Priest

by Sierra Simone

  God. He’s such a tool.

  “You have to understand, I knew he’d come here eventually, and I knew that I would tell him I didn’t want to be with him. But I also knew that he wouldn’t accept anything less than a full, face-to-face rejection, and also I felt like I at least owed him dinner, a chance to talk everything over. I mean, we dated for years….”

  “Years that he cheated on you,” I muttered.

  She looked over at me. The look wasn’t entirely pleasant. “Anyway,” she continued, her voice edged with agitation, “I agreed to drive down to the city and get dinner with him. We ended up talking so late that I fell asleep in his hotel room.”

  I didn’t like that detail.

  I didn’t like that detail at all.

  “But like I said,” she said, “nothing happened. I dozed on his couch until morning and then his driver brought me back home. To you.”

  “So he knows now that you’re done with him? He’s leaving?”

  She hesitated. “Yes?”

  “Is that a question? Are you saying you don’t know for sure?”

  Her eyes stayed on the road. “When I left this morning, he said he understood my decision completely. He said he didn’t want me to be with him unwillingly—that it mattered to him how I felt. And so he’d be stepping back.”

  I thought of the man I’d met yesterday, of those icy blue eyes and that calculating voice. He didn’t seem like the kind of man who’d step back. He did, however, seem like the kind of man who would lie about stepping back.

  “So the pictures he’s taken of us…he went to all that effort to set up a potential blackmailing scheme and he’s just going to give that up?”

  She bit her lip, checking over her shoulder and changing lanes again. I liked the way she drove—fast, capable, with a flavor of aggression that never actually translated into anything unsafe. “I don’t know,” she said a bit helplessly. “He seemed so determined and so yeah—it’s hard to imagine him going to all that effort just to leave, but I also don’t think he’d lie about it either.”

  “I do,” I said under my breath.

  She heard. “Look, Sterling is not a saint, but it’s not fair to demonize him just because he is my ex. Yes, he did bad things, but it’s not like he’s a psychopath. He’s just a spoiled boy who’s never had anyone say no to him. And I honestly don’t think he’ll do anything with those pictures.”

  Is she defending him? It felt like she was defending him, and that pissed me off a little.

  “Did he offer to return the files to you? Or even to delete them?”

  “What? No. But—”

  “Then I don’t think he’s planning on going anywhere,” I said, keeping my gaze on the window, where the dusk-covered fields were slowly turning into the sprawl of the city. “He said what he knew you wanted to hear, but this isn’t over, Poppy. It won’t be over for him until he gets what he wants. Which is you.”

  Her hand slid over mine, and for a minute, I petulantly thought about ignoring it, about not lacing my fingers through hers, whether to hurt her or to show my disagreement, I wasn’t sure.

  God, I was being such a tool.

  When I grabbed her hand, I grabbed it tight. “I’m sorry,” I said. “It’s just—it’s like this trident pointed right at my heart. That I might lose you or lose my job—or both.”

  “You’re not losing me,” she insisted, glancing over. “And you won’t lose your job. Unless you want to.”

  I rested my head against the cool glass of the window. And there it was…the choice. Black and white, night and day, one or the other. Poppy or God.

  “Millie knows,” I said out of nowhere.

  I felt her hand tense in mine, and there it was again, that weird anger, because why would Millie—awesome, dependable Millie—be more worrisome than Sterling? But I took a breath and then eased it out. I refused to let this latest cascade of events drive a wedge between us.

  I wouldn’t allow it.

  “She’s not going to tell anyone,” I reassured Poppy. And then I told her about what had happened to me yesterday, ultimately choosing to tell her every single thing, even my ugly, stupid thoughts, because I owed her that. I wanted to owe her that. And really, what did I have to lose? I was this close to losing everything anyway. Might as well be honest.

