Takeover: The Complete Series

by Lana Grayson

  “Do you know what altars were once used for, Honor?” I circled her, observing her body, her writhing, the sweet goosebumps which prickled over her flesh as her bared skin accidentally touched cold stone. “The altar was a place of sacrifice.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “I’m sure He’s here.” Or would know the instant I fell further from His grace. “You are my perfect sacrifice, Honor. You’re beautiful. You’re gentle. Innocent. You possess every virtue I’ve lost. If I have faith in one thing in this world, it’s the words you speak, the breaths you take.”

  “You haven’t lost your faith.”

  I lost enough of myself to worship my desire. I studied her, committed her to memory. Why had I ever resisted her?

  “I want to consecrate your body,” I said. “Make it holy before I destroy us in this sin.”

  “Father, you’re not destroying me or yourself.”

  “I already have.”

  I prepared for this moment. The oils awaited my hand, and the holy water stilled in a gold chalice. I needed no prayer for this. Honor was as blessed, as beautiful, as pure as any woman gracing this earth.

  But I could worship her in my own way. Adore and ruin. Bless and profane.

  I sprinkled the water first, watching as the chilled droplets dripped over her curves. They ran in tears, rivulets of chill that teased her skin. Her nipples budded hard, and I followed every rolling bead of holy water as it trailed between her breasts, over her waist, and finally, dipped to the wonder between her legs.

  She shivered.

  So did I.

  “You are so beautiful,” I whispered. “I almost hate to defile you this way.”

  “You aren’t defiling me.”

  She spoke too much. I silenced her with a kiss, reaching for the oils we kept under a lock and key, safe from everyone but me. I reserved only a small portion for tonight, knowing how precious and rare it was.

  “This is a special oil. Chrism.” I breathed slowly, dipping my fingers into the vial and spreading it over my hands. “I cannot bless it. It is consecrated only one day a year, Maundy Thursday, Holy Thursday, and only by a bishop.”

  A position Benjamin wanted for me. A role I would never accept. Not now. Not after this.

  “Should you…waste it?” Honor asked.

  “This is no waste.”

  I lowered my fingertips to her body, watching in amazement as she arched to meet my hand.

  Was this how it should have been?

  A body arching to feel a touch?

  For so long, I only knew to fear a touch. I lived because of the instinct to duck, flinch. Pray for it to pass.

  My fingers dragged over her skin. Down. Over. Forming a cross over her chest. The oil was intended for foreheads, lips, breast over the heart.

  This woman was my heart. All of her. Quivering. Shaking.

  Longing for my touch.

  The oil slickened her body. She gasped as I blessed every part of her, sliding my hands along her dark skin, over her breasts, rubbing against the budded nipples that strained and begged for more than perfumed oil.

  I touched lower, following the holy water. My hands tensed as I studied where her legs parted for me. She wanted me to touch that sacred mystery of mysteries. Her body twisted. She licked parted lips and breathed heated sighs.

  Just as I had yet to feel that ecstasy, I would withhold it from her.

  For a moment.

  Just a moment.

  I prepared her for it instead.

  “I don’t know what I’ll do when I take you.” I warned her with a shamed growl. “Your body is so pure, so innocent, so fragile. I fear my strength.”

  “Don’t, Father.”

  “You don’t understand the urges I have.”

  “They’re natural.”

  “They’re evil.”

  Honor stared at me as she twisted her hands in the linen beneath her waiting body. “You want me, Father. You can have me. You won’t hurt me. You won’t destroy me. You won’t lose me.”

  “The things I want are…so twisted.”

  “It’s passion, Father.”

  “It’s dominance.”

  “Then I submit.”

  I laughed. “You have no choice.”

  “I have every choice, and I choose to give myself to you.”

  This misguided girl. I took her innocence, but she still suffered the delusion. Sex was not the passionate, loving embrace she imagined.

  It was primal. Wicked.

  Meant to overpower.

  I hated the thought of corrupting her, but I’d shield her from my perversion of faith.

