Page 16 of Borrowed

H e waited until the candles flickered. Until the sanctuary fell still, breath held like even God had turned His back for a moment. Mother was crying, and the priest was busy whispering a made-up language to her.

“Come on, Sister,” Toby murmured, voice slick and low against my temple. “This place makes your skin itch. Let me take you somewhere quiet.”

My knees popped as I stood.

Slow.

Obedient.

My bones creaked in agreement.

I didn’t look at Mother. Didn’t look at Father Elliot either. Just followed the sound of Toby’s voice like a dog off-leash.

Through the side doors, past confessionals that still smelled like tears and sweat, down into the dark hallway where the baptismal font lay waiting like a grave filled with mercy.

The chapel was colder here.

It was empty, with just some candles along the corners and a large bowl of water. The light from the top of the flames looked like stars. The ripples in the water reflected like little suns.

Toby was already stripping his shirt off, revealing the faint, ridged scars of bruises that never healed. Scars I never remembered giving him, but he claimed I did.

Or maybe they were from her.

“You remember when she locked me in the closet?” he said, grinning as he stepped backward into the glow of the stained glass. “I pissed myself. You cried harder than I did.”

“I thought she’d kill you,” I whispered.

“She did. And now look…” He opened his arms, laughing, “Resurrected. How’s that for divine?”

I dropped to my knees beside the water. It was still.

Pale.

Beautiful.

“Touch it,” he breathed. “Let it remind you what you really are.”

So I did.

I dipped my fingers in and gasped.

Toby dropped behind me. His chest against my back. His hands slid down my arms like he was smoothing out wrinkles in a dress.

“You’re mine, Sister,” he whispered, mouth brushing the shell of my ear. “Even here. Even now.”

I shuddered. “Tell me again.”

“You’re mine.” His hand slipped down the front of my dress. “Only mine.”

He pressed me forward until my face hovered over the water, my breath rippling the surface.

“You remember the first time?” he said. “You said it didn’t feel wrong if I was dead. You wanted me forever.”

I giggled.

The chapel hummed like it was holding its breath.

That little baptismal font sat under the stained glass like a secret, full of still, glistening water, moonlight trapped in a bowl. I stepped toward it on bare feet, the air sharp and cold enough to raise goosebumps along my arms.

Toby’s voice followed me, thick as honey and twice as dark.

“Take off that little dress, Zusje.”

I looked over my shoulder, smirking. “Why?”

“Because I want you naked in the water. Like something born wrong. I want to see your sins shine under God’s light.”

The silence between us stretched.

Long.

Taut.

Thrilling.

Then I obeyed.

Fabric slid off my skin, pooling at my ankles like a discarded shell. I dipped a toe into the font. Cold as memory. I shivered.

“Good girl,” he said behind me.

Toby was already there before I sank in. He didn’t step—he appeared. He never played by the rules of others.

I lowered myself into the shallow basin, knees tucked, dark hair spilling over my shoulders. It looked like oil in the water.

Dark.

Corrupting.

The pool only reached my breasts, but it felt like it climbed my spine and dragged my heartbeat under.

Toby stepped in behind me, fully clothed, uncaring. His jeans soaked in seconds, his shirt clinging to his frame like skin on bone. I leaned into him.

“You think this is holy?” I said.

He pulled me back into his lap, my body cradled between his thighs, his chest against my back like a heartbeat that never stopped.

“It’s holy now.” His hands slid over my ribs, up to my throat. He tilted my head to the side and kissed just below my jaw. “Every time you touch water, you remember, don’t you?”

I whimpered. “I remember drowning. I remember burning.”

“You remember me.”

He pressed into me then.

Hips against the curve of my ass,

Grinding slow.

Patient.

Water lapped against the marble edge with every roll of his body. I arched into him, eyes fluttering.

“Tell me who you belong to,” he growled, hand cupping my breast now, thumb flicking across the peak like he owned it.

“You,” I gasped. “I belong to you, Toby.”

He bit my neck, not hard enough to bleed, just enough to bruise.

“Say it again.”

“I belong to you. There is no me without you,” I whispered, breath ragged.

His other hand slid between my thighs under the water. I jerked in his lap, legs twitching, toes curling against the basin floor.

“You’re shaking, Zusje.”

“I—I want more.”

He groaned against my skin. “I should fuck you right here. In this filthy little pond, they call sacred.”

“Yes,” I moaned. “Please.”

I couldn’t tell where the water ended, and he began.

Toby pressed his mouth to my shoulder, my neck, and the curve of my spine like he was kissing something sacred. His breath hitched every time I gasped, every time I shifted in his lap. The water had gone still around us, thick and warm now, like it’d taken on our heat.

Our filth.

His fingers grazed between my thighs again. I twitched, moaning, head tipping back against his shoulder.

“I want you to say it,” he whispered, voice like a funeral prayer. “Right here. In this water. While God watches. Tell me you want to feel my cock. Tell God you want to break beneath me, scream to him the hell I’ll make you feel before you see his heaven.”

“I want you,” I breathed. “Toby, I need you—I need?—”

“You need me,” he echoed, one hand bracing my hip as he guided himself against me.

I couldn’t see him behind me, but I could feel his cold, smooth skin…naked now.

“Like air. Like sin.”

The stretch of him was slow, maddening. I cried out in a silent scream as he slid inside, deeper than memory, deeper than any man should be in his twin sister, but right where he belonged.

He laughed. Low and wicked.

“Shhh, Sister. You’ll wake the saints.”

I clutched the edge of the font, knuckles white, water sloshing with every thrust of his hips. His name spilled out of my mouth like tongues.

“Toby, Toby, Toby,” and every time I said it, I felt more like his.

Like something borrowed.

Something ruined.

Something mine.