He slipped his fingers around my wrist, pulling me gently from my place in his seat until my body was hovering just out of reach of his. Focused on his breathing, I counted the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest, willing my heartbeat to align with his.
“That desire to save people, Tressa—” his thumb skated along the underside of my wrist, a tsunami of arousal swirling in my bloodstream with just his scant touch “—it’s a blessing, and it’s a curse.” He leaned in closer then, lips whispering just out of reach of my ear, close enough to arouse me with his breath. “And it says more about you than you know.”
Then he stood, walking from the room and leaving me alone, my heart pounding as it begged for more of his phantom touch.
FIVE
Bastien
I woke the following morning with a hard-on from hell and an uncontrollable need to feel her, all of her, against every hard inch of me. I grunted as I heaved out of bed, my head foggy, not from lack of sleep, but lack of quality sleep. Even after I’d closed my eyes she’d been on my mind, the need to help her—heal her—feel her consuming me. I flipped the water for the shower to the coldest temperature, ridding body of the hot cotton I’d slept in until I was naked—visions of her creamy skin slipping against mine and making my head dizzy.
I thrust myself into the cold spray, cringing as the cool drops hit my heated skin, raining in rivulets down the solid muscle of my stomach. I fisted my thick erection in my hand, leaning my forehead against the cold wall as I pumped long and slow, thoughts of her circling in my head. The way she’d tipped her head last night when my fingers had brushed hers. The soft little mewls as she worked her hips back and forth invisibly. The scent of her aroused pussy, so hot and wet just for me.
I nearly broke, starting to pant as sweat beaded on my forehead despite the cold water soaking my hot body. The soft berry shade of her delicate lips…sweet Heaven, so soft and full, made to be wrapped around my shaft. I groaned, the thought of her here with me now taking over my system as a volcano of sensation shot through my balls and jetted through my throbbing cock. Hot jets of semen spilled from me, my muscles quaking with the overwhelming release—my first release since before I could remember.
I’d taken well to monastic living, until now.
Until her.
I released my cock, finally feeling a little less tense, it’s length only decreasing minutely as the consistent throb created by her presence in my life dulled to a quieter hum. I cupped the base of my shaft, groaning again as I stroked softly, thighs tensing and grunts overtaking me as more semen beaded from the tip.
My head hung in quiet reservation, I swallowed, finally feeling sated enough to start my day with the thought of her walking around in the cottage next door. What did she sleep in? Did she touch herself thinking of me? I sighed, fighting the sense of shame bubbling in the pit of my stomach before quickly washing my body and hair, rinsing and stepping out of the shower to get ready. Wrapping a towel around my waist, I glanced in the tiny mirror, thinking I’d skip the morning shave and leave a little stubble, my sense of normal reserve out the window with more pressing temptations dancing in my head.
Refusing to succumb, I dropped the towel at my waist and shoved myself into undergarments and clerical blacks, finishing with the final straightening of my collar—that collar that gleamed more like a scarlet A at my neck this particular morning. By the time I exited my room and made my way to the attic stairs, I was moving with a renewed sense of purpose—my eye on the church records.
If I couldn’t indulge in the sweet sinful flesh of Tressa in real life—perhaps I’d find an imprint of her on the records of St. Mike’s. It was a long shot—but at least this way I’d get a little organizing done along the way.
Keeping Tressa from playing at the edges of my thoughts all throughout the day was an impossible task. I’d been forced to give myself tasks to occupy the time I normally spent with my thoughts to myself—but instead, now, they were occupied with her. Always.
Her skin, the delicate bow of her lips, the way the hollow of her throat dipped when she talked and made me want to taste that sweet concave with the tip of my tongue. I hadn’t been able to shake her in the days since she’d been staying under my roof—and even on the days when it’d been warm enough for her to stay at her cottage—with our shared keys, it as good as felt like she was in my home.