  I untangled the rosaries from my hand and held out the beads. Honor lifted her head, accepting the gift. It wasn’t right to wear the rosaries as a necklace, but the instant the chain struck her flesh, the silvered cross lying between her breasts, I knew it was the most beautiful and sacrilegious and blessed vision I had the privilege of seeing.

  I pulled her legs to the end of the altar, pressing a hand to her chest to prevent her from rising.

  This was what I’d wanted to see.

  What I’d dreamed of.

  Honor defenseless, aching, naked. Waiting on the altar for the moment of utter sanctity when I’d rend through her with every perverse and befouling desire that hardened me for sin.

  My innocent angel slickened for me. She had no idea the dangers that awaited her.

  I stepped to the altar, wrapping her legs around my waist. Her breasts rose and fell in quick, harsh breaths. I clenched my jaw and pumped my cock. My soul threatened to tear me apart if I didn’t seek relief in her body.

  “Forgive me,” I whispered. “I can’t fight this temptation.”

  “It’s okay, Fath—”

  I thrust inside her, one solid and demanding strike. My cock forced itself in, rutting to the hilt and grinding flesh against flesh as I sheathed my impossible length within her delicate slit.

  I expected her to cry out.

  To squirm. Fight. Beg.

  I thought she’d try to run…as I had so often fought to escape.

  Honor arched instead. Her whisper cried my name in sweetness.

  And her body shuddered in shivers of delight.

  I withdrew, each inch without the comfort of her molten slit a pained and terrible punishment. I pulled to end and teased my cock with the agonized shudders that wracked my spine.

  Nothing compared to this feeling. This tightness. This squeezing and unrelenting tremor that enveloped my body from the clenching of hers.

  I sliced through her again, filling her, stretching her when her body tensed over me. I made the room I needed for my own pleasure.

  And Honor groaned for me. She clutched the altar. Her breasts. My hands.

  It didn’t hurt her. She liked this.

  I gripped her thighs and positioned her where I could slam myself inside her, where every undulating squeeze of her softness rolled me in pleasure, panic. So tight. So perfect.

  I lost my soul, but it escaped only to be trapped between us. In her. The only place safe enough, wicked enough, primal enough for it.

  She bit her lip. Hard. Her eyes closed, and the curls of hair haloed behind her. Every thrust bounced her body for me, and her cries pitched high and pleading as I slapped against her.

  How could something so dark and sinful feel so beautiful and raw? My natural desire was to take, to seize, to own. But my sins were corrupted into something even more insidious.

  Every thrust indebted me to her. It saved me from darkness.

  She let me do this to her.

  She took pleasure from what I did to her.

  And her soft mews, too timid to even whisper in the church I defiled, called for me.

  Deliriously. Passionately.

  I grabbed the rosaries and pulled her to me. The beads acted as a leash, and I stole a kiss as I pinned her under me. I took her deeper than before, punishing her in pleasure.

  “Father…” Her eyes closed. “Rafe…”
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  I stiffened. She begged for a release—from my hands, my demands, and the pleasure I thrust within her.

  And so did I.

  It built with every slam of my body against hers. The dark, forbidden passion boiled inside me. Sparks of ecstasy centered in the worst shadows of my soul.

  And yet, her pleasure shuddered as a beautiful, vibrant gift. She offered it to me. Drew closer, held my hand over the rosaries that I clutched in my trembling fingers.

  I took her harder. Kissed her.

  My words rasped. “Will you ever forgive me?”

  “I already have, Father.”

  Her breathing shuddered. Every sharp gasp a song of songs.

  I had no defense against her. She stripped me bare, even as I yet wore the cassock and collar. Though I destroyed everything I once adored, she cleansed my soul. She understood. She soothed me. Comforted me.

  Honor came for me with a sweet innocence, and in that moment, I realized I never had any control over her. Any punishment I feared I inflicted faded. She wasn’t afraid. She wasn’t lost.

  She came and came and came, breathing pure pleasure and calling for my release with hers. Her body tensed too hard, but my hands guided her through the ache and into that pure bliss so forbidden to me.

