Harvest of Sighs (Thornchapel Book 3)

by Sierra Simone

  I seize the movement, kissing him back hard enough that he groans and slides his fingers through my hair. He takes command of the kiss in that expert way of his, and the kiss goes from hesitant to seductive in mere instants.

  I melt into him, an eternal whore for confidence and control. It’s not quite Auden’s mastery, or even Saint’s burning desperation, but it’s still wonderful, it still lights me up. I straddle his lap and rock my hips against him—all of the need stoked by my phone call with Auden surging to the surface—and Becket answers me, his hands finding my tits, my throat, my backside.

  “Proserpina,” he murmurs, pulling back to blink at me. His eyes are a normal blue now—a human blue—and they’re focused and clear. They see me. “Why are you here?”

  “Why are you here?” I counter as I reach up to stroke his hair. It’s normally styled in a well-behaved coiffe, but his run and the summer heat has turned it into an untidy mass of gold. It’s just long enough that I can rub it between my fingertips. “And what were you doing? You seemed . . . distant.”

  “I must have gotten lost in prayer,” he says. A rueful smile pulls at the corner of his mouth. “Hazard of the job. Like getting lost in a book for you, I’m sure.”

  I smile back at him, but uneasiness twines through my thoughts. I don’t think I’ve ever—even in my most absorbed moments—been so lost that I didn’t notice someone tripping over me and calling my name. So lost that my eyes became bright and strange.

  “Let’s go outside,” I suggest, getting to my feet and helping him up. He unfolds into six feet of trim, handsome priest, and he smiles down at me once he’s standing.

  “I missed you,” he says, cradling my hand in both of his.

  “It’s only been a few days,” I respond, trying to tease and also walking at the same time, so that we move away from the hearth and into the sun.

  I glance back at the carving of the god and fight off the urge to shiver. The urge to physically shake off the memory of Becket’s stilled body and near-violet eyes.

  “Yes, but that was at church, and so I couldn’t do this.” He pulls me close and kisses me again, and I let him, each skilled stroke of his tongue reminding me of the charming, thoughtful friend I know and love. It’s just Becket, the kisses reassure me. The same Becket as always.

  After a few minutes, he breaks away and takes my hand again, and we walk past the house and up to the ridge above it. There’s a public footpath snaking along the crest of the moors, and just beyond the path, a cluster of kistvaens: boxes of stone sunk into the earth, long empty of whatever and whomever they once held. They are the same kistvaens my mother studied as a student. Perhaps the same kistvaens that the ancestors to the Kernstows buried their dead in.

  We stop in the middle of the trail, near an exposed shelf of stone, and Becket turns to look down at the farmhouse. It looks like a painting you’d hang in your bathroom right now, a watercolor of a place perfect in its own dereliction, but I suddenly don’t want to see it anymore, I don’t want to think about it.

  The look on Becket’s face as he stared at the hearth . . .

  “It’s strange, though,” Becket murmurs as he looks at the farm. “I barely remember coming here. I know I must have run or walked, but I don’t recall doing either . . . I don’t remember getting dressed or locking up the church. I was home, and then I was here, with you.”

  That is strange, but I can’t say that to him. I should say something reassuring instead. “I don’t remember getting dressed most mornings either,” I offer up. “Habit and all that.”

  “Mm,” he says, not sounding comforted or convinced.

  “Becket,” I say. “Look at me.”

  Unlike in the farmhouse, he does look at me, and he does it as soon as I ask him to.

  “I’m here,” I tell him, because it’s the only thing I can give him, maybe the only thing any of us can truly offer to someone else. “I’m here with you. Maybe you don’t remember before, but you remember right now with me, right?”

  He takes a deep breath. “Of course.”

  I pull him over to the stone shelf and make him sit down. I sit next to him and wrap an arm around his back. I want to ask him so many questions, like if he’s lost time here at the farmhouse before, and what he was thinking when he stared at the hearth, and if all of this started when we started going to the chapel in the woods. But I manage to keep quiet, even though it nearly kills me.

