Page 2

"Purge me, Lord. Strip me of desire, drown this fire. Don’t let me fall again—don’t let me—"

His fingers slide through my damp, tangled hair, pushing it away from my face with a gentleness that makes me shudder. His touch leaves trails of heat behind, electric and cruel.

He leans in closer, his lips near my ear.

“I came because I missed you,” he murmurs.

The words scrape against me, low and intimate, laced with that mocking softness that always makes me feel raw.

My eyes fly open again.

I glare at him with every shred of fury I can summon—but he only smiles.

“You can’t pray away the screams of last night,” he says.

The heat floods my face—shame and anger and memory all tangled together. My lips still move, muttering a prayer I don’t hear anymore.

His hand trails lower.

“Can’t you understand, tesoro mio,” he says, fingers grazing the curve of my chest, slipping beneath the torn neckline. “Your body longs for me.”

He palms my breast, thumb brushing over my nipple.

It responds—tightening, aching beneath his touch.

I gasp, soft and sharp, betraying everything I just begged forgiveness for.

He chuckles, low and cruel.

“I told you I’d make you want to give it to me.”

And then he kisses me.

His mouth bumps into mine, stealing the last remnants of my prayer, devouring them, replacing them with heat and want and humiliation. His tongue pushes past my teeth, into my mouth.

I try to resist but my body betrays me. Again.

He tears away only to bite down on my neck—he trails lower, tongue flicking against my skin, dragging heat through my veins like poison.

I moan as pleasure shoots through me.

Then his mouth is at my throat—tongue trailing heat, teeth scraping gently over the bruise he left there last night. I gasp again, my head tipping back, and my fingers twist tighter in the sheets.

"Sancta Maria, mater Dei…" I try to whisper. But the words die in my throat the moment I feel his hands moving again. His hands move to my thigh and he spreads my legs apart—slow, firm, without asking.

My knees resist at first, drawn together by instinct, by modesty, by fear. But his strength is effortless, his body pressing between them like a force I was never built to withstand. My thighs part inch by inch under his grip, shame blooming hot between them.

Cool air kisses my inner thighs, the damp heat there unbearable now.

He looks down at me, eyes gleaming with that cold fire—predator and priest in one. Reverent in the way his gaze trails over my exposed skin, blasphemous in the way he touches it. He pushes my dress up so it bunches around my waist. His hands caress my bare thighs as his mouth sinks into my neck again.

“Good girl,” he whispers as he reaches between my legs, rough fingers curling around the waistband of my panties.

My mouth is open but all that comes out is breath—short, shaking, desperate. My rosary slips from my wrist, beads scattering across the white sheets like pearls from a broken strand.

I fight to close my legs, to be free from this torturous emotion but all I feel is wave after wave of pleasure.

He stares down at me with an evil grin.