  Beautiful.

  I groaned as the passion swept through me, lashing me as sharp as the barbs of a whip and as sweetly as the caress of an angel.

  I buried myself in her. Every loathsome jet of heat should’ve scalded her, poisoned her. Instead she arched to take more of my seed. She moaned with me. Accepted everything I was and would be and defied our temptation with a need purer and more honest than my committed sins.

  I collapsed over her, panting on the altar, over her body.

  Honor laid back and closed her eyes. Goose bumps rose over her soft curves, though she sweated too, a delicate sheen that purified her as we rested.

  She reached for the rosaries, but I stilled her hand.

  “They’re yours,” I said. “I used them for strength, to prevent me from doing this. I have no need of them anymore.”

  “But Father—”

  “Nothing can save me now.”

  17

  Honor

  Sin wasn’t easy, despite what people said.

  It was hard to commit. Hard to confront.

  Harder to stop.

  I knew what I did was wrong. I tried to live a life of faith and integrity, and I had failed.

  But, for the first time since I burned myself on desire, I sang at Mass with an honest heart.

  I was guilty. I had sinned. And Father Raphael needed my help.

  He suffered because of our night together—erotic, sensual, and blasphemous. I knew what I had to do. No matter my sins, I had to return Father Raphael to a state of grace.

  But first, I had to convince him that he deserved that forgiveness.

  I’d texted him, but he had a meeting immediately following Mass. I wouldn’t be able to talk with him until the festival prep later. That meant I had the afternoon…

  Off?

  No work. No classes or homework. No volunteer hours. I could go home and relax.

  With Mom.

  The thought twisted me, and I hated myself for it. Why did I look for any excuse to leave the apartment? Avoiding my mother shamed me more than anything I had done with Father Raphael.

  Mom hadn’t stopped talking since the church, and I doubted even she could remember what she chattered. She dropped her purse in the entry and prattled in the kitchen. I hung her bag over the back of the chair before the strap was soaked in a puddle by the door.

  “Do you want coffee? I want some coffee.” Mom hummed to herself and fished in the cupboard for the grounds.

  She still had a cup of coffee on the table, cold from the morning. I moved it and groaned. The envelope underneath was splattered and wrinkled.

  Her bank statement. Unopened. That wasn’t good.

  “Well, that was a beautiful Mass today, wasn’t it? Hungry?” Mom didn’t remember where she kept the bread. She opened the wrong cabinet twice and set the peanut butter next to the plates in her forgetfulness. A side effect of the drug abuse for so many years. “Just beautiful. Your choir is doing so good, honey. I’m proud of you. I tell everyone, I say to them that’s my baby singing that solo.”

  I nodded, offering her a sheepish shrug. “I know, Mom. I can hear you. Everyone can.”

  “All the more reason to sing it loud and proud that my baby is doing her best by the Lord in every way she can.” She held her arms out. “Now where did I put that peanut butter…maybe I’ll make ham and cheese instead. Would you like that, baby? Did you want coffee?”

  I looked up. She didn’t realize we didn’t have the money for lunch meat. She laughed about the peanut butter and got the coffee brewing.

  “I swear, I don’t know where my head is sometimes,” she said.

  She smiled. It was too broad, too…unfamiliar.

  I tried to remember a time when Mom exhibited any signs of…life. Back when she was sick, she never drank for the thrill or the bubbly high. She downed enough to go numb, and then she drank more to stay down when the world kicked her hard enough. And the pills? The Oxy did the trick when she couldn’t carry a can or bottle.

  Was this really Mom? Was this the woman under the drugs? Her skin had cleared, and a few social programs had helped to fix her teeth. She smelled of soap instead of body odor and alcohol, and her words slurred only when she got too excited to unjumble her thoughts. She jumped from one topic to the next, almost manic, and I could hardly keep up.

  Then again, I hadn’t really tried. I couldn’t. Not when I had so many events and practices and classes and…

  No money.

