by Claire Adams
“I’m glad you said that about the path. That’s what I keep asking God over and over: if I wasn’t meant to be with you and if this is wrong, then why did He put you in my path and give me these overwhelming feelings for you?
“There has to be a reason we met. God has to have a plan for us, and I can’t imagine that plan is for us to have this kind of intense experience and then just walk away from one another and go on with our lives as we swallow the guilt.”
If Jace really believes that, if he really thinks we’re destined to be together, then maybe he won’t run away when he knows the truth. If I am going to expect him to give up his life’s chosen work for me, then the very least I can do is tell him the truth and let him decide what to do with it on his own.
I took a deep, shaky breath and said, “My faith comes from having nothing else and no one else to turn to. I turned to God when I needed someone to tell my secrets to because they weighed much too heavily on my young shoulders. Things I couldn’t tell anyone else…”
His brows were pulled together and he was looking worried again. “Things like what, Daphne?”
I felt a tear slide down my face. “My mother died when I was very young. I’m not sure if that’s what prompted it…or if my father is just a sick bastard who has always been so…”
Jace was giving me that look that other men had given me — the one that said they may be afraid they asked now. I swallowed the lump in my throat and went on.
“My father beat me…and he raped me. When I finally got away, I was sure it was because throughout it all, I had kept my faith in God. Otherwise, I believe he would have killed me. I needed a stable parent in my life and God gave me that. I learned that He would love me unconditionally and would never, ever hurt me, so that was where I turned.”
Jace was staring at me, and I couldn’t read the look on his face. I reached up and wiped the silent tears off my cheeks and waited.
If he was going to run, it would be now. If he was going to pity me, I would see it…and hear it in his voice. He didn’t do either. All at once, he nodded and said, “That’s it,” in a soft voice.
Confused, I said, “What? What’s it?”
“It’s that strength, that will to survive that I see and feel coming from inside of you. It’s immense, bigger than most people and the strongest kind of faith a person can experience. I know this for a fact.”
I smiled slightly at his analysis. It was the best I’d ever heard and instead of making me feel like a freak, it made me feel warm and safe inside. “How do you know it for a fact?” I asked him.
“I recognize it because I feel it. I feel it because I’ve been there, too.
“My mother was a raging alcoholic. She went through boyfriends the way she did liquor and each one of them got worse. My brothers and I were never sexually assaulted, but we were beaten, sometimes so severely that we had to go to the hospital. We all have different fathers and none of us knew who any of them were; that was probably a blessing.
“She got into drugs, too, eventually. She owed a lot of money to her dealers. I think she worked some of it off with her body and some of it by selling drugs. But apparently, not all of it.
“She was murdered in the house one night while we were all sleeping. Her boyfriend at the time wasn’t home when it happened. When he got home, he got high before he called the police.
“Ryan was just starting to pull himself up at the time. He grabbed a baggie of something off the coffee table and spilled it all over. He knocked Ryan across the room and then got up and went after him again. “Max and I got between them, and he beat us both so badly we all had to be in the hospital for a while. By the time we got out, they had finally tracked down my grandmother.
“Mom had taken off when Max was born and never told Grandma where she was. She had always told us that her mother was a horrible person and if we didn’t behave, she would send us there and Grandma would torture us like she did her.
“Grandma never stopped looking for Max. Mom wasn’t supposed to have custody of him because she was already a mess when he was born. Grandma had kept in touch with the police for years, and when my mother died, one of the detectives connected the two and called her.
“She was surprised when she found three of us and not one, but she didn’t hesitate to take us in. Ryan had a lot of problems after that and that was the biggest reason that he and Grandma ended up so close. I think it also has a lot to do with how he is still so childlike. We give him a lot of leeway because of it.”
“I’m so sorry, Jace.”
He gave me a weak smile. “Going to live with Grandma was the best thing that ever happened to us. She was an amazing woman and in all of the years I knew her, her faith in God never wavered.
“She was the reason I found mine and also the reason I began to question it. The night I met you, we had just buried her. I was drinking because I couldn’t handle the pain and I was questioning why God would take her.”
“That night, my father somehow got my phone number and called me. He said some disgusting things; that’s why I was there.”
“I guess we have a lot more in common than we thought,” he said.
I smiled. “Sadly.”
He reached for me and pulled me into his chest. He didn’t run, and he didn’t pity me. He understood me. I looked up into his eyes. I could see how strongly he felt for me.
I put my hand on the side of his face and kissed him. Our tongues tangled and our breaths meshed and I knew that he was right: we were meant to be. “Get undressed,” he said against my mouth.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Daphne
I stood up and wiggled out of my shorts and panties, and then I pulled off my t-shirt and bra and tossed then aside. I leaned down and took his face into my hands. I put my lips against his and we shared an intense, mind-blowing kiss. As our tongues danced, he moved his hands up and grasped my breasts, squeezing them firmly.
I gasped and intensified the kiss, trying to reach my tongue as far down his throat as I could. His hands left my breasts and slid down my sides to my hips. I broke the kiss after a few minutes. We were both breathless and I leaned my forehead into his while we both caught our breath.
