Sweetest Sin(19)

“Why?”

“I can take care of my mother. The charities should save their resources for others.”

It wasn’t a completely honest answer, but I didn’t press any further. She shifted. Her fingers accidentally grazed mine.

She stilled. So did I.

“I don’t know what I’m doing here,” she whispered.

“You’re home. You’re helping your mother. You’re serving your community.”

“Father—”

“You are doing what’s right. Honor thy mother—it’s so important you were named for it.”

“It’s hard to honor someone who hadn’t honored themselves for sixteen years.” Her voice dropped, and my heart stilled with it. She edged closer.

This wasn’t a moment of truth, but a feat of strength.

Was it wrong to take her hand? To hold it? To feel her warmth surge through me?

Honor needed that comfort. In any other case, with any other person, I’d have given all of me to ease the burdens of their heart. It made no difference if she was a stranger or…

If she were my angel.

I took her hand, and the mistake burned through me.

Her breathing shuddered, but she said nothing. That made it worse. My blood boiled, raged, and plummeted from my head and into the wickedness below.

I truly was a monster.

Her lips trembled, parted. The timid pink of her tongue gently licked her bottom lip—not in crass seduction, but in soft nervousness.

The things I would have done to that lip, her tongue, the fears and burdens she hid. Honor deserved nothing but pleasured bliss and quivering breath.

I wasn’t the man to give it, but if I wasn’t careful, I’d be the one who took it.

Honor squeezed my fingers, staring at our entwined hands. Light against dark. Right against wrong.

Man and woman.

Priest and flock.

Honor’s eyes fluttered shut, and I was helpless to resist the only urge I trusted. I had to touch the silken skin of her cheek.

But I couldn’t do it. Instead, I palmed the back of her hand. Her own fingers caressed her cheek, and I pressed through her, envious of her touch. Her hand acted as a barrier, but I could feel her trembling. Sense her warmth.

I stared at her lips.

This was not a terrible and vile seduction. Not all of it. Soft words. Confessed feelings. It jeopardized my collar, my vows, my everything, but she opened to me, and I understood her.

Honor met my gaze. She whispered her fears, worries, burdens to me.

Should I have felt so proud?

So fortunate?

“My Dad loved my mother,” she said. “He took care of her every day while she was sick, even when she was at her worst.”

“Did you love him?”

“Yes. Very much. He’s gone now…” She leaned into our hands. “But you already know that, don’t you? You’re the priest of this parish. I’m sure you know a lot about everyone.”

It was true. “I wait for them to tell me before I ask questions.”

“Well…” Honor sighed. “I can tell you this…my dad never got to see my mom sober. He died before this change happened. That doesn’t seem fair.”

“I understand.”

“I don’t think you can.” Her eyes closed as the heat from our hands caressed us both. “What about you, Father? Where’s your family?”

I dropped my hand.

My stomach twisted, and I banished the thoughts, the desires.

And damned the disgusting hardness that threatened to tent the black robes I wore.

I would not surrender to my primal needs. I was stronger than that.

I prayed I was stronger than I thought I was.

“My family is…around.” I shifted, placing two imaginary bibles between us. It shamed her. That was not my intention.

Honor smirked, forcing a joke. “You’ve seen my family. What’s yours like? Wanna trade?”

“You don’t want to trade with me.”

Her smile faded, and I owed her more than that, especially as she finally opened up to me.

But my story was practiced, almost wooden. I doubted she could hear it. Only a man who devoted his life to listening for the unspoken might have heard the resentment.

“I’m the youngest of eight.”

“Whoa.”

I shrugged. “Roman Catholic.”

“Right. Wow.”

“My brothers and sisters are much older than me—by at least six years. I don’t really see them often. They live everywhere across the country. Two in New York, one here in Pittsburgh, one stationed in Germany, one in Dallas, one in San Jose, and one…well, he hasn’t corresponded with us for a while. Last I heard he was in jail.”

“I’m sorry.” Honor shrugged. “Did any of them go into the clergy?”