  She listened as I told her everything, about Millie, and about Sterling’s blackmail, and about how I had guessed she was with him even before he texted me, and about all the nasty, jealous feelings currently corkscrewed into my chest, and when I finished, her lips were pressed together in a red line, hiding those teeth I found so strangely sexy, pulling her features into a serious expression that was somehow just as attractive.

  “I know we haven’t known each other long,” she said. “But you never have to worry about me cheating on you. It won’t happen. Period. I don’t cheat.”

  “I didn’t mean…” I struggled for the right words. “I know you, the real you, and I know you wouldn’t do anything to hurt me. But I also know that Sterling is more than just an ex-boyfriend to you. I know that there’s something between you two that’s old and powerful, and I guess that’s what had me worried, not some imagined weakness in your character.”

  “It doesn’t matter how much history is between Sterling and me. I’ll never cheat on you. It’s not in my nature.”

  I hoped that was true. I hoped it so much. But it occurred to me that there was no way I could ever be sure that she wouldn’t cheat, there was no warranty for trusting someone you loved and no court where you could sue them if they ended up betraying you. Loving her, choosing to trust her with Sterling, it would make me vulnerable.

  But she was already vulnerable, loving a man who wasn’t actually allowed to love her back, so maybe this made us even.

  To lighten the mood, I said, “I guess I understand that. Sean and Aiden even have a name for why people are the way you are; they call it the Monogamy Gene.”

  “The monogamy gene,” she repeated. “I suppose that’s about right.”

  I sat back. Downtown Kansas City came into view, glass and brick monoliths scraping against a lavender sky, the river a steel-gray snake below.

  “They also used to joke I had the celibacy gene,” I said. “Although now I’m not so sure.” Streetlights and stoplights flashed across through car, and Poppy deftly maneuvered through the traffic to pull into the heart of the city.

  “Maybe it wasn’t the celibacy gene,” I said, more to myself than to her. “Maybe it’s just that I was always waiting for you.”

  She sucked in a breath and jerked the car into an alley between two buildings. Before I could ask her what she was doing, she’d put the car in park and was crawling onto my lap, which made my dick perk up with interest.

  Her lips met mine with urgency, a hot, determined hunger, and her hands were everywhere—in my hair, on my chest, pulling impatiently at the fly of my jeans.

  “I love you,” she breathed, over and over again, and the tension of the drive melted away. “I love you, I love you, I love you. And I’m so sorry for everything today.”

  I found her ass under her dress and squeezed, sliding my fingers beneath her thighs to run my fingertips along the crotch of her thong, which was damp.

  But before I could delve any further into this interesting new development, she pulled back, breathing hard.

  “We have a big night ahead, so I don’t want to ruin it by getting started early,” she said with a smile. “But you don’t know what you do to me when you say things like that.”

  “They’re all true,” I whispered to her. “I care about you so fucking much and I just wish—” I pulled her tight to me, her chest in my face, her pussy flat against my denim-clad erection. “I just wish it was like this all the time. You and me. No decisions. No problems. Just…us.”

  She kissed the top of my head. “Well, if it’s escape you’re looking for, then you’ll like tonight.”

  At first, I thought maybe Poppy had lost her mi
nd, because instead of going to a restaurant or a movie theater or anything remotely date-like, she pulled into an office parking garage (and I only knew it was an office because the Business Brothers worked two skyscrapers down and Aiden used to date a girl who worked here.)

  We walked over to the glassed-in elevator vestibule and Poppy ran a keycard over the secured door. When it clicked open, she led me to the far elevator, ran the keycard again, and we shot up to the 30th floor.

  Finally, I ventured to ask. “Where are we going?”

  She gave me a small smile, one of those smiles that left me transfixed by her mouth. “To my job.”

  I barely had time to process this before we were walking inside, before Poppy was nodding at the woman at the front desk (who was dressed in a tailored suit, as if she was working at an investment firm and not at a strip club.) Poppy pushed at the smoked glass doors, and I followed, and then we were inside the most exclusive club in this city, the place that had lured a Dartmouth MBA to stay when Wall Street couldn’t.