  “Poe,” he says after a minute. “You said a while back that if I ever needed to show you—”

  I’m kissing him before he can finish, climbing back into his lap. It feels so much better in the sunshine, away from the cheerless murk of the farmhouse, and his response feels better too—gratified surprise followed by a heavy shudder that moves through his entire body.

  The same Becket as always.

  “You can always show me,” I whisper, nipping at his lip. “Any time.”

  His hands—the same hands that page through holy books and hold chalices aloft—find my ass, and pull me so my sex is settled firmly against his. There’s nothing but my panties and his thin athletic clothes between us, so every hard, eager inch of him is discernible. Instinctively I rock and rock and rock against him, chasing the friction, savoring everything about him—his hardness, his heat, his sculpted mouth made for prayers and pleasure.

  “I feel so clear with you,” he says, kissing my jaw. “Like everything is real.”

  “Real? Oh—” One of his hands has slid between us and moved under my skirt, stroking my pussy over the cotton of my panties. Thoughts shiver right out of my mind like water on a hot pan, and I can’t hold on to a single one while he’s touching me like this. It’s been so long since I’ve been touched properly—instead of teased to heighten my agony like Auden’s been doing—and my body is so primed, so ready for it, that I think I might be able to come just like this. Come just from the soft sanding of his fingers over my panties.

  “Should I be asking Auden’s permission?” Becket asks, biting the lobe of my ear.

  “He said I could come today,” I manage. He also said I’d be punished for it, but that’s almost as much as an enticement as the climax itself, if I’m honest.

  A gust of wind buffets around us, warm and ruffling my skirt up around us, and I remember where we’re at. Remember that the stone digging into my bare knees is not a Thornchapel stone and that the sun around us is not Thornchapel’s sun. We’re not tucked away into our little world of make-believe and sex, where we can do whatever we want and the consequences never come.

  “Becket, we shouldn’t—not here—”

  “There’s no one,” he whispers, kissing my neck. “We’ll be fast.”

  I look around us, my pulse thudding against his tongue as he flicks it over my throat. He’s right—there’s no one to be seen. Just the perennial sheep and a herd of ponies in the distance. We can’t even be seen from the road leading to the farmhouse from here.

  But.

  “It’s summer in Dartmoor,” I protest weakly, my voice breaking as Becket’s fingers find their way past my panties. I’m so wet that my skin is slippery to the touch, and it takes no effort for him to slide a finger inside of me. “S-someone is bound to be w-walking along—oh God—Becket—”

  His thumb is on my clit now, and it’ll take nothing to send me over the brink, nothing at all. I’m almost there already, the muscles between my legs clenching tight, my thighs trembling around his hips.

  “We’ll be fast,” he promises again.

  And then he pulls back to meet my eyes. His are a turbulent blue, as if he’s fighting off whatever he was feeling in front of the hearth, and I can feel the fight all over his body, in his thighs and chest and arms and even in the hand between my legs. Like he’s consumed with something and can only just keep himself from being burned alive by it.

  “Please, Poe,” he whispers. “Please.”

  I press a hand to the side of his face. “Will it help . . . whatever this is?”
/>   He closes his eyes. “Yes.”

  “Will you tell me what it is?”

  His voice is honest when he answers. “I don’t know.”

  He opens his eyes again, and I can’t bear to see them like this, near-violet and hazy with a torment I don’t understand. “Okay,” I whisper. “Okay.”

  Relief shivers through him, clearing his eyes, parting his lips. “Thank you,” he breathes.

  I rise up on my knees, still arching into his touch as he continues to finger me while I find the waistband of his shorts and the tight boxer briefs he wears underneath them. Within seconds, his cock is exposed—straight and thick, roped with two twisting veins and surrounded by trim golden hair. I look around us one last time—see no one and nothing but heather and rocks and sheep—press my soft place against Becket and push down.

  He holds my panties to the side as I screw myself slowly onto him, his other hand wrapped around his root to assist me, and soon he’s all the way inside. This position has him so deep, it sends delicious pressure everywhere, and I have to squirm and squirm to endure it.