I was also hesitant to admit that she was working her way around the edges of my heart—not because of my attraction to her—but because she had no one else. I’d often thought myself alone in regards to family all these years—with my sister and nephew far away in the city our lives had grown farther apart than I cared for—but Tressa gave true meaning to the word alone.
She’d revealed little to me about her upbringing, but I respected her deep connection to this church—without community the human soul starved—if Tressa needed St. Mike’s it would be here for her—and I had a hunch St. Mike’s would be better for having her here. The kids in the daycare had taken to her already, and she them like it was second nature.
I'd found myself thinking more about family in the time since she'd been here too, my own now, and the one I'd left behind in Cuba. I was used to leading a life that was an uphill battle but being around Tressa reminded me to take stock of my own priorities more.
Cruz had told me much about his life and college classes in Brooklyn but I couldn't shake the feeling that I should be there more. I'd been lucky when I'd come to this country to have a built-in community in the priesthood, but my sister had had it harder, the circumstances around why she'd even wanted to stay in Brooklyn were murky to me.
I knew far more than I let on about the night we'd fled our country in a rush, her grave condition forcing us to flee for our lives. I'd sworn her a vow of silence that night that I'd upheld. But now that twenty years had passed and that little boy was a grown man—the same little boy she'd sacrificed and nearly lost her life for before the day of his birth, my vow of silence was beginning to falter.
All families kept skeletons stowed neatly away in their deepest darkest closets, but this skeleton wasn't even mine, I’d been only a young man, barely seventeen when she'd come to me explaining what'd happened at work one night at the luxury hotel she worked at in Old Havana, and now she was in danger. She'd seen too much of the wrong people doing the wrong things, and now her only hope of a future for her and her baby was to leave.
The few weekends this summer that Cruz had been with me in Philadelphia the truth of his conception and birth had burned on my lips, only his happy smile had stopped me. Few souls shined as brightly as he did, and no matter how much I thought it important he know the truth, I couldn't bring myself to be his truth-sayer.
And regardless, I took the vow to my sister seriously. I'd hoped to see Cruz as soon as he could take a weekend away, but I also didn't totally trust myself to not be rattled by his very presence.
In fact, at that moment, just about everything was making me feel rattled.
In an effort to distract myself, I’d taken to searching through the old boxes in the attic sifting through the churches past in search for a picture of Tressa, cheeks round with youth. Call me insane but I’d spent so many of the last night consumed with carnal thoughts of her threatening at the shadows of my mind—but I’d turned my obsession into a quest for peace and benevolence. I hadn’t spent much time up here in the year since I’d been at the parish—only shoved a few boxes out of the way and dropped off old items that were no longer in use. It was obvious it’d been a while since anyone had braved it.
I chuckled when a faded Day of the Dead mask fell from a box above my head, landing in a cloud of dust.
That’s exactly how Tressa found me—knee-deep in a cloud of dust and laughing, years of memories stacked in boxes around me. Tressa grinned as she padded closer, socks leaving the outline of her footprints alongside my own larger ones.
“You should have a breathing mask up here.” She covered her nose and mouth with a hand, eyes darti
ng around the stacks at my knees.
“I don’t think anyone’s been up here in years, I’ve been meaning to get to it for a while, maybe put a few things on display at the front of the vestibule.”
“What’s this?” She plopped at my side, stack of brown envelopes in hand.
“Accounting records through the years, Father Martin wasn’t very organized, I’m gathering.” I opened another box wide and shook it. “Photos of just about every person that ever walked through St. Mike’s doors.”
“Good for someone somewhere, bad for us.” She frowned, taking a stack of photos in hand and skimming then. “This one looks like it pre-dates World War II.”
She tossed an old photo of a family between us, dated around the 1960s from the yellowed sepia edges. “Almost.”
I tossed it back in the box and shoved it all aside, making a small clean corner for her to sit at my side.
She did, her shoulder brushing mine, every reflex I’d been squashing for all of my adult life humming to life.