His gaze was filled with lust, and his hands were inching up my back and running across my shoulders, brushing my hair away with his fingers and tantalizing me and turning me on even more than I already was.
I put my feet down on the floor and then dropped to my knees between his legs. I reached up and unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans. I took hold of the waistband with both hands, hooking my fingers into his boxers. He lifted his hips, and I pulled them off of his hips and down across his thighs.
I worked them down to his ankles, and he slipped his feet out of them as I leaned in and took his hard cock into both of my hands and let my tongue make contact with the shaft. I watched his face as I swirled my tongue around he swollen head, relishing the taste of him.
I watched his eyes widen as I slipped my lips over it and engulfed his entire shaft. I sucked him all the way in until the head of his cock hit the back of my throat. Reaching down to touch his balls, I began to gently massage them as I bobbed my head up and down on him.
“Oh my God!” he choked out. His excitement made me that much more excited, and I started sucking deeper and harder. He moved his hips up and down and wrapped his hands in my hair, fisting it up and tugging on it as he thrust his erection in and out of my mouth.
He began to groan and I felt him grow and swell in my mouth. He used his grip on my hair to pull me off of him and then he took me by the arms and pulled me back onto his lap.
He gave me another smoking hot kiss as I reached for the bottom of his shirt and pulled it up over his head. He finished taking it off and tossed it aside. I loved his taut, sculpted chest. I ran my fingers across it reverently and leaned down to kiss him along his collarbone.
He took my face in his hands and pulled me back up to his lips. He kissed my mouth softly and t
hen let his lips move down along my jaw to my throat. He kissed his way across my neck and as he did, his hands moved to my breasts and began to caress and squeeze them, taking time to tweak and lightly pinch my hard nipples.
I moaned as I felt him dip his head down and flick his tongue across one of my nipples. One of his hands was moving down between us, and I wiggled my thighs open and whimpered in anticipation of what was to come. I moaned again as his probing fingers began to explore me, gently prying my lips open and letting his thumb stroke against my swollen clit.
Suddenly, he flipped me back on the couch so I was lying down. His mouth moved straight down between my thighs. I moaned and squirmed in ecstasy as he began to suck and lick on my clit.
I felt him slide one finger up inside of me and crook it against the walls of my pussy. He moved it around inside of me, making me want to scream. I put my hands in his hair and pulled on it, opening my thighs even wider as he sucked my clit into his mouth and teased it with his tongue.
He reached up with his free hand and grabbed one of my breasts, while he continued to lick my pussy from one end to the other. It felt so good. I was grinding my pussy into his face and down on his hand and shuddering all over when the first gigantic orgasmic wave hit me.
I thanked God we weren’t in a church as I let myself go and cried out loudly. I didn’t care if the neighbors heard. It felt too good to keep quiet about it.
He licked me through the orgasm and after giving me a few seconds to recover, he pulled his finger out and began kissing his way back up my still quivering body. He licked and sucked my nipples and then moved all the way up and kissed me hard, letting me taste myself on his sexy lips.
I felt him take his cock into his hand and press it up against my opening. I groaned again and wiggled my hips to open my thighs up even wider. I cried out as I felt him slide into me. As soon as he was inside of me, I began rocking my hips back and forth, trying to grind my hips into his.
He grinned. “Slow down there, tiger.”
I giggled, breathlessly. He was right, I was in a hurry. I just knew how good it was going to feel.
He moved in and out of me slowly for a while, kissing me and sucking on my neck, raking his hands over my body. I moved with him and soon we found a smooth rhythm that we kept for a while. As I felt another orgasm beginning to build, I started moving faster.
He moaned and matched my pace, plunging in and out of my pussy now as quickly as he could. I lifted my legs up and wrapped them around his waist, using my feet to drive him into me.
I was writhing uncontrollably beneath him and I screamed out in ecstasy when the tension exploded into another wild orgasm. My pussy went into spasms around his cock and once again, I felt his whole-body shudder.
He kept pounding into me breathing heavier, stroking harder and whispering my name — and something in Latin, I think — just before he exploded inside of me. He rocked back and forth slowly for several seconds before at last collapsing down on top of me and gasping for breath.
We were both slick with sweat and he rubbed his chest back and forth against my breasts before pulling his weight up off of me. He looked down at me and grinned. I shivered again and we lay there as he held me and gently kissed the side of my face.
I was surprised as I felt him growing hard again already against my thigh. He moved his lips to my neck and licked and sucked there again and then he pressed his lips to my ear and said, “I’m not done yet, beautiful.”
He sat up, taking me with him. I was on his lap, and I straddled his hips. He reached down and gave himself a few strokes before lining up with my lips and pushing up into me. I used my knees to move myself up and down on his shaft with my breasts rubbing against his face and his lips. He stuck his tongue out and caught a nipple every so often, sending an electric shock down my spine each time.
He sucked one into his mouth and nibbled on my nipple as he clutched onto my hips and I continued to ride him. His fingers dug into my flesh and he used the sides of his teeth to scrape my nipples. I felt like my head was going to explode just about the time he pulled me up off of him.