  “So good,” he murmurs, staring up at me. His eyes are open like an early morning sky now. “You feel so good.”

  “Becket, I need—” He’s only just got inside me and I’m so close, but I need more, I need dirtier. Hurtier. Even being outside—even riding a priest with my bare knees on the ground and the wind whipping around us—isn’t quite enough.

  I have an idea. I find his hand and I wrap it around my throat. “Hold me tight,” I tell him. “Keep me how you want me.”

  Becket’s hand isn’t as tight as Auden’s would be, but it still works, it still makes me feel like I’m being forced. Like I’m being made. My body reacts instantly, flooding me with even more heat and urgency, everything between my legs going so tight I can barely breathe.

  “God,” Becket says, his pupils dilating as he watches me shiver in response. It doesn’t sound like a curse when he says it, it sounds like a prayer, like worship, and I love it, I love him and his heart that beats for ecstasy and ecstasy alone.

  Becket keeps his hand on my throat, his thumb pressed gently to my windpipe as I begin moving in earnest, circling and grinding, chasing the sweet sparkle of my clit against the base of his cock. The wind flutters through his hair and his dark blond eyelashes, pulls his shirt tight against the firm curves of his muscles. He’s at odds with the landscape around us, with the world of rough moors and wild empty meadows. His jaw is too perfectly chiseled, his cheekbones and nose too refined. His hand around my throat is a hand for smoothing robes and pouring wine, for red-inked pages and prayer beads cool to the touch.

  He is too cultivated, too civilized. Except then I think of his eyes glowing in the farmhouse, and a voice inside me whispers, not so civilized after all.

  The uneasiness that comes with the thought should invade my arousal, it should cool me down. More evidence that I was born pervy though: because in this moment, the fear doesn’t invade me at all, it pervades me, it twists through me and fills me up, it turns everything dangerous and uncertain. And danger and uncertainty get me off like nothing else.

  For a moment, I’m poised at the edge, my movements growing jerky and urgent, and then as I stare into his eyes—which even now move from blue to a deep, unearthly indigo—I come with a low and broken whimper. Eight days of denial, eight days of longing, all of it cresting and roaring through me like a merciless wave, yanking me out to sea.

  My body surges and tightens around Becket’s erection, and I writhe through the contractions, squirm and pant and moan, not caring what I sound like or how loud I am, not even noticing—there is nothing but the wind and the jolting, agonized pleasure below my navel. Nothing but sex and the rock digging into my bare knees. Nothing but the hand around my throat and the memory of Auden’s voice and Becket’s otherworldly eyes.

  “Yes,” he breathes. “Yes. That’s it. Keep going. Keep going.”

  The climax rolls on and then I feel Becket’s muscles quivering against me, I see his eyes flutter closed. “Fuck,” he mumbles. “Oh fuck. I—”

  He doesn’t have to tell me he’s coming, because his cock announces that for him. Swelling and jerking heavily inside me, filling me with his seed. The long throbs are mirrored in the grip on my throat—tightening, loosening, tightening again—his eyes opening so he can watch my face as he pumps me full. It’s erotic as hell, and I think I could come again, I think I could find another peak, if only he keeps holding my throat, if only I keep moving—

  A dog runs behind me, barking happily, and Becket freezes. Voices come from just on the other side of the ridge, which means they won’t be able to see us yet, but in just a few seconds . . .

  Ever the gentleman, Becket helps me to my feet before he tucks his still-twitching erection away, and I mumble a hurried thanks as I smooth my skirt down.

  But I look up, and with a sinking sensation in my stomach, I realize it’s too late.

  The hikers, a man and a woman, have crested the hill just in time to see me crawl off Becket’s lap, just in time to see him adjust his shorts. There can be no mistaking that we were fooling around—at best. And it wouldn’t be difficult to guess what we were doing at worst.

  “Uh, hello,” I say weakly, giving a limp wave. My panties are still pulled to the side, and there’s no way to adjust them—or worry about my flushed cheeks or disheveled hair. Warm seed threatens to run out of me and I clench my thighs together to keep it from running down my legs.