“I used to see my dad in every old picture I came across,” she breached the silence with her quiet words. “Do I have his full lips? His curly hair? I drove myself crazy asking that question. I always hated not knowing what he looked like—my mom had so many photos around the house, sometimes people she only met once at a party—I couldn’t figure out why she never had one of my dad.”
“Do you think she did and was hiding it from you?” I ventured.
She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter—I’ll never get it out of her now—she lost most of her stuff in the last move anyway. We didn’t even live in this neighborhood when I was born, but still whenever I saw men alone at mass—I’d wonder if it was him—my dad—come to get me.” She crossed her legs, so young and unassuming, my dark form swallowing up all the light she naturally emanated. “Mom said father Martin saved our family many times—it’s funny—talk about full-circle,” a sad frown pulled at her lips, “Me. Here. Now.”
She wiped at the barrier of water that filled her eyes, my urge to reach out and console her was strong—my urge to keep my morality in tact—stronger. For this moment anyway.
"That scholarship was my only way out, when that professor sabotaged me, he stole so much more than he realized." She shook her head. "Or maybe he did know, maybe he knew exactly what he was doing, unravelling my sanity and stealing my future one well-placed sword at a time."
"No one can steal your future, Tressa. Defeat is a powerful emotion, don't allow it to make your decisions for you."
She was still at my side, snow swirling. "It's hard to hold your head high when the storms just keep coming.”
I frowned before uttering, “so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
"Never pegged you for an F. Scott Fitzgerald kind of guy.” She sighed. "All that glitz and melancholy doesn't suit you, Father.”
I cracked a wry grin. “He was wise in his self-awareness, foolish in his love for doomed things." My words hung in the air between us before I finally asked, “Your dad, did he ever come?”
She shook her head, eyes finally pulling away from the circle window over my shoulder to meet mine. “Never.”
SIX
Tressa
My footsteps echoed on the wooden floors as I wound my way through the hall and down the last Stations of the Cross. It was a few nights after our talk about family and fathers and all the other pathetic parts of my existence, and I still was feeling knocked off-kilter by all of it. Being back in this part of town had triggered unexpected memories, a past I thought I’d long buried. I wished again that I could retreat to my mom’s house, ask her questions and believe the answers she gave in return—but the things that came out of her mouth were rarely truthful and often soaked in a drunken slur. I’d come to figure her own memories were half-baked at best—but even with that all of that reality—I still couldn’t shake the drive to find out more about my dad.
Moonlight slivered through stained glass as snowflakes swayed on the wind outside, thoughts about the truths that could be snaked between my mother’s lies eating me up. It felt like I’d been living a life of chaos in all the years leading up to now as I tried to figure out my place—trying to discover myself through a cracked glass frosted with pain and rejection. Calm had only begun to find me when I’d come back here.
A gust of air made the vestibule doors shudder then. Father Bastien was usually around before now, locking the adjacent outer doors just after the sun went down. Maybe he’d gotten caught up with work tonight, though. I’d already given Lucy a copy of the cottage key—which technically meant that we both now had easy access to the church and rectory—Bastien’s way of welcoming us fully into the church family. He was generous—but sometimes I wondered if even his generosity had limits.
He’d been spending a lot of time in the tiny office upstairs the last few days, desk and lamp and boxes of church records at his feet as he siphoned through decades of history. I wasn’t sure what he was doing, exactly, but whatever it was, he did it with all of his focus. And when he didn’t have his head in a church record—he’d walked like a ghost around the rooms, quiet and deliberate—my eyes only catching his long enough for a brief nod before he was on his way.
Pushing through the vestibule then, I found the outer doors cracked open, Lucy’s sneaker wedged deftly in the doorway to prevent it closing.
“I didn’t realize you were out here.”
Lucy whipped around, eyes big in the soft moonlight.
