to say … something, but then his gaze darts down and notices my yoga shirt has ridden up my stomach, revealing a flash of abdomen.
He dares to flush crimson in the cheeks.
The ex-con priest with tattoos blushes. It takes all my self-control to calmly tug the hem down and take my time smoothing the fabric.
His blush deepens as his gaze tracks my hand.
Watching him unravel is the most delicious drug.
A part of me wants to dig further, to play with him some more.
For a man who supposedly has a dangerous, violent criminal past, I’m not sure if I’m convinced.
Surely this bashfulness isn’t what a decade of celibacy creates.
Wait … maybe it’s more like two decades if I count his time in prison.
How sad.
Also … kind of hot.
No! The priest is not hot. He’s an asshole who betrayed us. My lips purse, and his eyes flick down to the corner of my mouth, then back up.
“You are angry,” he grumbles.
The accuracy of it stuns me into silence long enough for him to rush through an explanation.
“I was in the kitchen. Tawny and Leila have baked…” He slips into Italian and rambles something about cookies, scones, and lemon tarts, but it’s hard to follow.
He throws up his hands, as if he’s under siege.
“Dio mio! They told me to taste test for evil in each batch. I have done this eight times.” Another helpless look.
“I can’t taste evil. This is not how it works. ”
A thousand thoughts hurtle through my mind, but the most prevalent is the image of this man, all inked forearms and stoic manliness, forced to sample pastries on repeat?
I burst out laughing. I laugh so hard that it echoes off the walls.
Here I was thinking he’s some kind of mastermind at subterfuge—the Great Vatican Pretender.
Our Sisterhood was doomed because he tattled on us to his Daddies.
But he’s all show. I wouldn’t be surprised if his bad-boy backstory is a fabrication.
“This is not funny.” He blinks, affronted.
“Yes, it is.”
“No, it’s not.”
“Yes.”
“No.” Two dark brows slam down, and I’m once again in the presence of a man with an intense, almost suffocating aura. One I almost dismissed.
He only needs to glare at me, and I feel like the lamb to his wolf. My laughter dies to a throaty chuckle. When that dies too, I’m left only with the sound of my pounding heart. Not once did he break eye contact.
Oh, he’s good.
Okay. Maybe there’s some truth to his backstory. Whatever the case, he is a walking contradiction. It intrigues me.
His gaze drops briefly to my shoulders, and something in his expression eases.
“Better,” he says.
I don’t realize my shoulders have dropped until he points it out. The fact that he was tracking the tension in my body this whole time makes my skin prickle with something I refuse to name.
Eventually, his expression smooths out, and he adds begrudgingly, “You would not like this if they made you eat so many cakes in one day.”
“Agreed.” I let my voice go husky and add, “My thighs don’t need the encouragement.”
Now we’re back to staring and sizing each other up.
He clears his throat. “I … I kept the confessional unlocked.”
I blink. “Pardon?”
“I was there for two nights.”
“Good for you.”
“Waiting.”
“You want a medal?”
His lips pull tight at his scar. “You have not come to confession, Misericordia.”
My breath hitches at my name in Italian on his lips. It’s so like the word in French. La relique requiert miséricorde parfaite.
Except that with him, my name sounds sad. Miserable and forlorn. Like an uttered curse. Like someone who will regret me later.
“My name is Mercy.” Acid edges my tone. “And, why the hell would I bother coming to confession now? Things have changed since I made that promise. You’re Entity, and soon they’ll be here to erase our very existence.”
His cheekbones go hard. The air in the reliquary vibrates with tension. He doesn’t deny it, doesn’t even try.
And now we’re back to staring each other down, but this time there’s a feral, raw edge to it. I feint to his right, testing. He blocks me with a simple sidestep, arms folded.
“Don’t mess with me, Padre.” My voice is low. Too low. “You don’t know what I’m capable of.”
“Likewise.” Two syllables. It’s almost a challenge.
“What do you want?”
We stare.
He waits.
I wait longer.
At last, something shifts behind his eyes, and he digs a phone out from his pocket and unlocks the screen with a thumb. Then he holds it out toward me.