“How could that possibly help?”
“How could it hurt?” I gestured to the chapel. “This should be the place where we come to seek strength and comfort.”
“And what if we destroy it?”
I wouldn’t let her speak of her soul in such a way. It pained me, just as it hurt her.
“I spoke with my mentor today…Bishop Polito.” I didn’t say where I visited him or why I had gone. “He warned me not to get trapped within my own thoughts. We can’t internalize our problems. We must find a way to redeem ourselves. We are alone in our sins, and that is why we’re suffering. To end it, we must stay together. You will become more involved in the church.”
“It’s a bad idea, Father. I won’t be forgiven because I’ll sing in the choir or help in the festival.”
“Absolution is mine to give. This is a chance to heal your spirit. You can give of yourself to understand what has happened.”
She shook her head. “And what about us?”
“We fight how we feel. We forgive our transgressions. And if we are tempted…”
“When we are tempted, Father,” she said. “It is not a matter of if. It’s when…how. I can’t trust myself around you.”
Trust.
A strange word.
I trusted nothing of temptation. Not what darkened my mind, beat my heart, or hardened the part of me pressing against the trousers under my robe. I tried to hide everything that stained my soul, but my thoughts still shattered with wicked images and fantasies.
But if I wanted to help Honor, I’d have to trust that I was strong enough to resist.
Because I could only protect her if she stayed close.
If she wasn’t lost already.
If I wasn’t lost already.
“Better is open rebuke than hidden love, Proverbs 27:5,” I said. “We’ll hold ourselves accountable. Protect each other.”
“Is it possible?” Honor lowered her voice. She approached me, her hesitating steps a challenge to my restraint. “I want to be holy, Father. And pure. And blessed…”
Her hips swayed.
Her blouse was buttoned high, but the strain of the white material caressed the swell of her chest.
She breathed sweet questions of innocence and lust between parted lips.
My angel offered her salvation, damnation, and body for me. And tasting even a moment of that surrender would have destroyed my own honor.
Dreadful, beautiful fantasy.
And she knew it.
Honor lowered her gaze. “I didn’t think it was possible, Father. What we feel is too dangerous. We can’t control it.”
A quiet rage blossomed within me.
I could control myself. I was strong enough, fierce enough, devout enough to quell whatever mortal, human, flawed urges tried to possess me.
Nothing would ever challenge me that I hadn’t already faced.
Nothing.
I seized Honor, pulling her into my arms. She gasped, though the words silenced as my hand tangled in her hair. I held her tight as I pinned her to my body.
Our hips met, and her chest pressed into mine, the swell of her breasts heaving, caught between surrender and protest.
I hardened—fiercely and violently.
She felt it. Her eyes widened, but I didn’t let her speak. Didn’t let her move.
And if I hadn’t lost my soul before, this was the moment when it should have been wrenched from me. But I was strong enough to resist.
Though I desired her kiss, I leaned only close enough to let the barest hint of my lips graze against hers. If I had been a lesser man, I might have seized her, torn through her clothes, and moved upon her then and there on the floor.
No, against the wall.
Or in my office.
Or on the altar—the sanctified, honored, perfect location to strip her bare, reveal her to my sins, and take that sacrifice for myself.
My lips moved, softly, only a feather’s width from hers.
“You will stay.” The command resonated as hard as the sin between my legs. “You will join the choir. You will sing. You will volunteer for the festival. You will join the activities and groups of this parish. Every day I will find you here. Every day you will pray that this is as close as we ever come.”
Her eyes fluttered closed. Her pulse beat, rapid, a vibration of glory within her chest.
My growl might have startled her. I didn’t care. “I will control us. Do you understand, my angel?”
Honor couldn’t speak, but her lips parted.
She wanted the kiss.
So did I.
I released her to unstable legs and hearts.
“Do you understand?” I asked again.
“Yes, Father.”
“Go back to the meeting.”
She nodded, stumbling to the door. She turned, swallowing, defiant if only to prove she could demonstrate the same strength I wielded.