A dark shadow over her shoulder moved away, icy eyes piercing my gaze before skittering off. “Is that someone you know?”
Lucy nodded, pushing the door closed and ducking around me.
“Do they need help? We have plenty of blankets and food if—”
“No, he doesn’t. I don’t even know how he found me.” Her voice was just above a whisper, some chill buried deep inside echoing through my bones.
“He? Was he bothering you?” I ventured softly.
She shook her head quickly, but her chin trembled, betraying her brave face. “Casey—he’s from my high school. I hadn’t seen him for a few years until we ran into each other at a party a few weeks ago. We spent time together, but then we lost touch. Until lately. Lately, he’s been finding me more. Tracking me down, and I’m not easily trackable.”
“Has he ever threatened you or…?”
Lucy’s dark eyes narrowed, then she looked down at the floor, head shaking. “No.”
“If you ever want to… Well, I’m here. For anything at all. Okay?”
Lucy nodded, littlest of smiles turning up her lips.
She’d never looked so young, despite the few short years that separated us.
“I’m going to grab my jacket and go back to the house.”
I nodded, sighing as I watched her small form retreat down the last Stations of the Cross. Something about her soul struck me as sad, still healing, in need of so much love. I hoped I could help raise her up to the woman she could be.
The bells high up in the tower chose that moment, the top of the hour, to chime, echoing around the old stone walls and sending vibrations through my nerves. That calming, soothing sensation I hadn’t known I’d missed. My mom had moved us in and out of so many houses that this, this sound, this feeling filling me right now, felt more like home than anywhere else ever had.
I settled down into the nearest pew, my body melting into the cool, glossy wood.
I sucked in soft breaths, fingertips shuttling across the bottom edge, shoulders sinking down into the ancient wood before I let my body go, straightening my legs and shuttering my eyes closed.
Serenity seeped into the depths of my soul.
I might not believe in the dogmatic order of this way of life, but I did believe in the magic of moonlight dancing in stained-glass windows, decades of frankincense steeped into all the nooks and crannies, a community with a heart so big you could feel it inflating your own wounded chest.
&n
bsp; The entire sense of this place moved me in a way few things ever could.
That feeling of home was the reason this had been my last resort.
St. Michael’s.
“Tressa?”
Him.
I gulped, eyes fluttering open and studying the high-ceilinged beams of the nave. “Yes?”
Bastien settled in the pew ahead of mine, beautiful smile coming into my view and making a thousand currents of feeling gush through my body.
Bundled in an oversized sweater, dark leggings, and boots, I suddenly felt so naked.
“Feeling okay over here?”
Razors fought to clog my throat as I resisted the urge to press a hand to my neck to remove the elephant that must be sitting there. He, as if hearing my mind’s words, trailed his eyes over the hollow of my neck, skating quickly down my body, offered up for sacrifice on his holy pew. “I’m f-fine.” I swallowed, then said, “I was praying.”
Bastien’s eyes widened a moment, stubbled grin deepening as he set his prayer book and holy oil aside. “Praying, huh? Am I to take it as a sign you’re ready to confess?”
I followed his gaze and realized it probably did look like that, considering I’d lain down right near the confessional.
“That might be a leap too far. I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
He only shook his head, soft chuckle rumbling its way through my already sensitive body like a freight train.
Did he realize that, with a single glance, he set every atom that made up my body on fire? That some days, my heart felt like a frigid, empty cellar, his very presence the warmth and light my soul craved.
“I can help remind you. Consider it an adventure.” His accent thickened. I slammed my eyes shut, nipples puckering so tightly, they seemed to scrape against the otherwise soft fabric of my shirt.
“I’ve never been opposed to adventure,” I husked.
“No?” His voice lowered, tone sending my arousal spiraling. “Seeing you like this…you don’t know what it does to me.” His words echoed in the charged air between us. “Touching you. Not touching you. It’s torture.”
REBEL PRIEST Page 4