  Walls had been constructed along the perimeter of the space, blocking the windows, presumably so the flashing lights wouldn’t shine out during the night (and so that daylight wouldn’t shine in during the day.) But there was a sizable gap between the walls and the windows, meaning any guest could take his drink and roam in between the two, gazing out at the cityscape, as several men were doing now, some of them fielding what sounded like business calls as Poppy led me past.

  Here and there, the walls broke, giving me a glimpse inside the main room. Two or three women danced alone in glassed-in boxes, but several were out on the floor, and I instinctively turned my eyes away from all the exposed female flesh. Maybe I was still a priest at heart.

  But then my eyes were drawn back to Poppy’s short tunic and where I could see the shape of her ass through the fabric.

  Yeah, right.

  We ducked through one of the openings and then Poppy led me inside a room.

  “What are we doing?”

  “My boss said I can use these rooms whenever I want. And I want to right now.”

  “For me?”

  “For you. Now wait here,” she said with a grin, and then left, closing the heavy wood door with a snick.

  So these were the private rooms she’d told me about, like the one she’d fucked Sterling in. That thought sent the now-familiar corkscrew of jealousy spiraling deeper, but then I remembered the car, her desperate I love yous. She was here…with me. Not with him.

  But why did this snake of anger still slither in my belly? I hated myself for feeling it, but I couldn’t chase it out, couldn’t dig it out. It slunk through my veins, tickling the inside of my fingertips with the urge to—to what? Spank her ass for spending time with her ex without my permission? Fuck her until she grunted, until my cock was the only thing she knew?

  God, I was such a fucking Philistine.

  To distract myself, I examined my surroundings. I’d never been to a strip club before, but this was admittedly much nicer than what I’d expected. There was a chair and a sofa, both leather (easily cleaned, a bitter voice thought) and a dais in the middle of the room, wide enough to host a pole and also wide enough for a dancer to dance without it.

  The light was low—shades of blue and purple—and the music was loud but not loud enough to be annoying. The kind of volume where it sank into your blood with a thrumming, demanding beat, where it fused with your own thoughts and set your pulse higher, set your adrenaline on a slow, steady drip.

  I sat on the leather sofa and leaned forward, looking at my hands. What was I doing here? Why had she brought me? Of all the places—

  But then the door opened and I stopped wondering anything except when I could push my cock inside her because fuck.

  She wore a wig the color of blue cotton candy, and eye makeup so heavy that all I could picture were those kohl-rimmed eyes peering up at me as she sucked my dick. And I immediately saw what she’d meant when she said the club liked to hire girls who looked expensive. Because while I knew fuck all about lingerie, I did know that the delicately embroidered fabric of her sheer panties was not probably not the usual stripper garb. Nor the matching silk shelf bra or the lace pasties covering her nipples—all in a soft champagne. A strip of the same champagne-colored silk was tied around her neck in a bow, and I wanted to unwrap her like a present, right then and there. She always looked amazing—in clothes and naked—but she was transformed right now, a Poppy I had only seen glimpses of even in our most intimate moments.

  She strode over to me, just as graceful in six-inch heels as she was in ballet flats, and held out her hand. “Your wallet.”

  Confused, I dug it out of my (suddenly very tight) jeans and handed it to her. She dug a roll of crisp fifties and hundreds out of her bra and slid them neatly inside my wallet, handing it back to me. “I want to play a game,” she said.

  “Okay,” I said, my mouth suddenly dry. “Let’s play a game.”

  She licked her lips, and I realized that I wasn’t the only one crazy fucking turned on right now. “You’re just a client, and I’m just a dancer, okay?”

  “Okay,” I echoed.

  “And you know there’s certain rules about private rooms, don’t you?”

