Sweetest Sin(25)

I politely clapped as the woman auditioning finished her song. Deacon Smith called for the next audition. The organ once again strummed Ava Maria, and he shrugged. One of the high school tenors sang.

The music filled the sanctuary, and I felt safer speaking.

“Do you know that you have a reputation here, Father?” I lowered my voice. “You’re known as Daddy El.”

He smirked. “I know.”

I figured as much. “Does it bother you?”

“I consider it another challenge to my collar. Believe me, Honor. Your friends are not the first to show some leg in exchange for a little indulgence.”

“Really?”

“Of course. And I’ve resisted each one.” His jaw tensed, a solid and forceful strike of strength across his stoic face. “Except for you.”

“I haven’t asked for any indulgences.”

“Which makes you all the more dangerous.”

The tenor finished his song. The next singer also began Ava Maria. Deacon Smith groaned, his head in his hands.

“Guys, we have more hymns! The church has been around for two thousand years. Please tell me someone knows another song.”

No one moved. Deacon Smith almost tore the rest of his hair out.

“Honor!” He pleaded for me. “Do you have a piece to sing that isn’t Ava Maria?”

The others scrambled over the pews to grab hymnals. I took a sheet of music from my duffle bag.

“Yeah, I have one,” I said, smiling as Father Raphael wished me good luck.

My leg brushed his as I edged from the pew. His fingertips grazed just behind my knee. The warmth cascaded into my core. Quick. Fierce.

I nearly weakened then, my legs wobbling as though they wished to fall to my knees before this man.

But Alyssa and Samantha’s cheers freed me from the chains binding my thoughts. I forced away dark images of writhing bodies and twisting sheets, but I couldn’t fight them for long.

I don’t know why I did it. I handed the music to the organist, and I took to the dais as dread and warmth dueled in my chest.

The first notes of Pie Jesu filled the sanctuary.

I chose the song because of him.

It was a foolish, indulgent idea, but nothing sounded more beautiful than the first note I sang. It rang through the nave, striking so softly, deftly, and beautifully against the stained glass and carved stone that I almost didn’t recognize my voice.

The notes stunned everyone.

Except Father Raphael.

I should’ve looked away.

I should’ve focused somewhere beyond him, away from his sanctifying and desecrating gaze.

I couldn’t.

And in my weakness, the hymn turned from solemn prayer into something dark and seductive, just for him. The song blended the beautiful with the corrupted, and my sultry notes struck with a pure vibrancy.

The scriptures spoke of singing in ecstasy—but this rapture contained nothing holy.

Father Raphael watched me. Every note, every sound, every breath carried for him. His jaw tightened. I hit a perfectly balanced note, so high and lovely it even gave me goose bumps.

But his hands turned to fists. He leaned forward against the pew before him.

I recognized that licentious look—that hunger. It was the same severe devotion to his vows he uttered when he’d captured me in his arms, when he’d adored me more than the Lord.

He had pinned me then. Held me tight and forced me to obey his commands.

This time, it was my turn. I sang, and he was struck as my prisoner. I became a siren, a sinner. My voice warmed, twisted, and seduced within a hidden harmony only he could hear.

It was wrong. Everything I did was wrong.

But he stared at me, bestowing an attention upon me that felt more like a gift than a curse. He didn’t leer at me as other men did, attempting to imagine what hid beneath my clothes. He searched for my soul, for my innocence.

And it trapped us on the precipice of dangerous and illicit pleasures.

I should have stopped the song. Every note forged an intimacy which was forbidden to us. I sang the words and imagined his lips upon mine, correcting my Latin in gentle tease. I breathed between the notes and sighed as every exhale might be twisted into a sigh and groan. Even the shivers on my skin crashed with the melody and teased as if they had been caused by his touch.

Could the choir tell?

Was it obvious?

My song was not a hymn of praise. I seduced a priest and tested his resistance to me.

Every chord ached deeper inside of me. I wetted under his attention. Whatever dark and secret desires knotted within me were released in song. When the music silenced and the choir applauded in amazement, I realized how foolish I’d been.

Father Raphael rose from the pews in silence. He left the sanctuary, his steps cracking against the stone and slamming my heart into my ribs.