  Becket stands up, and turns, and even in profile, I can see the shock that ripples through him and pales his skin. It’s the same shock that ripples through the couple as they recognize him.

  “Father Hess?” the woman asks tentatively, looking back and forth between us. And shit—now I recognize her too. She’s in the choir at St. Petroc’s. Her husband helps tend the cemetery there.

  They go to Becket’s church.

  And they saw us having sex.

  Fuck.

  “Georgie,” Becket says, his voice warm, but also laced with uncertainty. “How are you?”

  “Fine,” she asks, still looking over to me. I’m sure she recognizes me from Mass. From the front pew, where I sit holding hands with Auden.

  God, what she must think of me.

  I’ve so rarely felt shame that isn’t the fun kind that I almost don’t recognize it at first. I don’t recognize the feeling like my stomach has sunk between my feet and like my cheeks have caught fire and like I want to cry.

  It’s only as I press my thighs together even harder—the insides of them growing slick—that it hits home.

  I’m ashamed.

  Ashamed and guilty—because judging by the look on Georgie’s face, she knows exactly what we were doing, and the unhappy shock in her eyes tells me she’s not going to forget about it any time soon.

  And maybe she shouldn’t—maybe no one should forget a misbehaving priest. Maybe no one should forgive one.

  God. Why didn’t I stop us? Why didn’t I fight harder to move somewhere else? To go somewhere private? We’re so used to being the gods of our own little world that we’ve forgotten the real one, and now we’ll have to pay for our hubris. We’ll have to reap what we’ve sown, except it will be Becket doing the reaping, it will be Becket paying the price for both our sins.

  I blink back hot, guilty tears as Georgie says, “As you can see, we were just out for a stroll. It was good seeing you.” She and her husband start walking again, their dog running back up the path to meet them, tail wagging. They don’t look back at us.

  As farewells go, it’s rather brusque, but I’m relieved nonetheless. I don’t think I can stand here another minute with Becket’s seed running down my thighs and my skin burning like it’s already been dipped in brimstone.

  Becket finally turns to me, exhaling heavily. His eyes downcast.

  “Becket,” I say softly, and then stop. I don’t know what I can say to make this better. We fucked up.

  And th
e cost—the cost could be something it would kill him to pay.

  “Do you mind driving me to the rectory?” he asks, not meeting my gaze. “I don’t feel like running back just now.”

  “Of course. Do you—would you rather come to Thornchapel instead?”

  He shakes his head. “I think I need to spend some time alone right now.”

  “Okay,” I say. I want to hug him, hold his hand, do something, but what can I do? Haven’t I already fucked things up enough by touching him in the first place?

  We start walking down the farm’s side of the ridge, through the wildflowers and down the lane to where the car is parked.

  “Will it be okay?” I ask. “Do you think it will be okay?”

  Becket takes a long time to answer.

  The silence between us is filled with bleating sheep and trilling birds and a playful, tossing wind, and it’s so hard to believe that anything could be bad now, not with the world sounding like this.

  “I don’t know if things will be okay,” Becket says finally, his voice hollow.

  “But I also don’t know if they should be.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  St. Sebastian

  At first, it was like gin, the feeling of loving him after knowing the truth.

  It was just another burn, another kind of heat to add to the glow of the library fire and the warmth of Poe’s kisses.

  Dizzying, maybe. Forbidden, definitely.

  But translucent. You could hold it up to the light and say, see? I’ve only had this much sin tonight.

  Or perhaps it was like scotch. Drinking it would cost me more than I could afford, but then what else would burn as good going down?

  I tried not to care that we couldn’t seem to resist these little sips of each other. I tried to write it off the same way I wrote off an extra drink or two at the end of the night. Who did it hurt if sometimes he made me sit on the floor by his feet or if sometimes he held my hand while we walked down to the river? What did it really matter if we trembled when we hugged each other good night, if sometimes he let his lips ghost over the shell of my ear as we did?