“What…what?” I gasped. I couldn’t get enough air to speak and my mouth was completely dry.
“Stand up, baby, and hold onto the back of the couch.” Jace was getting adventurous. I didn’t complain or even hesitate. I stood up and gripped the back of the sofa. I felt him move in behind me and his hands grasped my hips as he slid his cock back up inside of me.
I gasped as he pushed himself into me so deep that the flesh of his pelvis slapped up against the flesh of my ass. He didn’t go slowly this time; he started pumping hard and fast. He left one hand on my hip to hold me in place and he slid the other one up and grasped one of my breasts and played with it while he continued to thrust into me at a frenetic pace.
Our bodies were melded together in a wave of undulating motion, accented by gasping, panting, and guttural moans and grunts. I felt him clamp his fingers down tightly on my nipple first and then the swell of his cock and the clamp of my smooth walls around it, just before we both came together in another mind-blowing, earth-shattering orgasm. Within seconds, we both collapsed into an exhausted, sweaty heap of satisfied flesh.
We lay there, gasping, until we both caught our breath and then he said, “I’m not sure if I can continue to be a priest. I need you, Daphne, and I won’t ever be able to fully commit to anything that will keep me from you.”
His words filled my heart with a joy that I’d never experienced before. Not because he said he was thinking about giving up his vocation, but because he said that he needed me. I needed him, too, more than I’ve ever needed anything.
I kissed his face and said, “Whatever you decide to do, I will support. I just want to be with you.”
Chapter Forty
Jace
I spent the week trying to figure out what to do. I saw Daphne every day, but we hadn't had sex again since that night on the couch. I loved just being with her. We had dinner together, watched television, cuddled…normal couple stuff. Things that I, as a priest, should never experience.
The only way I would ever be able to completely devote myself to her is if I left the church. I wished that was as easy as quitting a job. There were so many parts of it I loved and so much of it I believed in deeply. It wouldn't be easy, but when I compared it with the idea of leaving Daphne, there was no contest. I had to be with her. She’d become my lifeline.
I was about to go out to the grocery store when my phone rang. I looked at it and saw that it was Ryan. I rolled my eyes. I love my brother, but sometimes I am just not in the mood for him. With a deep sigh, I slid it to answer and put it to my ear. “Hey, bro, what’s up?”
“Nothing much, I just wondered if you happened to catch that Yanks’ game last night?”
“Yeah, they got lucky.”
I wasn’t a Yankees fan; it drove my brothers crazy.
“Lucky my ass,” he said. “It was pure skill and they’re going to the Series this year.”
I laughed. “You keep dreaming, little bro. Maybe one day that’ll come true. Doubtful, but nothing is impossible.”
“Like you having sex?”
“Man, Ryan, you have got to stop saying that. For one thing, it never should have happened while I was still wearing the collar.”
“Wait…what? While you were ‘still’ wearing it? What do you mean by that?”
Damn, I didn’t mean to bring this up until I decided for sure what to do. I was stuck now. I knew Ryan and he won’t just let anything go. “Yeah, I’m thinking about leaving the church.”
“For what? A good fuck?”
“Ryan! Knock it off.”
“Sorry…Father. Jace, listen to me, and let me finish before you chastise my language, okay? Some things just need to be said straight up. Man, the first time I got me a taste of pussy, I knew what it must feel like to do drugs. I would do anything to get it again, and again and again. But dude, after a while…as much as I still love m
e some pussy…I figured out it’s not worth giving things up that are that important to you.
“You’ve been the best one of us your whole life. Grandma saw it and that’s why you’re the one she pushed towards the church and not me or Max. Look, I’m as Catholic as the next guy…” I laughed, I couldn’t help it. “What? I go to church…almost every Sunday.”
“Okay, forgive me. I somehow thought that living the life of a good Catholic, the rest of the week mattered.”
“Look who’s talking.”
“I know this, Ryan. This is why I need to leave. I don’t want to live a double life, but I do want to live a life with Daphne. She’s what’s been missing all along. She’s what I’ve been looking for. I love her.”
“Whoa, the L word. Wow! So, you’ve decided this for sure?”
“No, not for sure. I know that it’s what I want; I’m just still trying to figure out if it’s the right thing. I’m hoping God will send me some kind of sign.”
Ryan busted up laughing. I waited until he was finished and then I said, “It’s so good to have your support.”
“Hey, I’m an asshole and we both know it. But, I always have your back, no matter what you decide, okay? Just make sure you’re doing what’s best for you in the long run.”
“Thanks, man. I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
Chapter Forty-One
Daphne
I was gathering up my laundry to take it down to the laundry room when there was a knock on my door. I felt a tickle in my belly. I was hoping it was Jace since he knew I had the day off. I pulled it open with a big smile and found Bethany standing there. “Oh…hey!”
She raised an eyebrow. “Who were you expecting?”
“No one, come on in.” She walked in and looked around like she was looking for someone. “I really wasn’t expecting anyone. You want some coffee?”
“I’d love some.” While I got the Keurig ready, she said, “What was the big, cheesy smile about when you opened the door?”