  I shook my head, unable to keep my gaze from raking over her form, over her expensive lingerie, over that strip of silk tied around her neck that could so easily be turned into a leash…

  “Well, first you have to pay me for being here.” And then she put a hand on her hip, looking so impatient and so hot, and any philosophical arguments Good Guy Tyler might have had about pretending something so degrading—about being in a strip club in the first place—vanished. And the moment I placed the bills in her hand, the air instantly changed. The game vanished and this was our reality—no matter that we loved each other, that this wasn’t even my money—I was paying her and she was taking it and now she was on the stage, one hand on the pole, her eyes on me.

  She started dancing, and I leaned back, wanting to memorize every detail of this, of the way her legs wrapped around the pole as she swung, the way her blue hair brushed against her shoulders, the way the muscles in her arms and shoulders pulled and strained against each other.

  The low light, the loud music, the anonymity of the sex on display in front of me…all combined with the heated blaze in her eyes, like she wanted me and me specifically and me right now—I now understood why Herod had offered Salome anything she’d wanted after she danced for him. There was something so delicious in the tug of power between us; I presumably held all the control and dignity in this situation, but the reverse was actually true. She was captivating me, she was putting me under her thrall, until I wanted to offer her everything, not just the money she’d put in my wallet, but my house, my life, my soul.

  Poppy and her dance of seven veils.

  And then she bent over, and I was distracted by the fact that her ass was now front and center, that I could see the shadow of her folds through the fabric, and I would’ve sworn any oath right then to caress her there.

  I shifted, trying to make more room for myself in my jeans, but it was useless. And then she was in front of me, a hand on each of my knees, and she spread them wide so she could step between them. She turned so that her ass was in front of my face, so close that I could make out the individual flowers embroidered on her lingerie, and I ran a finger across them.

  She caught my hand. “You have to pay more if you want to touch,” she purred, and I followed Herod down the path to spiritual perdition, because no price was too high for her.

  I handed over the money without question, which she tucked in her bra. Then she guided my hands to her hips and moved them down to her flanks and then back up to her tits. I toyed with the pasties a moment, both loving and hating the unfamiliar feeling of having her nipples blocked from me.

  She sat in my lap, pressing her ass against my erection and laying her head back against my shoulder as I fondled her tits. I nuzzled her neck. “I
bet you do this with all the guys who come in here.”

  “Just you,” she said in a velvet voice, wriggling against me, the friction against my dick making me groan quietly. She flipped over, so she was straddling me.

  “You know,” she said, in that same low, kitten voice, “I never let guys do this, but if you want, I’ll let you see my pussy.”

  Yes, please.

  “I would like that.” I am very proud that I managed to not squeak like a teenage boy.

  She extended her hand, and I fished out the wallet again. It was just as well that this was a game; I’d never be able to afford Poppy on a priest’s salary.

  After she was paid, she hopped on the dais and spread her legs wide again, pulling the crotch of her panties aside to show me what I wanted to see. It was wet and an enticing rose color in the dim blue light of the room—the color Renaissance painters should’ve used to paint the light of Heaven.

  I stared, hypnotized, as she slowly let her hand drift from her neck, down past her breasts to the gentle rise of her pubic bone. From there she traced wide, light circles around her pussy, a loose spiral across her lower stomach and inner thighs, drawing closer and closer, and when she finally grazed her clit, I let out a shaky breath I didn’t know I’d been holding.

  She too sighed at her touch, her hips rocking tiny little rocks into her hand, as if she was unconsciously trying to fuck the air, and I was beginning to lose track of everything that wasn’t her cunt. Didn’t she know I could fill it for her? Didn’t she know I could make her feel good, if only she’d let me?

  I stood up and walked to the dais. Our eyes were at the same level, and I kept her gaze as I slid my hands from her knees up to her inner thighs, my thumbs coming teasingly close to her pussy. I did it again, this time daring to go closer, wondering if she would let me, if her lust would overtake her rules about money. My thumbs ran over her folds and she shuddered, and so did I, because holy shit, she was wet. So wet that I knew I’d be able to push my dick right in with no resistance.

  “You want to stick your fingers inside me?” she asked.