Page 128 of The Sinner and the Priest: Part 1

Mea maxima culpa.

I curl into myself for relief from the hunger gnawing at my insides, but the position is torture against my demanding erection. Hard again.

Don’t do it.

Do it.

No.

You’ve already done it once. Right here in this room. Right there on the desk with her sweet, honeyed scent all over you. I’ll bet you can still smell it on your hand.

“Be quiet,” I groan and roll to the other side. It smells like dust and old things now.

Better.

You should leave without her. If your “friends” catch a whiff of what she does to you, it’s not you who will suffer.

“I know that. Don’t you think I know that?”

It’s the family you left behind. Your mother, praying over her rosary in the empty osteria. Your father, bitter and toothless, clinging to his bella figura with every miserable breath. Your Nonna, still alive, still believing you can be something better than your uncle.

Becoming an exorcist kept Uncle Paolo behind bars. That was the deal, so my family can eat in peace, sleep at night, and pretend the world is clean despite being the hands that dirtied it. But he’s up for early parole.

I scoff.

Rome doesn’t give a damn about love, or faith, or salvation. They only care about the ledger. You owe them everything, and the price is yourself.

The ocean in my brain won’t shut up. Rain hammers the window, but at least it’s not the buzzing shush-shush of waves.

I close my eyes.

All I see is Mercy, eyes brimming with tears, lips raw from kissing, hands tangled in cloth and blood. I didn’t even get to bandage her thighs. She’s out there, probably in pain because she’s rushed off to help someone else before herself.

I want her. I want her laugh, her spitfire mouth, the way she jumps in to fight and never gives up, even when she’s outgunned. The way she looked tonight, fury and grief and something too big for words.

I want her, and it’s killing me.

Maybe I deserve to die.

Will she ever forgive me if she sees what I really am?

Will anyone?

Because it’s coming, and I can’t hide this forever.

I drag a hand over my face, scrubbing until the skin burns. I’m not going after Mercy. Not tonight. She needs time to cool off. To see it wasn’t her who did this. It wasn’t a sin.

It was just me.

Sleep eventually takes me, but I’m barely under when I wake again. It’s still dark, the rain hasn’t stopped, and someone is kissing her way up my stomach. Hot, hungry lips move along the bruised line of my scar, tracing edges of ink with her tongue.

The world is cold, and then suddenly, it’s fire, her body crawling over mine. Thighs straddle my hips. Wild hair everywhere. Pink silk sliding over bare skin and lace, just like the day we met. Floral and sweet.

She came back.

“Mercy…”

She shushes me, kisses the corners of my mouth, and licks at the cut she left on my throat. My cock is hard and straining, and, Cristo, this is what I need. What I would kill for.