  I stared at her bank statement. It was more frightening now that she was sober than it had ever been when she was sick. At least then we had a reason to lose so much money. Mom didn’t have a job—hadn’t had one for years. She never really understood the value of a dollar.

  Her account was nearly overdrawn, and I had no idea where the money had gone.

  But I could guess.

  “Hey…Mom?” Why did I hesitate before calling her name? “I think we ought to sit down and talk about the bank account.”

  Mom hummed as she heated a frying pan. Grilled cheese it was then. “Oh, not just now, baby. Let’s get something to eat first.”

  “There were withdrawals this week for one hundred and eighty dollars.” I felt sick. “Cash from the ATM. Why are you pulling out cash?”

  “Don’t you worry about that.”

  Oh, but I did. I was worrying. Cash never lasted long around Mom.

  I hated to think it. Alyssa and Samantha hadn’t wanted to tell me about the gossip spreading in the church. I glanced up, staring through her graying hair and smile to find the woman I remembered.

  One hundred and eighty dollars paid for the electricity and groceries.

  I hated that I searched her expression for any signs of deceit.

  “Mom, is something going on?”

  “Of course not.”

  “We needed that money.”

  “Well, if you must know…” She flipped her sandwich too late and burned it. “I’m planning a surprise.”

  I didn’t like that. “Surprises that cost this much money?”

  Or a surprise that would account for just enough to hide a bottle of cheap whiskey under the sink and a handful of pills in her purse?

  “Okay, Honor. You caught me.”

  I held my breath.

  Mom plated the crispy grilled cheese with a dollop of ketchup on the side. She pushed it to me.

  Close, but it was Dad who had liked the ketchup. I preferred pickles on mine. I ate it anyway.

  “I had this great idea,” Mom said. “You’re so involved in the church, and it’s wonderful. The woman’s group and the festival and this special Battle of the Choirs.”

  I peeled a bit of cheese from the bread and ate it to avoid speaking. />
  “I wanted to get that sense of community too. Really thank the people who have been so kind. So…” Mom held her arms out. “I’m going to host a dinner party here for all those lovely people at St. Cecilia’s who have helped us.”

  I dropped the sandwich. “You what?”

  “I want to invite some people over. Judy, Ruthie, a few other ladies in the women’s club. We could even invite Father Rafe. He’d love a home-cooked meal.”

  “Mom, you’ve never cooked a meal like that in your life.”

  “Nonsense.” Mom frowned as she remembered. “I’m sure I have.”

  “Not in the past sixteen years,” I said. “I don’t think you know how to cook.”

  “We’ll learn.”

  “You don’t just learn this stuff.”

  “Of course you do. Everyone does.”

  Maybe when they were younger. Maybe before the drugs addled their minds. Maybe before they became a woman who couldn’t remember that she put the bread in the freezer and the peanut butter in the cabinet.

  “Mom, I don’t think we should do this. Money is…really hard to come by. And we’re behind on the bills—”

  “The Lord will provide, Honor. He did in the past.”

  “No, He really didn’t.” I tossed the statement on the table. “Dad was the one who provided. Dad shifted his schedules and took harder hours and did everything he could to make ends meet. But now he’s dead, and I’m here trying my hardest. I gave up my school, my job, everything to come here, and we don’t have enough money to—”

  Mom crossed her arms. “Honor Maria Thomas, you tell me right now what this is really about.”

  “I just don’t think it’s a good idea to have them come…here.”

  Mom looked over our apartment, her mouth drawing into a thin line. “I spent half a year confined to a space smaller than this. I am proud of this home we have. I am proud that I can walk out that door anytime I want without a guard on the other side. I can wear my Sunday best and not an orange jumpsuit. I can go to church and talk with those nice God-fearing people.” She shook her head. “And I’m not going to be ashamed if I invite them into my home.”

  “But this isn’t home!” I couldn’t hide the bitterness in my voice. “Home was across town. With Dad. In the house he built with his bare hands for us. A house we don’t have anymore.”